He excitedly reported his findings to the first person he saw, a formulation technician, and told him to find out everything he could about this new active ingredient, Q2. After working diligently for two hours on the project, the technician finally decided to ask me if I had heard of Q2.

“What,” I replied, “the second quarter?”

“WHY BUY IRRADIATED FOOD? IT'LL GET RE-CONTAMINATED BACK HERE ANYWAY.“

A Matter of Degree
Several years ago, I was fortunate enough to attend a seminar given by the late, world-renowned astronomer Carl Sagan. During the seminar, Sagan related a story about a talk he had given in which he mentioned that the assumed age of our solar system was approximately five billion years and that it was, cosmically speaking, middle-aged. This meant that in another five billion years, the Sun would enlarge, swallow the inner planets (including Earth), and then fade away into near nothingness.

Apparently, as he was answering questions after his talk, a woman came up from the audience. “Excuse me, Dr. Sagan,” the woman interrupted, “did you say that the solar system was going to end in five billion years or five million years?”

Sagan smiled and replied, “Five billion years.”

At that, the woman let out a deep breath and replied, “Oh, thank goodness.”

Long-term Planning
We all know that the planning of experiments is of utmost importance, but these chemists bear the palm. According to the methods that they published in their article (Thin Solid Films 1988, 167, 57–65), “The films were aged in a desiccator for two years at room temperature prior to the experiment.”

Alternatively, this could simply be a nice way to indicate that one has used old samples.

A mosquito was heard to complain
That a chemist had poisoned his brain;
The cause of his sorrow
Was para-dichloro-
Diphenyl-trichloroethane.

There was a young chemist in Ealing
Who with trinitrophenol was dealing.
But he added red lead
And, the truth must be said,
They found him a splash on the ceiling.