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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 05 Mar 2006 05:58 AM |
| Thanks Paul, I loved it :) |
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 05 Mar 2006 01:12 PM |
| Yeah, My mind is blown |
~ Nay'Finn |
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 05 Mar 2006 02:56 PM |
Taken from The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams.
Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was."
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at--
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes
(Or something else rhyming) and, oh, if you got 'em,
One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough @#&!
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed--
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.'
The effect of this notion? I very much fear
'Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse."'
So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried--
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."
--CECIL ADAMS |
Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.
-Henry David Thoreau
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 05 Mar 2006 02:58 PM |
| ............... |
Garrak - Aspiring Spellsword
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 05 Mar 2006 06:32 PM |
| AHhaha....excellent. |
Purpose in life: finding better ways of allowing players to kill themselves. Repeatedly.
--
"...Cause he mixes it with love
And makes the world taste good."
--
<@James42> Lawful good isn't in your vocabulary, it's on your menu.
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 06 Mar 2006 07:58 AM |
LOL that's awesome Mykal. And nice post Paul!
I'm such a geek :D . |
Luther McIath: I see, so [X is] the right person in the wrong place with the wrong people at the wrong time.
[Fictrix] ... And can speak French, like both! Wait, I mean Elven. |
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Re: Down the Rabbit Hole
Posted: 06 Mar 2006 06:25 PM |
far out....
i love this sort of thing
struggled through Hawkings book even though after a few chapters in i'm saying to myself
"er yeh ... thats easy for you to say but impossible for me to comprehend" |
If you catch a butterfly.
You can either keep it and watch it die.
Or let it go and watch it fly away.
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