Bytes And Banter: Phatalogy

Phatas are basically PJs or poor jokes. At one point of time in my hostel, the jokes cracked were so bad that we had to standardize them and provide a measuring tool for them. So the three of us (Soumabha, Suraj and Aditya ) along with Apurv Srivastava, Rishab Raj and the master of them all Viswadeep Sarangi (mentioned here as Deepun) formulated the following laws just for fun. Then we had them documented and posted so that it might provide some amusement to you guys as well.

Hope you enjoy the read…

Rishabh Raj

A Msc. Tech Information Systems student of BITS Pilani - Pilani Campus. He is the king and has mastered the art of cracking phatas. A sensitive and good friend he has come through for most of us at the toughest of the times and is a very reliable friend be it when his neighbour's leg was broken or when someone needed company to go to the canteen to eat. Placed in Symantec this semester he goes out of BITS Pilani with a bang and party for us all .

History of Phatalogy

The laws of phatalogy were discovered in 2009-2010 AD in BITS, Pilani, India. In the lower H-wing of Krishna Bhawan, there resided a man named Deepun Sharma, who laughed at all types of jokes. Another man, Rishabh Raj, cracked a lot of jokes, which were called ‘phatas’, though no one was sure exactly what a phata was. These phatas grew popular by the day and caught onto people like a communicable disease. Soon it became necessary to standardize and define a measure for phatas.

Apurv Srivastava

A B.Tech Electrical Engineer from the prestigious IIT Roorkee, Apurv has proved his mettle in more than one occasions, first by getting top-level marks in BITS-Pilani ( He was in Computer Science ) and then with his sheer determination into IIT-Roorkee. He has an insane addiction to Cartoons and Superhero movies. Though he studies the most in the group he prefers giving the 'ghot/ghissu' tag name to everyone else except himself.

Apurv's Vital Observations

Finally, a wingie of Deepun Sharma, named Apurv, realised that the laughter of Deepun could be used to standardize the concept of phata which enabled him to win the No-nobel Prize for ‘Uh-no-logy’.

He made the following observations:

Deepun laughs at all jokes.
Deepun’s laughter intensity is a function of the quality of the joke he hears.

Based on these observations, Apurv's close friend and a wingie of Deepun Sharma - Parmani formulated a definition.

Suraj Parmani

A B.E. (Hons) Computer Science graduate from BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus. He was one of the brightest minds of his batch and proved it by landing one of the top placement offers of 57 lakhs in Epic. A lovable and a fun guy to hang around with, he was given the nickname of "Parmadoodle" by his college friends (though the reason seems to have been lost in the thick Pilani dust storm).

Parmani Definition of Phata

A joke is called a phata if and only if

(1) Deepun laughs at the joke and (2) no one else laughs at the joke.

In the honour of Deepun Sharma, who inspired this discipline of Science, the SI unit of phatas is named ‘Deepun’ (D).

Axiom 1.1: A sentence which evokes no response from anyone is 0 D.

The more disgusting the phata, more is its value in Deepuns. On the other hand, a good joke has a negative value in Deepuns.

After the Parmani definition of Phata, all was well until the people realised that ‘the same phata often loses its value when it is cracked multiple times’. The equation which the phata follows perplexed many wise scholars. Ultimately the wisest of them could finally crack the code - Kashi.

Aditya Kashi

A student of BITS Pilani, Pilani Campus, Aditya who studies MSc. Biological Sciences coupled with a B.E. degree in Mechanical Engineering has a great future ahead of him. He is a talented musician who plays drums for the BITS music club. Aditya was always known to quench his thirst for knowledge by burying himself in books (specially the ones with LC3) to an extent which BITSians often refer to as a ghot.

Adi Phata Life Equation

The formulated Phata Life Law was

“The value (in D) of the same phata cracked tends to zero as time passes.”

It is expressed mathematically as

|L| = k / x²

The Adi –Phata life equation revolutionized and brought about funding into the research of Phatas, but the inability to measure phatas without Deepun hampered everyone’s work. The researchers badly needed a scale to measure phata value without presence of Deepun and so turned to Soumabha for help. He responded with the following law -

Soumabha’s Law Of Excitation

Soumabha believed that there was a threshold to which a person could be bombarded with phatas and when the threshold was crossed it resulted in the production of Kinetic Energy often in the form of a slap.

Phata Energy Bombarded = Threshold Energy + Kinetic Energy

The threshold varied with person to person and so Soumabha invented the Phale. The Phale (also called the phata scale) initially has to be calibrated according to the initial mood of the listener. The Phale readings have gradings to determine the threshold, the highest being Deepun and the lowest being Nakull.

So a person with threshold of Nakull had a probability of emitting Kinetic Energy (in form of a slap) faster than those having threshold close to Deepun.

Viswadeep Sarangi

A student of BITS Pilani - Pilani. He is the 'Father Of Phatalogy' and hence the SI Unit of phatas have been named after him. A really nice guy, it will just take you minutes to be friends with him. The self proclaimed nickname of 'Deepun' has actually caught up and I really had to go through my Facebook list to actually come up with his actual name.

Hope this new science has caught your eye and though we are not planning any courses on these yet, you are encouraged to perform practical tests and thus contribute by emailing us your findings or posting them as comments blow this blog post. And remember "A phata a day keeps your bad enemies at bay!!"