Quick Heisenberg Joke

Really odd. Werner Heisenberg has just turned up for dinner, despite having been dead for more than 30 years.

It's all my grandfather's fault, I see. Having a keen interest in physics, he invited Werner to dinner in 1957. He was a bit vague on the time dinner started, but sent a very accurate seating plan.

Quantum Solipsism Conundrum

I've been pondering some issues regarding the existence of life.

Not about the existence of life on this earth as such. Nor the Drake Equation, which gives a formula (which looks increasingly less "optimistic," if that is the right word). I mean the existence of life, at all.
And I'm not talking about the weaker versions of the Anthropic Principle, that says that the universe is fine-tuned for the existence of life. Or not so much. This may or may not be true - and you could put that down to God or gods or a multiplicity of multiverses in the Pooliverse.

But the concept that I'm really interested in is the Participatory Anthropic Principle - that this universe can only exist if there is an observer - even if that observer is in the future of the point at which the multitude of potential universes collapse into the wave form for the one and only universe that makes it through the universe selection process. And I'm wondering whether, if for this universe to exist one future observer were required, logically that one observer might be me.

This is a matter of not insignificant importance. Firstly because it would confirm me in my normal view that the universe rotates around me. But also for the rest of you. Because if the observer in a Quantum Solipsistic Universe that is required for its existence is me - then the day I cease to exist, maybe you lot won't either. The wave form will be up for negotiation again, and anything can happen.

Or something. I really could do with a drop of that port.

Quantum Strikers

First of all, can I wish you all the compliments of the seasons. Which, since I respect people of all faiths and none, could be Candlemas, Imbolc or Groundhog Day. Or, indeed, 2 February 2011CE.  Of Imbolc I tend to say little. We have investigated the origins of Imbolc in previous years, discovered it had something to do with the onset of lactation in ewes, and left it at that. We thought investigation would be better left to experts in the field. Candlemas and Groundhog day we find it easier to celebrate, either by lighting a load of tea lights or by letting the earless Beaker Bunny out for a run and seeing whether we can see her shadow.

But this afternoon, I am more concerned with the phenomenon of Quantum Entanglement, and more especially as it affects strikers. When I say "strikers" I should say that I am referring to what are often referred to as centre forwards in the game of Football. Or, for our American followers, "Football".

There was  an amount of self-righteous hoopla that surrounded the two linked transfers of Fernando Torres to Chelsea for £644 squillion, followed by the £132 squillion that led some bloke from Newcastle to go to Liverpool. But nobody noticed the dangers to the environs of the Kings Road and - possibly - the existence of the Universe.

For in Fernando Torres and Didier Drogba, Chelsea now possess two Quantum Strikers.

Consider Torres. He has two states. He is either happy because he has just scored a goal, or he is sulking. Let us call those states TG and TS . And Drogba is like unto him. He is either lying on the ground, or he is sulking. Let us call those states DL and DS.
This gives the composite Torres-Drogba Quantum State four possibilities. Three of them, I would argue, are relatively benign:
  TG-DL   (Torres has scored a goal and Drogba is lying on the ground)
  TG-DS   (Torres has scored a goal and Drogba is sulking)
  TS-DL   (Torres is sulking and Drogba is lying on the ground)

But it is the fourth state that worries me.
  TS-DS   (Torres is sulking and Drogba is sulking)

As far as I can tell, the fourth state implies a clash with Pauli's Exclusion Principle. If it ever happens that both are sulking at the same time, something dreadful will happen. It may be as little as both Drogba and Torres disappearing, and being replaced at the quantum level with Nicolas Anelka. Or the whole universe could disappear into a mini-black hole, as so memorably prophesied by the Aztecs or Incas or some other South American nation that no longer exists so no-one can check.

There is a theory that states that future versions of Torres and/or Drogba will intervene via a quantum anthropomorphic effect to prevent the fourth option ever happening. But I have yet to be convinced. We have all been warned.

Hot Cross Buns Galore

It's a tradition with us that we eat a special luxury hot cross bun each on Good Friday.  And this year as usual we'd ordered fifty or so in specially from our favourite local baker.  I say local, of course, being the English countryside the "local" baker's is miles away.
Anyway, the delivery arrived this morning and there's just me.
I know it's a tradition, but I've still only managed to get through twelve so far.

It's gonna be a long day.

