English Lesson

An Australian physicist was recently asked to give a high school English class an explanation of what "orders of magnitude" means in a scientific context and why it is used. This is what he told them.

"Orders of magnitude implies that something is many times larger when compared to similar objects. For an example, a dog is orders of magnitude larger than a mouse, and several orders of magnitude larger than an ant."

The teacher then held up an apple and asked "what would this look like orders of magnitude larger?"

The physicist replied "A shitload of apples" causing the class to burst into laughter.

"Dare I ask what it would look like several orders of magnitude larger?" She enquired coyly.

"That would be fuc_king shitloads of apples." He replies to the mirth of the class. "In English, F words are orders of magnitude above S words. Then you have C words, which are fuc_king shitloads of orders of magnitude above both F and S words." By now even the teacher is giggling and the class are in tears.

"Well thank you very much for your explanation" the teacher manages to stammer out. "It's been quite educational"

The physicist smiles, leans towards her and whispers in her ear "Don't forget the most important lesson from today. Even the English language, something that only really exists in the minds of those humans who speak it, follows the rules of physics. 'Cos physics rules. And English sucks."