What You'll Wish You'd Known; a highschool address. Long.

PhDs Say the Darndest Things

Other .. interesting .. things published in journals:

Title: Testing the Hypothesis of Modified Dynamics with Low Surface Brightness Galaxies and Other Evidence
Authors: Stacy McGaugh and Erwin de Blok
Comments: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 35 pages AAStex + 9 figures. This result surprised the bejeepers out of us, too [from LANL preprint notice astro-ph/9801102, contributed by Christina Williams Heikkila]

No data were taken at station D during the period 0830 to 1630 GST due to the presence of a red racer snake (Coluber constrictor) draped across the high-tension wires (33,000 V) serving the station. However, even though this snake, or rather a three-foot section of its remains, was caught in the act of causing an arc between the transmission lines, we do not consider it responsible for the loss of data. Rather we blame the incompetence of a red-tailed hawk (Buteo borealis) who had apparently built a defective nest that fell off the top of the nearby transmission tower, casting her nestlings to the ground, along with their entire food reserve consisting of a pack rat, a kangaroo rat, and several snakes, with the exception of the above-mentioned snake who had a somewhat higher destiny. No comparable loss of data occurred at the other antenna sites. [N. Bartel et al. 1987, ApJ 323. 507]

We will now go on to justify the system of dimensions that has been chosen. Readers with weak stomachs may wish to pass to the next subsection. [J.R. Fisher and R.B. Tully, ApJS, 47, 139 (quote from page 185)]

Cataclysmics? Too trendy for my taste. [Bruce Margon, 20 August 1984]

Interpretation is cheap in astronomy because any ad hoc assumption consistent with our extensive ignorance and limited data may be used. [Condon, Helou, and Jarrett, AJ 123, 1881, 2002]