Terrible Science Jokes and Puns

Once again, time to lighten my blog up a bit with some science jokes and puns!

Many science jokes and puns are not only funny but also quite sophisticated, and require a certain amount of knowledge of the scientific field from which they originate in order to be understood. I have provided a sampler of some good ones in a previous post.

However, even in science you have jokes and puns that are really bad, and the fact that some require a technical explanation that is often longer than the joke or pun itself, makes them even worse. So without further ado, here is a sampler of terrible science jokes and puns.
 
Two chemists are in a restaurant, and they decide to show off their chemical knowledge. The first one says, “I’ll have some H2O”. The second one says, “I’ll have some H2O too”. The waiter, who is also versed in chemistry, brings them exactly what they ordered. When the chemists drink, the second one dies.
H2O is of course water, but “H2O too” sounds like “H2O2” which is hydrogen peroxide.
 
Q: What do you do with chemists who are very sick?
A: If you can’t helium, and you can’t curium, you will have to barium.
The elements helium, curium, and barium are used as puns for “heal them”, “cure them”, and “bury them”, respectively.
 
Q: How do you determine the sex of a chromosome?
A: Pull down its genes.
Genes here is used as a pun for “jeans”.
 
A physiology professor teaching a lecture said, “You may think mucus is gross, but it’s not”.
“Snot”, get it?
 
A mad scientist creates a replica of a full grown human being in a lab. To his horror, as soon as it gains consciousness, his creation starts talking using very vulgar language and making rude gestures. For several days the scientist tries to teach some manners to his potty-mouthed spawn, but is unsuccessful. Finally in a rage, the scientist grabs his creation and hurls it out the window of his lab. The creation falls 20 stories cursing all the way down to its death. The police arrive and arrest the scientist for making an obscene clone fall.
Ugh
 
The physics and biology professors started dating, but it didn’t work because there was no chemistry.
Double Ugh.
 
Q: You know what really makes my day?
A: The Earth’s rotation.
Triple Ugh.
 
The physics professor stated, “Time flies like an arrow”. The biology professor replied, “Well, fruit flies like a banana.”
OK, this one’s clever. The first “like” is as in “in the manner of”. The second “like” is as in “enjoy”.
 
Q: Where does bad light end up?
A: In prism.
Prism is used as a pun for “prison”.
 
A tectonic plate bumped into another and said, “Sorry, my fault”.
The outer crust of the Earth is divided into sections called tectonic plates which move very slowly. Areas where one plate slides past another can give rise to earthquakes and create fractures in the rocks were the plates interact with each other called “faults”.
 
I took root beer, poured it into a square glass, and I ended up with regular beer!
In mathematics squaring a number (raising it to the power of two), is the opposite function of taking the square root of a number. Squaring and taking the square root cancel each other out. The implication is that the square glass cancelled the “root” in rootbeer.
 
Dear Algebra. Please stop asking us to find your “X”. She’s never coming back, and don’t ask “Y”.
Students of algebra are often asked to find the value of “X” when provided with a value for “Y”. “X” and “Y” are symbols used to signify variables in equations. Here they are used as puns for “Ex”, as in ex-wife, and the question “why”.
 
If at first you don’t succeed, try two more times so that you failure is statistically significant.
In statistics, increasing the sample size increases the chances of detecting an effect as statistically significant. The joke reflects the (false) notion that one should at least have a sample size of three to achieve statistical significance.
 
Dr. Frankenstein registered for the body building competition, but when he got there he realized he had misunderstood the objective.
Ha, ha, ha
 
The biochemist placed a tooth from the back of the mouth into a liter of a strong acid. After a few days it dissolved forming a molar solution.
In science, a mole is a widely used unit of measure corresponding to a specific number of molecules. A solution comprising a mole of molecules dissolved in a volume of one liter is called a “molar solution”. Here the joke is that a tooth from the back of the mouth is called a molar.
 
If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate.
In chemistry, those things that don’t go into solution and instead descend (precipitate) to the bottom of a flask are called the precipitate.
 
Water Molecule: Hey lipid, want to hang out with me?
Lipid: Sorry, but I don’t mix with your kind.
Water Molecule: Hydrophobe!
Like oil and vinegar, fats (lipids) repel water, a phenomenon called hydrophobicity from the Greek hýdrophóbos (fear of water).
 
I wish I was adenine, because then I could pair up with U.
Adenine is one of the chemical constituents of the molecule that carries the blueprint of life, DNA. When this blueprint gets executed, a molecule called RNA is made using DNA as a template. One of the chemical constituents of RNA is “uridine”, which is symbolized with a “U”. To form RNA, adenine pairs up with uridine, “U”, which is used here as a pun for the word “you”.
 
A hug without U is toxic.
If you take away the letter “u” from the word “hug”, you are left with “hg”, and Hg is the chemical symbol of mercury, a toxic element.
 
Oxygen went on a date with potassium. It went OK.
I was going to tell a joke about sodium, but Na.
I heard that oxygen went out with magnesium, and I was like OMg!
He made a weapon using potassium, nickel, and iron: a KNiFe!
Cesium and Iodine love to sit on the sofa together and watch their favorite show: CSI.
You want to hear a joke about nitric oxide? NO!
These are based on the symbols in the periodic table for the elements mentioned above: oxygen (O), potassium (K), sodium (Na), magnesium (Mg), Nickle (Ni), iron, (Fe), cesium (Ce), and iodine (I). CSI is the anagram for the show “Crime Scene Investigation”. The formula of the molecule “nitric oxide” is “NO”.
 
I told my audience a joke about noble gases, but I got no reaction.
The so-called-noble gases (helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, and radon) are elements that do not react chemically with other elements.
 
If a king has a bout of flatulence, does he release a noble gas?
Noble as in nobility, get it?
 
Yes, I know these jokes are terrible, but all the good ones argon!
The element argon is used as a pun for “are gone”.
 
These jokes and puns to my knowledge are not copyrighted. If you hold the copyright to any of these jokes or puns, please let me know and I will acknowledge it.

Image by Perlenmuschel from Pixabay is free for commercial use and was modified from the original.

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