METHODS IN PUNZYMOLOGY
Chapter XI. Literary Applications of NMR Spectroscopy
Michael Strain
(c) 1996, 1997, 1998 all rights reversed
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note: urban mythology research techniques may be used
to monitor the dissemination of these works.
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Q: What do dipoles say in passing?
A: Have you got a moment?
Q: What do dipoles say on departing?
A: Debye!
Q: What happens when electrons lose their energy?
A: They get Bohr'ed.
Q: Why do spins tend to relax?
A: Work makes them tensor.
Q: How do spins communicate?
A: Universal sign language.
Q: How do spin students relax?
A: The teacher lets them out for precess.
Q: What happens when spectroscopists are idle?
A: They turn from nutating nuclear spins to notating unclear puns.
Q: What is the difference between 13C and 12C?
A: One is magnetically resonant, the other is reticent.
Q: Why are magnets so attractive?
A: Have you have tried carbon-14 dating?
Q: What is the Fourier transform of noisy data?
A: A varyin' baseline.
Q: How are spin echos so useful?
A: Many Hahn's make light work.
Q: Who writes novels with a Western spin?
A: Louie Larmor.
Q: Why can't lawyers do NMR?
A: Bar magnets have poor homogeneity.
Q: Why do Republicans have trouble with NMR?
A: They get plenty of polarization but little coherence.
Q: Why are supercons such empty bores?
A: They've no irony core.
Q: Why is liquid helium so cool?
A: Life ought to be a gas.
Q: Why did the quantum mechanic live in the lab?
A: Didn't want to commute.
Q: Why do hair-dressers abhor electromagnetic fields?
A: The divergence of the curl.
Q: What is the result when you cross a road with a chicken?
A: |road||kill|sin(theta)
Q: What happens to old spectroscopists?
A: They never really retire, they just change fields.
Q: Why are spectroscopists never satisfied with their magnets?
A: The gauss is greater on the other side of the fence.
Q: Why does Old McDonald regularly switch fields?
A: You get better nitrogen performance in the rotating farm.
Q: Why did the quadrature detective lose his job?
A: Couldn't distinguish real from imaginary.
Q: What do you call obsolete pulse sequences?
A: ANACHRONYMS.
Q: What is the decay constant for Julius Caesar?
A: T2, Brute.
Q: Why would a spectroscopist put decouple in dwell?
A: One expects that Jack and Jill would remove d'water.
Q: Why is a NOESY like a milk shake?
A: You have to use the right mixing time to get a good one.
Q: Are peaks inverted in the Southern Hemisphere?
A: If they are, no one is phased.
Q: What ammenties are needed for a solid state NMR facility?
A; A powder room adds a nice touch.
Q: Why do interferograms appear to evolve from the left?
A: A sin is never right. (moralist)
A: They don't evolve: they were created at time=0. (creationist)
A: It never happened. (revisionist)
A: They're a dialectic between conflicting reference frames. (Marxist)
Q: Why did the spectroscopist throw the clock out the window?
A: To see the time-domain transform.
Q: Why couldn't Prof. Fourier get a mortgage?
A: No one would cosine the note.
Q: Why do they say in "RMN" in French?
A: I don't know, but they also get their salads in the wrong order.
Q: Why do NMR spectroscopists avoid counting sheep?
A: Very baa'd noise cancellation.
Q: Why did the President go in for MRI?
A: He thought he'd get a better image from a spin doctor.
Q: What do spectral editors require in a manuscript?
A: Phrase coherence.
Q: What do spectral editors rarely see in a manuscript?
A: Ghost-writing.
Q: Why do magnets drift around?
A: They're such shifty characters. (a sine of the times, some observe)