# Jokes that require a lot of specific knowledge, and probably won't be funny to very many people **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 15, 2011, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423 "2011-09-15T18:49:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![YoudNeverGuess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/a587f6/32.png) [@YoudNeverGuess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YoudNeverGuess)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/41 "2011-09-16T14:33:17Z")
What’s the difference between alto clef and Greek? Some conductors actually read Greek. You know you’re a music geek if you can hear an enharmonic modulation coming a mile away. ---
**Author:** ![Trom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/958977/32.png) [@Trom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trom)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/42 "2011-09-16T14:42:45Z")
Why don’t jokes work in base 8? Because 7 10 11. ---
**Author:** ![hotflungwok](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/edb3f5/32.png) [@hotflungwok](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hotflungwok)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/43 "2011-09-16T14:44:22Z")
A Higgs Bosun goes into a church. The priest sees him and says 'You can’t come in here so called God particle!". The Higgs bosun replies “But how can you have mass without me?” Wanna hear a joke about Potassium? K. Wanna hear a joke about Sodium? Na. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/44 "2011-09-16T15:04:01Z")
> [@hotflungwok](#): > > A Higgs Bosun goes into a church. The priest sees him and says 'You can’t come in here so called God particle!". The Higgs bosun replies “But how can you have mass without me?” There’s got to be a way to work the naval reference in… 🙂 > [@hotflungwok](#): > > Wanna hear a joke about Potassium? > K. > > Wanna hear a joke about Sodium? > Na. Cute. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/45 "2011-09-16T15:07:48Z")
N/m ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/46 "2011-09-16T15:08:49Z")
Overheard in the hotel cocktail lounge during a mathematician’s convention (forgive me if the formatting doesn’t work for you): 13 ∫2xdx? 10 ---
**Author:** ![Scuba\_Ben](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/278dde/32.png) [@Scuba\_Ben](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scuba_Ben)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/47 "2011-09-16T15:11:58Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > I just came across this joke, which requires at least 3 domains of knowledge to find funny (as far as I can count). > > What do you get when you cross a mosquito with a rock climber? > > Nothing! You can’t cross a vector with a scalar! That one took me a moment. Then I went :smack:/😃 ---
**Author:** ![Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/intergalactic_gladiator/32/112_2.png) [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Intergalactic_Gladiator)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/48 "2011-09-16T15:18:45Z")
This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ gangly wrench. Just then, this little apprentice leaned over and said, “You can’t work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ wrench.” Well this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, “The Langstrom 7″ wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.” Just then, the little apprentice leaned over and said, “It says sprocket not socket!” ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/49 "2011-09-16T16:23:52Z")
> [@drewtwo99](#): > > Haha you guys are great! I get the physics, math and engineering jokes for sure… but some of them are really stumping me! The pedant’s revolt? Anna Held? Can someone explain these to me? Sorry for being so lame ☹ [Anna Held](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Held) was a famous singer back in the early years of the twentieth century. Her signature song was “I Just Can’t Make My Eyes Behave”. I learned this from the fine biography _Anna Held and the Birth of Ziegfeld’s Broadway_ written by [Eve Golden](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Golden). ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/50 "2011-09-16T16:31:29Z")
> [@Agent\_Foxtrot](#): > > Overheard in the hotel cocktail lounge during a mathematician’s convention (forgive me if the formatting doesn’t work for you): > > 13 > ∫2xdx? > 10 I can’t believe I guessed the answer before I solved the integral. I have to get a life. 69 ---
**Author:** ![Laggard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/9de053/32.png) [@Laggard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Laggard)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/51 "2011-09-16T16:55:21Z")
> [@Toucanna](#): > > I came up with this. It’s dumb, but I like it. > > A: How far is that, as the crow flies? > B: It depends on the point of corvuture. Or it depends on the corvuture of the earth. ---
**Author:** ![Buck\_Godot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/buck_godot/32/6573_2.png) [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/52 "2011-09-16T16:56:14Z")
So it seems that during the cold war there were these polish dissidents that stole a small jet in hopes of escaping to Norway. As they crossed the German Border and started North, all the poles moved to the windows to get a final look at their beloved homeland. Unfortunately this weight shift caused the jet to veer wildly and the pilot who was not entirely familiar with the controls couldn’t compensate and crashed. In the crash investigation a mathematician described the situation succinctly as follows: “Of course it was unstable. There were two many Poles on the right hand side of the complex plane.” ---
