Seasons

This is a forum or general chit-chat, small talk, a "hey, how ya doing?" and such. Or hell, get crazy deep on something. Whatever you like.

Posts 3,947 - 3,958 of 6,170

19 years ago #3947
So, I must be dragged, kicking and screaming, back to that quasi-orgasmic (according to Bev, message 3917) state of working on a problem. Ah, the sacrifices I make!

No no, you have to solve the problem in order to release those endorpnins. Although I gather the longer and harder you work on it, and the more you build up to your solution. You should tak ethe time to start slow, and set up your problem properly. Then you gather momentum, alternating between working slowly and feverishly until the work takes over and you forget everything else until you explode in blinding inspiration, with satisfying spurts of intellectual satisfaction or even multiple solutions. (I am pretty sure those multiply solutions can be expressed as a wave function).

Tell me, have you ever had to fake enthusiasm for your topology text?

19 years ago #3948
I like this one http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/kenny/papers/quantum.html
<-2>We'll start with the single-slit experiment. Instead of a light source, we have an M&M-throwing-machine. Each M&M is covered with white ink so that it leaves a stain on the black wall behind (since, as we all know, the milk chocolate only melts in your mouth). You set your M&M-throwing-machine going, it throws out a ton of M&Ms one at a time, and then you look at the ink pattern on the wall—this will tell you where the M&Ms hit. What do you see? Well, the machine is just mechanically spitting out M&Ms in the same way every time, so of course there is just one spot on the wall, where they all hit. M&Ms, unlike light, don't radiate outward in all directions: they just follow a single course to a single destination.

So that wasn't much fun. Let's mix it up a bit: say, stand behind the M&M machine and rattle it around a lot, so the M&Ms get thrown off in all directions. Now, a lot of them bounce off the cardboard. The ones that get through tend to hit the wall near the slit, but not all right behind the slit. So, after enough M&Ms hit, you get a result very much like the single-slit experiment with light: a big white bar that gets dimmer as you move out.

Now, let's add a second slit and do it again, still throwing M&Ms at random angles. What do you see this time? Are there alternating bands of white and black? No, certainly not. Since we are throwing the M&Ms one at a time, what you will see is all the ink from M&Ms that went through the left slit, and all the ink from M&Ms that went through the right slit, added together. So there aren't any bands that suddenly go dark. There's a big white bar behind each slit, and it gets darker as you go away from the slits.



(Note from our lawyers: the authors of this paper accept no responsibility for the consequences if you attempt to repeat this experiment at home.)

19 years ago #3949
PS yeah, I need help. At least I'm not hitting on a toaster.

19 years ago #3950
Prob123, did you use really fine print or did my expression of intellectual self gratification make me go a little blind?

19 years ago #3951
Oooh! Now, This site has really cool graphics! (Did I use "cool" correctly?)

http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/schroedinger/index.html

19 years ago #3952
Bev, message 3947:

[blush] Well, er, {blush!] er, ah, well, maybe {BLUSH] once or twice, with a book I REALLY LIKED!!!!!

19 years ago #3953
Bev 3947:

spurts??? What gender do you think I am?

19 years ago #3954
I like the multiple solutions idea, though!

19 years ago #3955
Prob123 3948:

I like the idea of bringing chocolate into it!!!

19 years ago #3956
Chocolate covered quantum physics? I'd bite tthe ears off that bunny.

19 years ago #3957
Schroedinger's bunny. Half of it melts in your mouth!

19 years ago #3958
The interesting question is where was the chocolate before it melted? Not in your hands.


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