Squirrel Theology

A recap from earlier today....

"Look at what I found growing on the wall of the cellar, Archdruid.  What do you think they are?"
"Well, they look and smell like mushrooms, Marston.  But I'd throw them away if I were you."

Based on the logic that I'm not him, Marston went off and fried said fungi with a little garlic and olive oil and had them on toast.

He now tells me that he's been appointed the "Second Prophet to the Squirrels".  The First Prophet was Mother Julian, with her famous "size of a hazelnut" comment.
According to Marston, God has given up on human beings - he quoted Hardy's famous words "after 2,000 years of mass we've got as far as mustard gas".  God now has a mission to the squirrels.  And the Reds are his chosen race.

Marston says that the invasion of the Gray squirrels from America is a judgement on the Reds, just as the Babylonian exile was a punishment for the People of Israel.  Although Marston is curiously reticent on just what iniquities can be committed by a squirrel - he thinks it may have something to do with nibbling lumps out  of conkers.  But just as Babylon fell to the Medes and the Persians, so the Grays are in their own turn being chastised for the iniquity of chasing out the Reds, under the thrall of the new Mutant Killer Black Squirrels.
Marston wants to preach the Good News to the Red Squirrels, telling them to turn from their iniquities and be saved.  He wants to tell them there's a place where the Squirrel and the Fox will lay down together, and their winter stashes of nuts will never be lost.  But he's rather stymied by his inability to learn the Squirrel language. Although he reckons that all squirrels speak the same language - as they have never attempted to build a giant drey that reaches up to heaven - the Grays and Blacks have an American accent.  But lacking anyone who is bilingual in English and Squirrel, he's in for a long haul here.

I hope the effect of the mushrooms wears off soon.  But not too soon.  He's currently coming in really handy for retrieving all the footballs and kites we've got stuck in the trees over the last few summer picnics.   And I'm hoping he may be able to nip up a drainpipe and clear out the guttering for us.

Quantum Phone Danger

Intrigued by this from the BBC about using Quantum effects to make phones scroll more intelligently. 
Here at Husborne Crawley we're always in favour of finding productive uses for science.  But you've got to worry, in line with the principle of improbability, that if you press the wrong button, your underwear could be teleported three feet to the right.  I feel the phones' manufacturers should publish a disclaimer to say that if this happens you've no-one to blame but Paul Dirac.  And stay away from really hot cups of tea while using them.
I mean, imagine the newspaper headlines.  We get enough health scares as it is, without the papers coming out with "Quantum Phone half-killed my cat".

Of Quarks and Berks

Young Keith has been taking a great interest in the aims and problems of the Large Hadron Collider.  His comment that the scientists concerned obviously just aren't very practical led to a great deal of shouting around the place, and he's now gone off and built his very own "Big Bang Machine".

At first glance the Large Bozo Collider looks like two giant catapults set at approximate right angles.  Late at night when he can find willing volunteers walking back from the White Horse, Keith loads up the catapults with a Beaker Person each, and fires them across one another's path at high speeds.  Keith believes that when two Large Bozos travelling at near-relativistic speeds crash at 90 degrees, there is a chance that what will result is what is known as the "Huge Bozo".  It took some fine tuning.  Early on Keith took no account of the different inertias of differently-sized Bozos, resulting in some people landing up in the pond while Luna's progress across the Meadow was only stopped by a barbed-wire fence.  But Young Keith now reckons he has a 100% hit rate.  

So far, you will not be surprised to hear, no Huge Bozo has been observed.  Keith has come up with a number of possible explanations for this - these include:

• God is stopping the Large Bozo Collider from working until he is ready to reveal the secrets of the universe.
  
• The Large Bozo Collider is sabotaging itself from the future.  The Huge Bozo would be a particle so abhorrent to nature that even the Westboro Baptist Church wouldn't let it be a  member.  Therefore the space-time continuum itself intervenes to stop the device working.
  
• The Bozos are not reaching the speeds necessary for the quantum effects to kick in.  So he needs to buy some stronger elastic.
• The Bozos aren't large enough, and he has in fact only built a medium-sized Moron collider.

Whatever the reason for Keith's failures, the fact is we now have a number of bruised Beaker Folk wandering around the community.  Please can you all ensure you wear proper safety equipment when being loaded into the Large Bozo Collider.  In the event of the world coming to an end, it may save you from a nasty bump on the head.