**Author:** ![JMLVT68](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a9a28c/32.png) [@JMLVT68](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JMLVT68)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/53 "2011-09-16T17:38:32Z")
> [@Intergalactic\_Gladiator](#): > > This lawn supervisor was out on a sprinkler maintenance job and he started working on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ gangly wrench. Just then, this little apprentice leaned over and said, “You can’t work on a Findlay sprinkler head with a Langstrom 7″ wrench.” Well this infuriated the supervisor, so he went and got Volume 14 of the Kinsley manual, and he reads to him and says, “The Langstrom 7″ wrench can be used with the Findlay sprocket.” Just then, the little apprentice leaned over and said, “It says sprocket not socket!” Were those plumbers supposed to be here tonight? ---
**Author:** ![JoelUpchurch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f05b48/32.png) [@JoelUpchurch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoelUpchurch)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/54 "2011-09-16T18:03:40Z")
> [@Malacandra](#): > > If Schroedinger is the passenger, the cop then opens the trunk and says “Do you know there is a dead cat in here?” and Schroedinger answers “I do _now_”. I get Schroedinger Letters. It the envelope might contain a bill, then the bill doesn’t occur until I open the envelope.🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/55 "2011-09-16T18:30:14Z")
Why was Mrs. Heisenberg frustrated? Because when he had the time he didn’t exactly have the energy, and when he had the position he didn’t exactly have the momentum. Taken from an episode of American Dad! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/56 "2011-09-16T18:34:01Z")
I actually heard this on a record by Bobby McFerrin and YoYo Ma, where they started performing Bach’s Musette in D Major and turned it into the intro to “Purple Haze.” Other than McFerrin and Ma, I’m probably the only person in the world who got the joke. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/57 "2011-09-16T18:40:48Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > Why was Mrs. Heisenberg frustrated? Because when he had the time he didn’t exactly have the energy, and when he had the position he didn’t exactly have the momentum. > > Taken from an episode of American Dad! Haha! This is the first joke that uses the time/energy interpretation of the uncertainty principle that I’ve heard, and it’s so funny! Thanks for sharing. ---
**Author:** ![Blaster\_Master](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/cab0a1/32.png) [@Blaster\_Master](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blaster_Master)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/58 "2011-09-16T19:27:09Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > [xkcd: CNR](http://www.xkcd.com/583/) > > It’s a pun. “Reproduce” here means two things. One, is sexual reproduction/making a baby. The other is being able to reliably demonstrate a reported failure in a component from an engineering perspective. Programmers, when presented with “bug reports” from users, testers, or other programmers, generally need to have a concise set of steps (we call it “steps to reproduce”) that ALWAYS produces the reported failure. Otherwise, any purported “fix” is not verifiable. > > [xkcd: Can't Sleep](http://www.xkcd.com/571/) > > Refers to word sizes in computer systems, and low-level implementation thereof. Depending on the amount of space allocated to an Integer variable, the range of numbers that it can hold is limited to a minimum and maximum value. In many systems, at a low level (e.g. assembly or C), attempting to add one to an integer that is already at its maximum value will cause it to “wrap around” like an odometer to it’s minimum value, and the “carry” digit just gets lost. On XKCD jokes that require specific knowledge, this one is my favorite, perhaps because just that day or the day before I’d been talking to my advisor and he somehow his Erdos number came up, so I found it particularly funny because of the timeliness. > **[Apocalypse](https://xkcd.com/599/)** ---
**Author:** ![Cryptic\_C62](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cryptic\_C62](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cryptic_C62)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/59 "2011-09-16T20:38:02Z")
``` ext{I let go of the shift key too early!!!!!} \lim_{x o 0} \frac{\sin(x)}{x} ``` ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [September 16, 2011, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423/60 "2011-09-16T20:51:51Z")
Here’s one of my own devising: Tantalum walks into a bar and orders a drink. The bartender starts to hand it to him, then takes it away, starts to hand it to him, then takes it away, starts to hand it to him, then takes it away, starts to hand it to him, then takes it away … [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jokes-that-require-a-lot-of-specific-knowledge-and-probably-wont-be-funny-to-very-many-people/596423.md?page=4)