My new favorite bumper sticker

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My new favorite bumper sticker
blueshiftbumpersticker.jpg

Nerdy physics/astronomy humor FTW. If you don’t get it (and it’s OK if you don’t, really), you might refer to Wikipedia’s article on blue shift. You can buy variations of this bumper sticker all over the web, but I’ve no word, alas, on how to score one of these official APS versions. [via Neatorama]

22 thoughts on “My new favorite bumper sticker

  1. Roger C. says:

    But officer… The light looked green!

  2. JohnW says:

    And by ‘there’ I mean the 1999 APS meeting:

    http://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/199810/zero-gravity.cfm

    “Winning entries will appear on assorted T-shirts, bumper stickers and coffee mugs that will be available for sale at the upcoming APS Centennial Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia, in March 1999.
    Barrett Ripin
    Editor, APS News

  3. John says:

    His old favorite was “Honk if you’re gay”

  4. Kirt says:

    There is an upcoming event at Portland, OR Convention center in March where you can stop by their gift shop and probably pick one up.

  5. sasha ketko says:

    There is a big assumption here – that the viewer of the sticker is following and fast approaching the card the bumper of which displays the sticker. If the leading car with the sticker is going as fast as the following – no Doppler shift; sorry. And if the leading car is moving faster than following or if the cars are moving in opposite directions – the shift would be into infra-red and further.

  6. Colecoman1982 says:

    @sasha: The way I see it, the statement on the sticker still stands (and, if anything, is strengthened by your statement). Obviously, if your going the same speed or slower than the car with the bumper sticker (a situation where you said the color would either stay red or towards infra-red) then you aren’t “driving too fast” from the relative viewpoint of the bumper sticker-ed car’s driver. And, as physics tells us, everything is relative…

    1. sasha ketko says:

      So relative to what you’d be driving fast then? All I was saying that any statement (this including) is made valid (or not) by a truck-load of assumed or explicit contextual conditions. But 10 out of 10 for the sense of humor to those guys, anyway.

  7. Coyote says:

    just nice… it’s funnier when you just laugh and don’t nitpick.

    1. Sean says:

      as I rib my friend about can take the fun out of any joke. If you have to overanalyze, you may not have a sense of humor.

  8. stevedavis13 says:

    I print the highest quality custom stickers printing right from my home only and form company help that I searched online. I am crazy about helmet Sticker Printing and also get one on my Bike helmet fully custom stickers

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I am descended from 5,000 generations of tool-using primates. Also, I went to college and stuff. I am a long-time contributor to MAKE magazine and makezine.com. My work has also appeared in ReadyMade, c't – Magazin für Computertechnik, and The Wall Street Journal.

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