textfiles/humor/quantum.phy

From arensb@cvl.umd.edu Mon Jun 12 10:37:01 1989
From: arensb@cvl.umd.edu (Andrew Arensburger)
Subject: Quantum physics

(This just materialized on my desk one day. It's in my handwriting, so I
must have written it, though I'll deny it if I'm indicted. -AA)

The topic for today is quantum physics. Quantum physics was developed in
the 1930's, as a result of a bet between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr, to
see who could come up with the most ridiculous theory and still have it
published. Most people agree that Bohr won hands down, although Einstein
did very well in the swimsuit competition.

One of the most important researchers in quantum physics is Werner
Heisenberg, a man with a wonderful sense of humor, who was always cracking
one-liners, like "delta-p times delta-x is less than h!" Ha! ha! What a
card! This is known as Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which is closely
related to Goedel's Incompleteness Theorem, which says that some things are
true, but you can't prove them, like when my wife and I argue over whether
it's her turn to take out the garbage or not.

What Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle says is that if something is small
enough, you can't say anything about it. Anyone with the I.Q. of baking
powder immediately understood that this means that if you look at something
so small that you can't even *see* it, like my dog, Oscar Wilde's, brain,
then you obviously can't tell, say, what color it is.

But some people didn't get the joke, and decided to investigate this
principle further. They would gather and sit around all day, drinking beer
and performing "Gedankesexperimenten," or "Thank God we're theoretical
physicists so we don't have to get our hands dirty with particle
accelerators and other heavy machinery." The most famous of these is
Schroedinger's Cat, where several physicists kidnap Erwin Schroedinger's cat
Fluffy and lock it up in a box, along with a radioactive source such as
Cheez Doodles. Then they walk around with concerned expressions on their
faces, commenting about how they don't know what's going on inside the box.
This goes on until the cleaning lady discovers the box, opens it and tells
the physicists whether the cat is dead, or whether it has mutated into a
man-eating flea the size of Norway.

The point of this experiment is to show that uncertainty at the quantum
level can be detected in the macroscopic world and produce widespread
anxiety and paranoia. It also explains why paper clips just lie there while
you look at them, but as soon as you turn your back, they run away, giggling
wildly, and transform themselves into coat hangers.

Another famous researcher is Richard Feynman, who invented Feynman diagrams,
which are bunches of squiggly lines with greek letters next to them. The
way they were discovered was, one day, Hans Bethe came in to Feynman's
office to say that some of the guys down in particle research were having a
jam session down by the cyclotron, and would Richard like to come over and
bring his bongos? Feynman was out, at the time, cracking a safe or
something, so Bethe tried to leave him a note. On the desk, he found one of
Feynman's daugter's kindergarten drawings. Bethe couldn't make head or tail
of it, and figured that if even he couldn't understand it, then it must be
something Terribly Clever, and promptly called it a Feynman diagram.

This was a major scientific breakthrough, and ever since, proud parents have
been hanging their children's Feynman diagrams on refrigerators with little
muon-shaped magnets, confident that their Little Darlings are developing
important scientific theories every day, because they are, after all, Gifted
Children.

--
Edited by Brad Templeton.  MAIL, yes MAIL your jokes to funny@looking.ON.CA
Attribute the joke's source if at all possible.  I will reply, mailers willing.

Topical (current events) jokes should be sent to topical@looking.ON.CA