History Main / TextbookHumor

(illustrating a point by an analogy to being struck by lighting) you experience no surprise, because you are dead.

* Southwestern Law School (located in Los Angeles) Professor Caleb Mason published an academic paper in 2012 studying in-depth the legal implications with regards to the US Constitution's Fourth Amendment...of the second verse of Music/JayZ's "99 Problems". Long story short, the verse is nearly correct in what's legal and what's not about the traffic stop being rapped about (the only error noted is that Jay-Z claims that the cop stopping him needs a warrant to search his car -- the cop would only need probable cause).

* ''Physics: Principles and Problems'', which was written by a professor at the UsefulNotes/UniversityOfMichigan, contains the following problem in Chapter 9- "A 0.115-kg hockey puck, moving at 35.0 m/s, strikes a 0.265 octopus thrown onto the ice by a hockey fan. The puck and the octopus slide off together. Find their velocity."[[note]]Throwing an octopus onto the ice after a win is a tradition at Detroit Red Wings (a nearby professional hockey team) games[[/note]]

* ''Music in Western Civilization'' is a comprehensive textbook covering exactly that. It also quotes ''Harry Potter'', references ''Star Wars'', and speculates that certain fourteenth century composers were intent on driving their elders crazy with experimental rhythms.

* A choice of humorous (in varying degrees) illustrations from textbooks will be [[https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-odd-science-diagrams/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic found here.]] Wealth of knowledge! That you'll never have any use for.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plonk_(wine)&oldid=539695329 The article on plonk]] as of 22 Jul 2013 captions its page image "Wine in stemware befitting plonk." The page image? Two large clear plastic cups with lids and straws filled with iced [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Zinfandel White Zinfandel.]]

** Speaking of ''WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987'', another part of the ThemeTune is rephrased in terms of [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716125813/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node248.html conditional clauses in a looping construct]]. The use of an "else" clause with "unless" likely plays on the double negative of "don't cut no slack."

** A variable named [[Series/GetSmart "maxwell"]] initialized to 86 and, though [[http://web.archive.org/web/20100716163049/http://www.ida.liu.se/imported/cltl/clm/node105.html locally declared to be an integer]], surreptitiously allowed to assume the value [[Film/JamesBond .007]] for the duration spent viewing the movie ''Film/TheSoundOfMusic''.

* A group of MIT researchers published a paper on how to fix the problem of speech recognition software producing nonsensical mondegreens, using "common sense" word associations. They titled the paper [[http://web.media.mit.edu/~lieber/Publications/Wreck-a-Nice-Beach.pdf "How to Wreck a Nice Beach You Sing Calm Incense"]] (translation: [[spoiler:How to Recognize Speech Using Common Sense]]).

** Krugman also has an academic paper called "[[http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf The Theory of Interstellar Trade]]", exploring the implications of special relativity for trade between different planets. In addition to the generally ridiculous premise, it includes quite a few deadpan one-liners like: "These complications make the theory of interstellar trade appear at first quite alien to our usual trade models; presumably it seems equally human to alien trade theorists."

*** It's also chock full of snarky jokes and {{Shout Out}}s (a merchant from [[Literature/{{Foundation}} Trantor]], anyone?)

* [[* [[https://docplayer.se/5007970-Uppgift-1-i-kalkyldifferens.html One Swedish textbook]] features some examples of cost variance problems. The first 2 problems feature made-up companies creating products with mildly punny names, but the third centers around the protagonists from the children's puppet series ''Rummel och Rabalder'' accidentally ending up in "the nunnery of evil" and being forced to make carpet beaters for "the mean nun" if they want to be released.

* [[http://www.chompchomp.com/terms.htm This website]], which explains English grammar, has a few rather strange example sentences. From the article on modifiers:

** Still more [[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2567 here]], plus a link to this very page!

** You can find an entire collection of bizarre sentences from both foreign-language and linguistics texts at [[http://lingsamplesentences.tumblr.com/ this blog]]. Such as "the robot shoots the ghost" and "I squash them with my penis."

* A Latin textbook from the early 1960s contained [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Motor_Bus this macaronic poem from 1914]].

* There must be one of these in James May's academic history, as he revealed on [[TopGearUK an episode of Top Gear]] that the only German sentence he knows is "Aber ja, natürlich Hans naß ist. Er steht unter einem waßerfall." which translates to "''Naturally'' Hans is wet; he's standing under a waterfall."

* John R. Taylor's ''[[http://www.amazon.com/Classical-Mechanics-John-R-Taylor/dp/189138922X Classical Mechanics]]'' delivers ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's a classical mechanic...on a book about classical mechanics. Taylor seems to be fond of this trope, as indicated by the cover of his [[http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Error-Analysis-Uncertainties-Measurements/dp/093570275X/ref=la_B001IODK2C_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403582018&sr=1-2 textbook on error analysis]].

* The ''Head First'' series apply this extremely liberally. [[http://www.headfirstlabs.com/readme.php As they note]], people remember fun parts much better than boring parts.
* A choice of humorous (in varying degrees) illustrations from textbooks will be found [[https://www.boredpanda.com/funny-odd-science-diagrams/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic here]]. Wealth of knowledge! That you'll never have any use for.

* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plonk_(wine)&oldid=539695329 The article on plonk]] as of 22 Jul 2013 captions its page image "Wine in stemware befitting plonk." The page image? Two large clear plastic cups with lids and straws filled with iced [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Zinfandel White Zinfandel]].

* On [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cetaceans the list of cetaceans]], missing pictures are labeled with "cetacean needed", a spoof of the more commonly seen tag "citation needed". Perhaps they picked it up from ''Blog/WhatIf'', which has made many puns of that nature (including that very one).

* According to the AQA AS-Level Philosophy textbook, [[http://i.imgur.com/InsfmFC.jpg this is a perfect island]].

* The definition document for [[https://github.com/google/open-location-code/blob/master/docs/olc_definition.adoc Open Location Code]], a way to generate addresses where roads do not exist or are not named, discusses some limitations that its method has.

* ''Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes'' opens the problem set for one of its chapters by brutally deconstructing a certain scene from ''Literature/CharlieAndTheChocolateFactory'', where Augustus Gloop falls into the chocolate river. The questions it asks essentially boils down to "what would it actually feel like to be stuck there, and why was the last time this happened in real life fatal?" Allegedly, this question serves as the de-facto hazing ritual for ''every'' chemical engineering student that has to use this textbook.