by jesuschristyoucanttakeajoke » Sun Jul 22, 2012 7:09 am
This is like countless other jokes about physicists.
Other common punchlines involve approximating obviously nonspherical things as spheres, and getting things right to "within a few orders of magnitude." This is based off of - you guessed it - physicists approximating a bunch of stuff as spheres to make it simple, and either rounding numbers heavily or just not giving shits about entire orders of magnitude in equations and such. Note that this doesn't happen in articles and legitimate research, only in instruction or fast-paced calculations (as in briefly checking your answer to make sure its right, or at least within reason of being right).
Anyways, it was entertaining. Also, hyperbole, it exists.
This is like countless other jokes about physicists.
Other common punchlines involve approximating obviously nonspherical things as spheres, and getting things right to "within a few orders of magnitude." This is based off of - you guessed it - physicists approximating a bunch of stuff as spheres to make it simple, and either rounding numbers heavily or just not giving shits about entire orders of magnitude in equations and such. Note that this doesn't happen in articles and legitimate research, only in instruction or fast-paced calculations (as in briefly checking your answer to make sure its right, or at least within reason of being right).
Anyways, it was entertaining. Also, hyperbole, it exists.