BOFH excuse #205:
Quantum dynamics are affecting the transistors
There you go…
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Category Archives: Physics
Geeks around the world, unite!
Though it’s still February, March is rapidly approaching and there are two very special occasions in March that I think you should spend some time with. Both occur on a very auspicious day to geek-kind, March 14th. The cleverer lot of you will realize that this is International Pi Day! But the insanity doesn’t stop there. March 14th is also Albert Einstein’s Birthday! That’s like having a bleeding edge video card AND getting to use it too. Here’s an idea on how you can celebrate. Invite an irrational number of friends over, stand in a perfect circle and pontificate about a Unified Theory of the Universe, all the while chanting
“Newton was a simpleton!”…
Stand by me….
Thoughts on physics #3
Wigner’s Friend.
Wigner’s friend is a variation of the Schrödinger’s cat paradox in which a friend of the physicist Eugene Wigner is the first to look inside the vessel. The friend will find a live or dead cat. However, if Professor Wigner has both the vessel with the cat and the friend in the closed room, the state of the mind of the friend (happy if there is a live cat but sad if there is a dead cat) cannot be determined in Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics until the professor has looked into the room although the friend has already looked at the cat. These paradoxes (Schrödinger’s Cat and Wigner’s Friend) are intended to indicate the absurdity of the overstated roles of measurement and observation in Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics.
Here pussy-pussy-pussy
Thoughts on physics #2
Schrödingers Cat
A thought experiment introduced by Erwin Schrödinger in 1935 to illustrate the paradox in quantum mechanics regarding the probability of finding, say, a subatomic particle at a specific point in space. According to Niels Bohr, the position of such a particle remains indeterminate until it has been observed. Schrödinger postulated a sealed vessel containing a live cat and a device triggered by a quantum event such as the radioactive decay of the nucleus. If the quantum event occurs, cyanide is released and the cat dies; if the event does not occur the cat lives. Schrödinger argued that Bohr’s interpretation of events in quantum mechanics means that the cat could only be said to be alive or dead when the vessel has been opened and the situation inside it has been observed. This paradox has been extensively discussed since its introduction with many proposals made to resolve it.
And now something completely different…
Thoughts on physics #1
Light bulbs are not actually “light bulbs” but dark absorbers. When you turn them on, they suck the dark out of the room. You can prove this by holding your hand under a “light bulb”. The dark will stack up under your hand where its path to the absorber is blocked by your hand. When they quit working and turn a dark color, it’s not because they burnt out, it’s because they’re full.
Pie anyone?
If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.
– Carl Sagan
Heaven is hotter than hell!
It is possible to make an accurate computation of the temperature of Heaven using a physical law called Stephens Law? This follows from data available in the bible. Isiah 30:28 reads:
“Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days.”
Thus heaven receives from the moon as much radiation as we do from the sun and in addition seven times seven (ie: 49 times) as much as earth does from the sun. This gives 50 times in all !
This radiation falling on heaven heats it to the point where the heat loss by re-radiation just equals the heat received by radiation. So from Stephens 4’th power law we have
Taking T (the absolute temperature of earth) as 300K, we obtain a temperature of 798K, or about 525 Celcius.
It is tempting to compare this unexpectedly warm temperature with that of Hell. Although we cannot be exact about the temperature of hell, we can conclude an upper limit. Revelations 21:8 reads :
” But the fearful and unbelieving … shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.”
The boiling point of brimstone (sulphur) is 444.6 degrees C, which means that the temperature of such an eternal lake must be less than 444.6 degrees C (otherwise if would evaporate).
Therefore, as 444.6 is much less than 525.0, we are forced to conclude, by Physical and Biblical data, that:
Heaven is hotter than Hell!