A popular physics joke involving the Empire State Building is:
     
“A physicist sees a young man about to jump off the Empire State Building. He yells ‘Don’t do it! You have so much potential!’”
 
“What would a physicist say to someone about to jump off a building? ‘But, wait, stop! You have so much potential!’” was cited on Twitter on June 6, 2013. The joke using the Empire State Building was made popular on reddit on May 22, 2014.
 
   
Wikipedia: Potential energy
In physics, potential energy is the energy that an object has due to its position in a force field or that a system has due to the configuration of its parts. Common types include the gravitational potential energy of an object that depends on its mass and its distance from the center of mass of another object, the elastic potential energy of an extended spring, and the electric potential energy of an electric charge in an electric field. The unit for energy in the International System of Units (SI) is the joule, which has the symbol J.
 
Twitter
Grad Year Physics
‏@GYPhysics
What would a physicist say to someone about to jump off a building? “But, wait, stop! You have so much potential!” #2yearsofChow - CC
6:23 PM - 6 Jun 2013
 
Twitter
Chris Felsberg
‏@felsbergc
“I was about to jump off a roof when my physics professor shouted through the megaphone below, ‘Stop, you have so much potential!’”
12:35 PM - 15 Jan 2014
 
Twitter
Juan Beltran
‏@guano94
Idk why people jump off buildings. They have so much potential #PotentialEnergy
10:01 AM - 13 Feb 2014
 
reddit
A physicist sees a young man about to jump off the Empire State Building… (self.Jokes)
submitted May 22, 2014 by pankswork
He yells “Don’t do it! You have so much potential!”
 
Tickld
The 25 Best Two-Line Jokes Ever. #15 Is Priceless.
July 13, 2015
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12. A physicist sees a young man about to jump off the Empire State Building.
He yells “Don’t do it! You have so much potential!”