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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
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And another one - you can just tell I've been cleaning out dusty folders on my computer, can't you?
This one is off a web page. I'd love to give you an attribution, but I've lost the original url. Still, it all fits in quite nicely with doc_comfort's efforts to explain to belMarduk why she may not exist in a tunnel under the St Lawrence River!
It came from a newgroup discussion of the quantum mechanics behind the Schrodinger's Cat theory:
Reader Query:
Cecil, you're my final hope
Of finding out the true Straight Dope
For I have been reading of Schrodinger's cat
But none of my cats are at all like that.
This unusual animal (so it is said)
Is simultaneously live and dead!
What I don't understand is just why he
Can't be one or the other, unquestionably.
My future now hangs in between eigenstates.
In one I'm enlightened, the other I ain't.
If you understand, Cecil, then show me the way
And rescue my psyche from quantum decay.
But if this queer thing has perplexed even you,
Then I will and won't see you in Schrodinger's zoo.
-Randy F., Chicago
Cecil's Reply:
Schrodinger, 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 Schrodinger 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 of 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 to 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 shit.
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 the 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 said 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."
Ah well, never mind ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 11,613 |
CK, this is great! Gee, thanks and I wonder
how long it took for those words to come under
scrutiny? This wasn't something done on the fly;
Ol' Cecil worked hard to create that reply.
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,891
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I'm pretty sure that after two weeks the damn cat was dead if'n it hadn't been fed.
All these arguments make me think of little kiddies. When they are scared they hide under the covers believing that if they don't see the monsters, the monsters don't see them (oh and of Douglas Adams and the need for a towel)
"If you don't see inside the box you can't know the cat is in there." Well, brainiacs, you put the cat inside so, duh, there is one pissed-off kitty in there all right. Whether or not the cat is toast well, you'll just find that out soon enough when it starts to smell now won't you.
Oh, and the light IS off when you close the refrigerator door whether you look at it or not. No, you CAN NOT blame that smell on the dog, mister. YES girls talk about you when they go to the bathroom in packs. SOMETIMES women fake it. Sometimes guys do TOO. Size DOES matter. Skill matters MORE thank you very much.
Have we solved enough mysteries for the week. Arghhhh.
[Going to bed to hide under pillow to get away from all this physics stuff emoticon]
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Joined: Jun 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jun 2001
Posts: 2,636 |
I thought about posting this in the other black hole thread(if somebody pulls it will it unravel?) but that one seems too serious. Thanks for putting one down in wordplay, too, CapK. Does anyone remember a cartoon where the character would pull a small black hole out of his pocket, place it on the ground, and then disappear into it, pulling it in after him? Maybe those Cherman scientists saw that one. I know I'd like one.
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Joined: Sep 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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black hole out of his pocket
Oooo, wasn't that in Bugs Bunny?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I've got a black hole in my pocket. All my money disappears into it.
TEd
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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TEd
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Joined: Mar 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, Ted! Ow, ow...I think I'm going to have to take out a special insurance policy to pay for treating the ache in my sides your puns always give me!  Maybe The Remington Special? Ok, try this: [quick check--yup, this is Wordplay & Fun] There's this car repair place, and if you're not satisfied with their work, they become the whomp'em mechanics... pssst--there's at least one easy add-on to this. (hint)
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Joined: Feb 2001
Posts: 387
enthusiast
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enthusiast
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I thought it was just a hole. No black involved.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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JTD is correct, in that the matter which passes through said hole is deposited, unchanged, in some other part of the known universe.
The technical astronomical term (no kidding) for such a hole is a "wormhole".
Now if I could only find some better wormhole by which to travel instantaneously between remote parts of this board ...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well, it was a hole and it was black and he disappeared in it. What more can I say? I still want one of my vewy own 
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