Formula Of Laughter
At last, physicist discovers a formula of laughter. No more wondering why! “It is a bloodless verbal fight aiming to raise your status and strengthen your position. Even a friendly banter is a sort of intellectual clash, a kind of training before serious battles. In fact, we try to figure out who’s the boss in the family when we poke fun at our loved ones.”
HE = PI x C/T + BM
PI - personal involvement
C - complexity of a joke. The higher degree of complexity the better provided that your audience can solve the problem within 1 or 2 seconds.
T - time spent by a person solving a joke. The longer the time, the weaker the effect.
BM - background mood. A joker can have an advantage if an audience enjoys the show. However, a real good joke can “blow up” the most dismal audience.
HE - humor effectiveness.
Use it wisely and try not to hurt anyone! [via]
As someone with a physics degree, I don’t see how a physicist could afford spending time to discover something like that. Ig Noble Prize NOW! It’s still an interesting bit of information. More philosophical than scientific, I think.
October 6th, 2005 at 5:42 pm