Best Joke retold by Physicist



Original from NY Times:

HOLMES: Watson, look up at the stars and tell me what you deduce.

WATSON: I see millions of stars, and if there are millions of stars,
and if even a few of those have planets, it is quite likely there are
some planets like earth, and if there are a few planets like earth out
there there might also be life.

HOLMES: Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole our tent.


Retold by Nobel Physicist:

(sorry if typo, from pages 95-96 , A Different Universe by Robert
Laughlin, Nobel Physicist 1998, Stanford Physics professor...)

HOLMES: Watson, look up at those stars in the sky! What do you deduce?

WATSON: Well, each of those pinpricks of light is a huge sun powered by
the fires of hydrogen fusion. That fuzzy patch over there is the
Andromeda galaxy. Powerful telescopes tell us that Andromeda is an
island of billions and billions of stars. Even more powerful telescopes
tell us that there are billions and billions of such galaxies
stretching out to the edge of the universe. If even one in a million of
those suns had planets, and even one in a million of these had an
oxygen atmosphere, and even one in a million of these had life, and
even one in a million of these had people and civilizations, then we
would be certain of not being alone in the universe.

HOLMES: No, Watson, you idiot! Somebody stole our tent!

.



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