And Then There Was A Little Science….

While going through some very old, hay, there’s that old ‘old’ word again, family papers, I came across a rapidly disintegrating typed* sheet. I could just about make it out so thought it well worth re-typing here.

The author? No idea. Original as found, or copied? No idea. It just made me smile.

Having said all that, I just Goggled the first line – the bloody thing’s all over the place!! Is there nothing wot’s not ‘out there’ now? Never mind, I’m still smiling.

{Note to self; Things to remember – Google first, then type. Google first, then type. Google first, then type.}

1. When you don’t know what you’re doing, do it neatly.
2. Experience is directly proportional to the quantity of equipment destroyed.
3. Past experience is always true, never be misled by present facts.
4. In case of doubt, make it sound convincing.
5. Do NOT believe in miracles, RELY on them.
6. Teamwork is essential. It allows you to blame someone else.
7. Recording of data is also essential. It indicates you have been doing something.
8. No matter what result is anticipated, someone will always fit facts to it.
9. No matter what happens, there will always be someone who believes it happened according to their pet theory.
10. The probability of an event occurring is inversely proportional to its desirability to occur.
11. Half the quantity, which, when added to, subtracted from, divided into, multiplied by the result obtained experimentally that will give the correct result, is known as a constant.
12. Experiments must be reproducible; they should always fail in the same way.
13. If an experiment works, you are probably using the wrong equipment.
14. An experiment may be considered a success if no more than half of the data needs to be discarded to obtain agreement with your pet theory.
15. For neatness, always draw the curves first then plot the data.
16. If an experiment is a complete failure, it should be used as a bad example.

Summary;

When in charge; Ponder

When in trouble; Delegate

When in doubt; Mumble

I did find another typed* paper which I put to one side for posting in the future, but, managing to remember my note to myself, I did the Google thingy and found, again, it's 'out there' so please pop along here and enjoy. If that don’t bring a smile I don’t know what will.

*Typed; typewriter? Or was it typerwriter? Man, takes you back eh? There was always something strangely satisfying about using a typewriter. Sitting there up to your neck in screwed up paper after finally getting a letter just right. You know, lined up, with the spelling and the grammar better than it was three hours ago. And let’s not forget the constant fights with ten jammed type heads and the twisted ribbon. Damn, running out of ink. Let’s re-thread the ribbon backwards just to finish this letter. Whoa! That ink stuff get’s everywhere. Gosh, do you remember all that? Well, do you? Oh….. In that case, and if you’re interested, I know for sure there’s one you can have a look at in York Museum.

Quote; ??

“An engineer can tell you the cubic capacity of a jar of pickles at a glance, but has no idea how to get the lid off.”