Thursday, October 19, 2006
Fun in the Physics Lab
Let's play a little word association game. I will list a string of words and terms. Think of what profession might use them.
Bizarre, upside-down, mirror-image, evil-twin, strange, charm.
What comes to mind? Psychology? Science fiction writing? Management consulting?
Try quantum physics. Maybe physicists are in the middle of a massive image makeover to make them seem cool. I seem to have the missed the episode of Queer Eye for the Physics Guy. But they definitely appear to be closer to cutting edge, counter culture than pocket-protector nerd.
For example, did you know that the name of the fundemental particle quark was taken from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake? That may be the most lucid idea to come from that barely penetrable novel. Quantum physicists have also identified three sets of quark pairs. The pairs are named top-bottom, up-down and strange-charmed. I picture two guys in short haircuts wearing starched lab coats and a shaggy stoner skateboard dude in a tie-dye shirt. "Strange? Charmed? I'm cool with that. Just be careful with my board, man." Nice personality for basic building blocks of all matter!
Then earlier this year, according to a NY Times article, "Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory reported what would seem to set a new standard for vacillation last week: a subatomic particle that reverses identity three trillion times a second, switching into its upside-down mirror-image evil-twin antimatter opposite and then back again." Behavior of politicians? Indecisive women? Men who can't commit? How can one expect constancy when flip-flopping is built into your basic matter? What a long, strange trip indeed.
Haldane's Law - "The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine; it is queerer than we CAN imagine."
Bizarre, upside-down, mirror-image, evil-twin, strange, charm.
What comes to mind? Psychology? Science fiction writing? Management consulting?
Try quantum physics. Maybe physicists are in the middle of a massive image makeover to make them seem cool. I seem to have the missed the episode of Queer Eye for the Physics Guy. But they definitely appear to be closer to cutting edge, counter culture than pocket-protector nerd.
For example, did you know that the name of the fundemental particle quark was taken from James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake? That may be the most lucid idea to come from that barely penetrable novel. Quantum physicists have also identified three sets of quark pairs. The pairs are named top-bottom, up-down and strange-charmed. I picture two guys in short haircuts wearing starched lab coats and a shaggy stoner skateboard dude in a tie-dye shirt. "Strange? Charmed? I'm cool with that. Just be careful with my board, man." Nice personality for basic building blocks of all matter!
Then earlier this year, according to a NY Times article, "Physicists at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory reported what would seem to set a new standard for vacillation last week: a subatomic particle that reverses identity three trillion times a second, switching into its upside-down mirror-image evil-twin antimatter opposite and then back again." Behavior of politicians? Indecisive women? Men who can't commit? How can one expect constancy when flip-flopping is built into your basic matter? What a long, strange trip indeed.
Haldane's Law - "The Universe is not only queerer than we imagine; it is queerer than we CAN imagine."
