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Monday, January 21, 2013
Of Heisenber n Schrodinger...
Oh my, now this is just plain funny. Listener Don Smith sends in a science joke.
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7 comments:
For those, like me, who need this joke explained to them:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/schrodingers-cat
Thanks for the find Dennis...It is so hard to have a conversation about Schrodinger and his cat. Like the tree falling in the woods it has nothing to do with trees and cats, but that confuses the issue further. They close the short film with "absurdity of quantum mechanics". I have to take issue with that, at least in practice. I felt that he was giving us hand holds on a very difficult thought experiment of multiple quasi-states. One of the most fun versions of this was a story I read on the program from a very clever author that understood Schrodinger's very well. that and the infinity discussion or thought exercise where you stand in the middle of a room facing a wall. Each time you move you half the distance to the wall. Now figure out how long it would take you to get to the wall? Yeah see?! Stories with fun stuff like that. They are so much fun.
The answer to the wall is easy. You'd never get there. It would be physically impossible, as their is no limit to smallness, or largeness. Same as there is no limit to gravity, or dimensions.
In high school, many years before I had a notion of who Schrodinger and Heisenberg were, I remember our math professor making that "wall" exercise in class. It took my breath when I felt the joy of having immediately grasped his explanation of infinity!
In high school, many years before knowing the names of Schrodinger and Heisenberg, our math professor did the "wall" exercise in class. I remember the joy I felt by immediately grasping his explanation of infinity!
kop
I knew of it, but I didn't take physics in HS (should have) I took any other science course they would let me take. So by my second year in HS, I could discuss it, but I don't think I really understood it. Then I read this tale that told of a lowly knight who saves the king's only daughter. The king offers him land which the lad turns down only asking for a chess board and a single grain of wheat. Asked if that was all he wanted, he replied, that every year the king's daughter remained safe under his protection, the king need only double the amount of wheat in the next square. The king of course agreed to this thinking he was getting off cheap until the mid point of the board was reached and 20 strong men were needed to carry in the huge amount of wheat and the king abdicated to the young knight well before the last row when the king discovered he owed all the kingdoms wheat to the lad and there were two rows still to go!
Foolishly I felt I could wrap my head around the problem at this point... still I was amazed at just getting a slight glimpse at infinity!
I am going to post this back here because this is where it would have shown up.
BMU has a fairly lenient policy on comments. I will not ban anyone for using colorful language and I dont think any of the other editors would either. But a direct flame for the sake of starting a fight will not be tolerated. Especially when hiding under the anonymous flag. your messages WILL NOT BE ALLOWED for general consumption so it is a waste of your time and ours. If you can not discuss a topic reasonably without calling someone a name, then you best find somewhere else to hang your hat, because you are decidedly not welcome here.
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