It’s a 25 year old joke. It was a simpler time.

An attempt was made in the section "Band Structure and Effective Mass" of the chapter "Basic Semiconductor Physics" to tie the two disparate subjects together.

Routergod.com was one of the greats, good times.

But what's the joke though?

It’s called absurdity. It’s funny because it’s obviously not true, and also funny because of the undertones that it’s a clever way to get horny teenagers to study physics who really just want to see the photos.

It would be absurd if pop stars by defintion could not explain semiconductor physics. Like how a snake wearing boots is absurd.

Dr. Brian May comes to mind...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_May#Scientific_career

Maybe not so absurd.

Also, Todd Rundgren used to be a registered Apple developer. We'd see him moseying around the WWDC, every year.

You are being pedantic, but I’ll play along. Absurd has multiple meanings. It can mean nonsensical, but it can also mean utterly ridiculous or silly. Under those other meanings I believe the pop-star-physics-professor still qualifies.

It sounds pedantic, but "absurd" is fundamentally different from "rare". A lot of baggage comes from flagging something as absurd, instead of just unexpected or uncommon. Winning the lottery isn't absurd, having 3 pairs of some chromosome isn't either, and being a successful pop singer with an academic background isn't either, it's just rare.

It IS pedantic, because we are talking not of pop stars in general, but Britney Spears specifically.

Very heteronormative even for 2000

Everyone knows Alanis Morissette is a master electrician. That's why she has one hand in her pocket, while the other is probing a circuit.

Anyway, it's kind of Ironic [1] that the dude from Queen is an astrophysicist, and Britney Spears is writing Semiconductor Physics tutorials. Something something music and math.

[1] Sorry

> master electrician

It’s true, she’s high but she’s grounded (not sorry).

Same as “the narwhal bacons at midnight” or 67.

Simpler time, simpler jokes.

Others have pointed it out, but it’s the juxtaposition of the fact that she’s definitely not an expert in this subject with a lesson in the subject.

There’s some subtle bits to the humor depending on how charitable you’re feeling. It might just be absurdist, as in “Blackbeard’s guide to astrobiology”, or it may be more mean spirited and playing on a belief that she is not intelligent.

TL;DR - the joke formula is just:

subject=…

person_not_familiar_with_subject=…

joke=“${person_not_familiar_with_subject}’s guide to {subject}“

And the amount of implied cruelty in the comparison is variable.

I guess we can now use an LLM to produce a new absurdist book every day.

It's a non-sequitur.

"I don't get it."

At the time she was ground zero for all of pop culture and pretty much every single man’s crush. When that website came out it was funny because we were all looking at pictures of Britney anyway so may as well learn some physics at the same time.

Btw, she really went downhill once she fell out of popularity. I think she has a life put back together finally but she got a raw deal. I’m rooting for her.

I recently watched A Fish Called Wanda because some old folks said it is a great movie. It is not. It is shit.

I’m team old folks on this, youngun

There was a meme that was floating around about the Hawk-Tuah girl analyzing differential equations (IIRC) just last year. I fell for it, though. My son had to explain to me that it was fake.

Interesting, I can see a clear connection between the two subjects on this image: https://britneyspears.ac/physics/basics/images/britneycbvb.j...

This can't be coincidence!

A joke is like a soap bubble. The act of explaining a joke pops it and reveals it to have no substance.

The essence of humor is simply surprise. Once the surprise is gone, or if it never was surprising, it seems flat or silly.

Some people enjoy humor with deeper meaning, and explaining that meaning might be illuminating. But that’s lipstick on a duck.

If I share the OP's objections, which I think I do, the problem isn't with the joke attempt itself, it's with the execution. The joke isn't tied in to the content at all, it's literally just the title, and nothing else.

If the author had tied song references into the text, for example, that would make it a much better execution.

Agree, this is definitely Penguin of Doom level humor. But the mechanic is the same as most comedy - the tickle of surprise from two ideas coming together.

Non-sequitur humor was the style at the time.

Autistic me wanted to half believe it. You don’t get any cookies for bursting my bubble :(