Seasons

Irina, I was kidding! There are times when I have been sensitive about the dyslexia, but usually that's just when you hit me a the wrong time. Also, in that case, I was too lazy to look up "de minimis non curate lex" instead of just typing (and Firefox hasn't got much Latin in the spell check).

Women. No sense of humor.

Camping must be easy in Scotland. I need a tent, sleeping bag, swiss army knife, basic foods and other items when I venture out. Yes, I also make room in the pack for chocolate. Ruffing it is no reason to be uncivilized.

Well, I'm in Wales, but all I'd pack extra for Scotland would be midge repellant. Yes - tent, sleeping bag, folding bed, selection of tools, fishing gear, plenty of food, a selection of beverages, stove, a few extra cans of fuel, pots and pan, laptop, solar panels... still less than my wife can cram in her handbag
Actually I work on the principle that if it won't fit in my pockets, I'm not taking it.
No one forces women to wear impractical clothes with no pockets, and who actually needs 6 lipsticks (including 2 empty ones,) a bottle of mineral water, half a stale flapjack and 2 mirrors just to go and post a letter anyway?

The few male friends I have who have bought into the whole "man bag" thing, still manage to cope with a dainty little bag on a strap, like a camera case. Not a great belt-handled, leather tardis.

"No one forces women to wear impractical clothes with no pockets"

The manufacturers of women's clothing very nearly do. Will someone please explain to me the point of "ornamental pockets"? If you want an ornament, put on a ruddy ornament. If you want a pocket, put in a pocket!

Which is why I often buy men's clothing. It is generally (1) made better, (2) more functional, (3) longer-lasting and (4) cheaper. Hmmm... does that make me a transvestite?

Not at all. I always buy guys pants lol. I got tired of the skin tight little jeans with no pockets or belt loops. They piss me off lol.

Psimagus:

What, did we actually find a shred of agreement, there? What's happening to us? Where did we go wrong?

A wave is often defined in Physics as a "self-propagating distubance," so if Psi is a wave in that sense, it surely propagates in that sense. But I have the feeling that you are using the word "propagates" in a different sense, in which case our disagreement may be only verbal.
Let's suppose you point a light source at a screen and then put a doubly-slit barrier between them. You press the "on" button and out comes Psi in the form of a wave. The wave moves from the flashlight to the barrier. Some of the wave then goes through the slits, spreads out on the other side, interferes with itself, and arrives at the screen. That is all I mean by "propagating": it moves. It goes from source to target.
I am in complete agreement that Psi is, in general, continuous.

Very well, if we're agreed that it's the electromagnetic wave, not the probability wave, that propagates
Given the high likelihood of misunderstanding, I'm trying to speak very precisely here, so I have to say that there is no such thing as a probability wave. So I agree that the sentence, "The probability wave propagates." is false. As for the electromagnetic wave according to Classical Physics, Quantum Mechanics says (again, speaking precisely) that there is no such thing. As I said, Quantum Mechanics claims to supercede Classical Physics; it says that Classical Physics is wrong. So that wave doesn't exist either, according to QM.

The wave that is characteristic of the quantum-mechanical view of the world is Psi. It is Psi that propagates. Psi is not a probability wave, nor is it a Classical electromagnetic wave.

As to the nature of quantum tunneling, I refer you to the Wikipedia article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunneling

with the reservation that the article puts, IMHO, too little emphasis on the fact that the everyday notion of tunneling is only being used metaphorically.

Relative to our discussion, the crux of the matter is that a quantum 'particle' can get from A to B, even though there is, between A and B, a region C in which the 'particle' cannot exist. It's not that the particle goes around the obstacle, and it's not that it makes a hole in it - it simply disappears from A and reappears at B, leaving C undisturbed. A particle could be inside an unbroken spherical shell, the shell being such that the particle cannot coexist with it, and yet appear outside the shell, without making a hole in the shell (as the everyday meaning of "tunneling" would seem to imply). This would be impossible if, like a classical or common-sense particle, the quantum 'particle' were to travel a continuous path from A to B. The postulates of Quantum Mechanics imply that such tunneling is possible. In fact, the particle is able to make a 'quantum leap' from one side of the barrier to the other, without ever being in any part of the barrier. The thicker the barrier becomes, the more improbable it is that this will happen, but it is nevertheless possible.
Hence, Quantum Mechanics allows that quantum 'particles' need not always follow continuous (unbroken) paths.

Dear Bev:

I am so glad to hear that you were not really hurt by my remarks! Are you really dyslexic, or was that just a manner of speaking?

Irina, really I am more dysgraphic, but it's neurological. When I was in grade school I was the only diagnosed dyslexic reading several grades levels above my grade. Nowdays they would call it a "learning disability," which would probably have kept me out of the advanced/gifted programs, so I am glad we used old labels. Many people with "learning disabilities" have normal or above average IQ scores (that part of how they identify the LD students) but I still think the term is misleading.

I don't think it's a learning issue so much as an encoding/decoding issue. I comprehend, I just can't get the letters out right. I'll flip sounds and numbers too. I've tried a few programs (and spent many afternoons copying words I misspelled 100 times) but I still flip things and don't always put out what is in my head. The flip side (the part that is my fault) is at some point I stopped caring and think "I'm just not going to be able to type, spell or proofread so I'll focus on other things". It kind of works. You should see th difference between my scores on tests like the Miller Analogy or the LSAT and IQ tests that include a section where you have to mentally flip a picture around in your head. If there is an IQ test that has a section on copying things exactly or doing what you are told, I'll be in the low 80's :-).

Psimgus--you know, for some reason I thought you were Scottish. Maybe it was the haggis and the pipes and the Burns references. I thought Wales had lots of mining and extra LLLs and things. How did you get to be you there?

Dear Bev:

Well, I can never resist narcisistically turning a conversation to myself, so I will mention that I have been diagnosed as having ADD (I prefer to call it "EECS", which stands for "Einstein-Edison Cognitive Style"). It has been claimed that Einstein and Edison had ADD, although this is controversial. Anyway, ... Um ... What was I saying?

hee hee watch me flip this back: My sister has ADHD and was diagnoises ADD. Pills made her sit down and write clearly, but left her feeling as if her head was stuffed with cotton.

Edison probably had some sort of ADHD; Einstein is widely believed to have been dyslexic like me.

So if we spliced a clone-style child of my DNA and yours, she'd grow up to be one crazy inventive prof, and no one would ever miss her class, even if they were never sure exactly what happened when they were there.