I saw this old joke again today …

“What’s the difference between a joke and a rhetorical question?”

… and it reminded me of the beauty of the “Intellectual Joke” - a joke that is only funny to those “in the know”, those with a base of knowledge or understanding about certain topics.  I love these jokes.  So I thought I’d compile a list of a few of my favorites.

Entropy isn’t what it used to be.

Q: What’ s the difference between an entomologist and an etymologist?

A: An etymologist knows the difference.

Ed: Something about that joke bugs me a little.

Some scientists want to cool my body down to -273.15 degrees Celsius.  My wife thinks it’ll kill me, but I think I’ll be $$0$$k.

Is it solipsistic in here or is it just me?

Werner Heisenberg, Kurt Gödel, and Noam Chomsky walk into a bar.  Heisenberg turns to the other two and says, “Clearly this is a joke, but how can we figure out if it’s funny or not?”  Gödel replies, “We can’t know that because we’re inside the joke.”  Chomsky says, “Of course it’s funny. You’re just telling it wrong.”

Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schrödinger are driving together and get pulled over for speeding.  The cop asks Heisenberg “Do you know how fast you were going?”  Heisenberg replies, “No, but we know exactly where we are!”  The officer looks at him confused and says “you were going 108 miles per hour!”  Heisenberg throws his arms up and cries, “Great! Now we’re lost!”

The officer looks over the car and asks Schrödinger if the two men have anything in the trunk.  ”A cat,” Schrödinger replies.  The cop opens the trunk and yells “Hey! This cat is dead.”  Schrödinger angrily replies, “Well he is now.”

Q: Why do engineers confuse Halloween and Christmas?

A: Because Oct 31 = Dec 25

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who think that there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don’t.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data and …

Three logicians walk into a bar.  The bartender asks “Do all of you want a drink?”  The first logician says “I don’t know.”  The second also says “I don’t know.”  The third says “Yes!”

A Helium atom walks into a bar and orders a beer.  The bartender says, “Sorry, we don’t serve noble gases here.”  He doesn’t react.

The French existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre was sitting in a cafe when a waitress approached him: “Can I get you something to drink, Monsieur Sartre?”  Sartre replied, “Yes, I’d like a cup of coffee with sugar, but no cream.” Nodding agreement, the waitress walked off to fill the order and Sartre returned to working.  A few minutes later, however, the waitress returned and said, “I’m sorry, Monsieur Sartre, we are all out of cream - how about with no milk?”

Q: What does the “B” stand for in Benoît B. Mandelbrot?

A : Benoît B. Mandelbrot.

I’m so meta even this acronym.

xkcd - Some of my favorites