Happy Birthday to....Me! I'm 25 today and glad I'm finally out of that sky high auto insurance bracket. Kelly and I had an absolutely wonderful birthday weekend in Flagstaff. We hiked up Humphrey's Peak a little ways, and while we were doing that we came up with a nerdy science joke.

" A physicist, a biologist, and a geologist are going to climb a mountain. The physicist says, 'No matter how I go up the mountain, I will end up doing the same amount of Work, because Work is path-independent.' So the physicist climbs straight up the side of the mountain. The biologist says, 'I wish to keep my body in homeostasis in order to be most efficient.' So the biologist sets out spiraling up the mountain at a constant low slope. The geologist starts up the trail but only gets ten feet up the mountain because he gets sidetracked by the first outcrop he sees."

Pretty funny, right?

We also tried to think up some other punchlines.

"The chemist just dissolves the mountain with acid."
"The crystallographer just finds the symmetry of the mountain, and walks to an equivalent point at the base of the mountain."
"The historian just sits at the base of the mountain and reads an account of somebody else who climbed it."
"The sociologist stays at the base of the mountain and asks what everybody else is doing."
"The ecologist tries to keep everybody else off the mountain to preserve the delicate ecosystem."
"The mathematician calculates the height of the mountain using trigonometry and is satisfied with that."
"The astrobiologist looks at an anthill at the base of the mountain as an analog and claims that there is a race of intelligent super-insects at the top."
"The psychologist just talks about how the mountain is a phallic symbol and represents the 'Unattainable.'"
"The political scientist does whatever his party (or the special interest group that gives him the most money) tells him to do."