Below are the names of 10 scientific or philosophical principles. Five of them are real, honest-to-goodness principles with more-or-less accurate definitions. Three of them are real principles, but with incorrect definitions. Two of them are utter nonsense. Which is which?1. Avogadro's Constant: The number of guacamole molecules that can fit in a pan the size of my head.
2. Descartes' Oven: The notion that if one has one's head in an oven and feet in an icebox, on average one is quite comfortable.
3. Schrodinger's Cat: A cat in a box which must be considered both alive and dead until it is weighted with bricks and thrown in the river.
4. Buriden's Ass: A donkey who starves to death because he's too stupid to choose between two equidistant piles of grain. It's grain, you stupid ass! Just pick one!
5. Russell's Paradox: The fact that all sets are necessarily missing one piece, because McDonald's always runs out of the Happy Meal toy you really want.
6. Occam's Razor: The principle that any problem can be solved by removing enough unwanted hair.
7. Pavlov's Dogs: Dogs who probably would have disappointed to find out that they were made famous by being able to drool on queue.
8. Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle: A principle that dictates that you cannot know where your socks are and how fast they are traveling at the same time.
9. Pascal's Wager: The proposition that you might as well believe in God, because if He doesn't exist, then nobody is going to care what you thought in a hundred years anyway.
10. Hegel's Dictum: The theory that the truth of a statement is enhanced by the number of dependent clauses it contains.
Scroll down for answers....
ANSWERS
1. False (No, really?)
2. Nonsense
3. True (What, it's the only way to settle the issue)
4. True (Buriden didn't give asses enough credit)
5. False (Although they do)
6. False (And yet, still a good rule of thumb)
7. True (Assuming dogs care about such things)
8. True (Generally not applied to socks, but still true)
9. True (There's a bit more to it, of course)
10. Nonsense(As is most of his work)
How did you do?
Labels: Quizzes
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