My third year thermodynamics course opened with a similar quip by the lecturer. Entropy is actually depressing. You can't fight it. You can't not fight it. It just wins.

One opening line that's always stuck with me is:

"The doctor said I was a paranoid schizophrenic. Well, he didn't actually say it, but we knew he was thinking it."

So... is Goldstein still around or did he...?

We are all gas with a slightly denser particle distribution.

🔫

Ah yes, joke #3

My favorite class in grad school. I absolutely loved deriving the laws of thermodynamics from first principles based the random motion of atoms. It was beautiful.

I don't know. I like Griffith's Quantum Mechanics which opens saying if you think you're starting to understand this stuff, you really haven't.

Weed out the riff-raff who can't hack it

To quote twitch chat: "monkaS"

This is beautiful and I must study this subject now.

You know; so I have an excuse.

I dunno, I usually open a textbook by turning over the front cover 🥁

Statistical mechanics is so fucking brutal \m/

There's a mechanics textbook called "there once was a classical theory" and it opens with:

There once was a classical theory Of which quantum disciples were leery. They said, “Why spend so long On a theory that’s wrong?” Well, it works for your everyday query!