74 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
74 lines
3.8 KiB
Plaintext
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How Many Generic Chickens Can You Fit Into a Generic Pontiac?
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A while back, someone asked how many generic chickens would fit
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into a generic Pontiac. This question has been on my mind recently, so I
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decided to work out this problem, for the benefit of all humanity.
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I. It has been proven succesfully that chickens have a definite
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wave-like nature. In reproducing Thomas Young's famous double-slit
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experiment of 1801, Sir Kenneth Harbour-Thomas showed that chickens
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not only diffract, but produce interference patterns as well. (This
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experiment is fully documented in Sir Kenneth's famous treatise
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"Tossing Chickens Through Various Apertures in Modern Architecture",
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1897)
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II. It is also known, as any farmhand can tell you, that whereas if one
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chicken is placed in an enclosed space, it will be impossible to
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pinpoint the exact location of the chicken at any given time t. This
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was summarized by Helmut Heisenberg (Werner's younger brother) in
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the equation:
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d(chicken) * dt >= b
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(where b is the barnyard constant; 5.2 x10^(-14) domestic fowl *
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seconds)
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III. Whatever our results, they must be consistant with the fundamentals
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of physics, so energy, momentum, and charge must all be conserved.
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A. Chickens (fortunately) do not carry electric charge. This was
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discovered by Benjamin Franklin, after repeated experiments with
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chickens, kites, and thunderstorms.
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B. The total energy of a chicken is given by the equation:
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E = K + V
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Where V is the potential energy of the chicken, and K is the
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kinetic energy of the chicken, given by
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(.5)mv^2 or (p^2) / (2m).
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C. Since chickens have an associated wavelength, w, we know that
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the momentum of a free-chicken (that is, a chicken not enclosed
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in any sort of Pontiac) is given by: p = b / w.
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IV. With this in mind, it is possible to come up with a wave equation
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for the potential energy of a generic chicken. (A wave equation will
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allow us to calculate the probability of finding any number of
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chickens in automobiles.) The wave equation for a non-relativistic,
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time-independant chicken in a one- dimensional Pontiac is given by:
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[V * P] - [[(b^2) / (2m)] * D^2(P)] = E * P
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P is the wave function, and D^2(P) is its second derivative.
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The wave equation can be used to prove that chickens are in
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fact quantized, and that by using the Perdue Exclusion formula
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we know that no two chickens in any Pontiac can have the same
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set of quantum numbers.
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V. The probability of finding a chicken in the Pontiac is simply the
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integral of P * P * dChicken from 0 to x, where x = the length of the
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Pontiac. Since each chicken will have its own set of quantum numbers
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(when examining the case of the three-dimensional Pontiac) different
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wave functions can be derived for each set of quantum numbers.
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It is important to note that we now know that there is no such
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thing as a generic chicken. Each chicken influences the position and
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velocity of every other chicken inside the Pontiac, and each chicken
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must be treated individually.
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It has been theorized that chickens do in fact have an intrinsic
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angular momentum, yet no experiment has been yet conducted to prove
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this, as chickens tend to move away from someone trying to spin them.
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Curious sidenote: Whenever possible, any attempt to integrate a
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chicken should be done by parts, as most people will tend to want the
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legs (dark meat), which can lead to innumerable family conflicts
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which are best avoided if at all possible.
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The Prestidigitator, Drew Physics Major Extraordinary
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24 March 1988
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