I can't really say much about this that hasn't already been said here.
Halfway through the documentary/drama
What the #$*! Do We Know!?,the key question shifts from the scientific (How does our knowledge of quantum physics redefine what it means to exist?) to the self-help (How can I use this knowledge of quantum physics to help make me a better, happier person?). One answer to this latter question — apparently — is to draw hearts all over your body with a make-up pencil while soaking in a warm bath.
There's nothing more I can say after that.
(I apologize for blogging so frivolously, but I saw this movie reviewed in the Seattle Times and couldn't resist parodying my father's favorite phrase, Better living through chemistry.
)
Jim says:
No, no! That should be, "Better chemistry through living."
As for quantum mechanics, I might say more at some future time, but then again, I might not.
In the meantime, I could recommend the book "Information Mechanics", by Frederick W. Kantor, but I probably shouldn't. It's a different way of looking at the fundamentals of physics -- not just QM, -- and if you can actually read and understand the whole thing, you might find it profound. But more likely you'll have so much difficulty with the obsessive thoroughness and precision of his writing that you'll find it CONfound. 8^)
Jeff says:
So, you would say that you're in the state:
.707*(|saymore>|saynone> - |saynone>|saymore>)
or
.707*(|saymore>|saynone> + |saynone>|saymore>)
And similarly, for the book recommendation, would you say you're in the singlet or the triplet state in that one, as well, and thus by answering those two questions (with either both the same, or both different), we'd all know whether you are a fermion or a boson...
And similarly, if you understood all that you qualify as a |geek> (which are distinguishable and thus neither boson nor fermion, because we're all individuals).
Now everyone is saying, So I shall.
Jeff
Jim says:
"So, you would say that you're in the state: [p, or p*]?"
Actually, I'm in the State of Denmark, which is neither rotten nor Bohring.
I hope you caught the royal wedding. Americans need to know that fairy tales can still happen. And I don't mean the utterly unreal "reality TV".
But I'm told that I won't know what I would say until I am observed saying it.
"Now everyone is saying, Oh God, make it stop! So I shall."
Ah, that reminds me of an incident involving Laura's dad. But maybe you know it, already.
Laurabelle says:
I might know, but tell us anyway.
Jeff says:
Just checking for hidden variables. I just wanted to make sure that Einstein was wrong on that point.
I didn't catch the royal wedding, but that would be because I don't watch TV, let alone that awful (un)reality TV.
As Laura said, do tell on that story. I probably haven't heard it.
Jeff
P.S. I can see Laura's dad being involved in an Oh-God-make-it-stop incident (or two). If that wasn't the case, I don't think Laura would be able to put up with me.
Jim says:
Jeff: Just checking for hidden variables.
Jim: There definitely are hidden variables, but if I tell you where they are, then they won't be hidden any more.
Jeff: I didn't catch the royal wedding, but that would be because I don't watch TV....
Jim: There are also the newspapers, but most American papers missed it out, too. (NY Times gave it a paragraph, a side comment in another article, 2 weeks after the wedding.) Well, it's not quantum mechanics, but what better thread in which to have uncertain content? I know the US is preoccupied with Iraq, is not that interested in Europe generally, and (officially) doesn't take much notice of monarchies, but Americans are badly in need of real-life fairy tales, and this is one, a real Cinderella story.
The Danish royal family is said to be the oldest in Europe, dating from 958 AD. Prince Frederik met Mary Donaldson -- who was working for a real estate firm at the time -- in a Sydney bar during the Olympics there. They hit it off, but he didn't tell her he was a prince. He came back for a few visits before spilling the beans. He got her to move to Paris so they could be closer, but they still managed to keep out of the media spotlight. Then she moved to Denmark, and the public eventually got wind of it. She still had a regular job -- in marketing with Microsoft, -- and the Danish press criticized her as unstylish and lacking in grace, but she quickly turned that around, and she's now widely admired (not just in Denmark) for her grace and style.
Meanwhile, she and Frederik are clearly very much in love. The queen seems very pleased. Frederik had been criticized as a playboy, lacking in seriousness, but now he's viewed differently, too.
His younger brother married in 1995. That's another one for the starchy British monarchy to wonder over. Prince Joachim met Alexandra Manley, now Princess Alexandra, while working in Hong Kong, where she was assistant director at an investment firm. She is part Chinese, but in Denmark that was never an issue. She's been adored by the Danish public from the start. She and Joachim now have two sons.
That's the stuff fairy tales are made of, but for those whose concepts of royalty are based only on Louis XIV, Henry VIII, and Elizabeth II, the Scandinavian royal families in general are really quite different. Danish Queen Margrethe, e.g., not only does her own shopping in downtown Copenhagen, she is also admired as a painter. (There was some criticism when she designed a poster for the Bosnian Relief effort, but her critics were overwhelmed by the majority of Danes, who said that she had as much right as anyone else to express her opinions.) The monarchy is twice as popular with the Danish public now as when she was crowned.
Remember the big debate over whether Diana was "proper" enough for the Prince of Wales? One of the Swedish princesses recently announced that she has a new boyfriend. Danish crown prince Haakon lived openly for a couple of years with a divorced single mother (also a commoner, and her ex-husband was a drug addict) before marrying her. The Norwegian people have quite accepted her ("forgiven" would be entirely the wrong word). Prince Haakon is quite open about the fact that some day the Norwegian people will either crown him king or do away with the monarchy, but that he believes it is rightfully their choice.
I was definitely anti-royal before moving to Denmark, but the local attitude toward royalty and many other things has changed my perspective. The Danish royalty are not considered symbols of an outdated class dominance, but rather custodians of a national tradition. They're more like celebrity gardeners and curators than rulers.
But even celebrities are treated differently in Denmark. When Joachim and Alexandra disappeared from the public eye, the tabloids merely expressed curiosity as to where they were, but they didn't harass the royal retinue to find out. When they heard the couple were vacationing in Africa, they reported that and wished them well, period. Forget the wild speculation. When the members of Aqua, the top-of-the-charts ("Barbie Girl") Danish rock group went window shopping on Str
Senji says:
<python type=monty>I'm not!</python>
Possibly more relevantly -- Aaagghh! The applied maths! The applied maths! Get it away from me! It burns! It burns!
More worryingly I find that I can still understand it. Eep.
Jim says:
I used the emphasis tags, but I don't see that they made any difference.
I can understand that your spell checker thinks the Danish vowel "
Laurabelle says:
I see the emphasized text. Hmm. What browser are you using? (I was pretty sure that <em> was widely supported.)
Yes, I know the spell-checker is screwy. It doesn't use American spelling because it's on a server run by a Brit who steadfastly refuses American spelling. I do wish I could teach it some new words (like ), but I don't have the proper permissions.
Jim says:
I just experimented a little, and the results point to a need for deeper research.
The EM, CITE, etc. tags work fine in my browser (an old version of MSIE, but not too old to recognize those tags), if they're in my own document, but not in your blog. What's more, if I make a copy of your source and run that in my browser as a local file, then they also work... BUT all of your stylesheet formatting seems to be missing.
A quick look at the source shows that those references are apparently local paths on your server, not full URLs, so they're not found on my machine and are thus ignored when I run my local copy. That suggests to me that something referenced in your HEAD section is what's screwing up my formatting. Maybe tomorrow (it's midnight here, and I'm going to bed) I can try to create full URLs for those references and track down the one that's disabling those formatting tags on my machine.