3rd Rock from the Sun (TV Series)

The Physics of Being Dick (1998)

John Lithgow: Dr. Dick Solomon

Quotes 

• [Dick and Don are interrogating a suspect] 

  Dr. Dick Solomon : How about a new strategy. What about 'sad cop, slightly effeminate cop'?

• Dick : Using Coulomb's Third Law, I was able to prove that he did it.

  Tommy : What does that have to do with it?

  Dick : Nothing. All I proved was that he's rotating around the sun, but he didn't know that. That's the wonderful thing about physics, nobody understands it.

  Sally : So you can use your knowledge to bully people into submission.

  Dick : That's the plan. As long as America's educational system remains woefully inadequate, I rule!

• Dr. Dick Solomon : [looking forward to speaking at Career Day at Tommy's school]  Once your classmates hear me speak, you'll be the toast of the school.

  Sally : Wait, are you kidding, Dick? You're a Physics professor. I mean, that's almost as dorky as...

  [everyone thinks it over] 

  Tommy : I got nothin'.

  Harry Solomon : I'm stumped.

• Dr. Dick Solomon : [Dick is offended that everyone thinks his job is pointless]  This is outrageous. I'm wise, and revered, and I work damn hard. Who do you think puts food on the table?

  Sally : I put it there!

  Tommy : I'm going with America's farmers.

  Harry Solomon : There's food on the table?

• Officer Don : [Officer Don grabs the attention away from Dick at High School Career Day]  Oh, it's not all glamour, kids, but it's mostly glamour. Oh, and, uh, guns!

  Students : [Don lifts his jacket to reveal his revolver]  Cooooool!

  Dr. Dick Solomon : [Dick desperately tries to bring the students back to his table]  And what makes that policeman's gun so cool? Physics! Kinetic energy generates the velocity with which the bullet exits the barrel, while the ballistic coefficient and sectional density determines the damage to its targets. Guns don't kill people. *Physics kills people!*

• Jonesy : Why don't you just let me go?

  Officer Don : Because I know you did it, Jonesy. You jumped the fence and you stole the money.

  Jonesy : But you've got no proof. Besides, I couldn't have jumped the fence. It's physically impossible.

  Dick : Physically impossible? That's where you're wrong! You may not have much respect for the law, Jonesy, but there's one law that you can't break: Coulomb's Third Law of Universal Gravitation!

  Jonesy : What?

  Dick : It states that the force between two objects is proportional to the algebraic products of their respective charges, as well as proportional to the inverse square of the distance between them. But of course, you knew that, didn't you, Jonesy?

  Jonesy : Not all of it.

  Dick : [illustrating on a dry-erase board]  You're object "X" and the fence is object "Y". Now, where "V" is the velocity of the two objects and "R" is the distance between them and "E" is a unit vector directed from the first object to the second, we see that the fence proved little challenge.

  Jonesy : Well, I guess.

  Dick : You guess... I bet you guess! And so we see that X equals zero as Y approaches infinity. That's how you avoided the security camera. That's how you managed to get back over the fence. That's how they found you exactly 1.3 miles from the crime scene proving that you and only you could have perpetrated this heinous crime!

  [slaps the board] 

  Dick : There's the proof!

  Jonesy : Okay! Okay! Okay, you got me, I did it! I did it! My god, what kind of cop are you?

  Dick : I'm not a cop. I'm a physics professor!

• Dr. Dick Solomon : [Sally shows up in the bar, claiming she's completed her fact-checking work for Mary]  Are you telling me that Mary's presentation is already perfect?

  Sally : Well, she thinks it is, and I'm getting paid not to argue. Ka-ching!

  [Harry hits the bell on the bar to echo her words] 

  Dr. Dick Solomon : You got lucky, damn you.

  Sally : I'll tell you the secret. You just pucker up, vapor-lock onto your boss's butt, and hold on. No independent thought required. In fact, it just gets in your way.