Quantum Superposition, All Over This Land

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Physics and Cake: The ‘observer with a hammer’ effect

[T]his robotic arm is so ridiculously precise that it can measure the diameter of eggs more accurately than any pair or vernier calipers, any laser-interferometer array or any other cool way of measuring eggs that has ever existed. The National Standards laboratories are intrigued.

However, there is a slight problem. Every time the robot tries to measure an egg, it breaks the darn thing. There is no way to get around this. The scientific breakthrough relating to the accuracy of the new machine comes from the fact that the robot squeezes the egg slightly. Try and change the way that the measurement is performed, and you just can’t get good results anymore. It seems that we just cannot avoid breaking the eggs. The interaction of the robot with the egg is ruining our experiment.

(This analogy is in the context of superposition, not the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle)

The Taming of the Screw

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I found myself looking for something in the basement workshop while I was home for the holidays: an adjustable slide clamp (if that’s what it’s called), so that I could hold a piece of laminate in place after I had glued it. The front of the TV table was peeling away and needed to be fixed.

I couldn’t find one. I didn’t even know if my mom owned one, but most of my dad’s hand tools are still in the workshop, so if there was one it should have been there. But the only clamps I could find were smaller C-clamps and wood clamps (the kind with two threaded rods) but nothing that would fit over the depth of the TV table. This dredged up memories of looking for tools on orders from my dad, when I had been conscripted into Saturday morning repair work, which I resented, because it ate into play time; I wasn’t getting to use any of the fun tools, so what was the point? Of course, I sucked at using those tools, even if they were the ones that were relatively safe for me to use, but at the time that was completely beside the point.

So my job was holding the flashlight and being reminded every attention-span-interval to point it at the target, and fetching the new tool that was needed when an unexpected problem arose. The trouble with this is twofold: tool taxonomy, and spooky tools. I knew the names of very few tools as an eight year-old — the difference between a regular and phillips-head screwdriver, different kinds of pliers and wrenches (why is an Allen wrench considered a wrench? It breaks the paradigm of fitting over the head of the bolt), even hammers (what the heck is a ball-peen?) were not innate knowledge, and since I wasn’t actually using them, I didn’t have a lot of motivation to learn. Even if I knew the name of it, it had the ability to cloak itself like a Romulan warbird, as if the tool were the embodiment of Lamont Cranston, able to cloud my mind so I couldn’t see it. Whatever tool I was sent to find, I simply could not see it some significant fraction of the time, but it would pop back into view once my dad approached the pegboard. The same effect persists in looking for tools in the lab, when they aren’t in their lair (if they are, I know where to look). They have a chameleon-like ability to blend in on the lab bench until you ask someone else where the widget is, at which time they turn fluorescent orange and stands out like a fluorescent orange widget.

 


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Science-Talky Stuff

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Why effective scientific communication is crucial, and sometimes lacking

Isn’t it true, she asked, that it’s better to appear ‘formal’ and intelligent in the eyes of the audience than to ensure that the audience understands clearly? I was surprised that she’d asked this, but I was more surprised that other students in the audience were either in agreement with her or silent. In fact, the point this student made was the exact opposite of the truth. The first priority is conveying an understanding of the points involved. Overly florid writing may seem more formal, but it’s also more pretentious, less clear, and much less accessible to the audience.

A reminder that what is obvious to one person is not obvious to another. If your goal is to appear smart and intimidate people with your intelligence, then talking over their heads will probably accomplish that goal. But that’s not such a great tactic if you wish to actually communicate. It shouldn’t need to be pointed out, but there you go.

The Epochal Top-Ten List

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Consequences of Having Evolved

2. Hiccups
The first air-breathing fish and amphibians extracted oxygen using gills when in the water and primitive lungs when on land—and to do so, they had to be able to close the glottis, or entryway to the lungs, when underwater. Importantly, the entryway (or glottis) to the lungs could be closed. When underwater, the animals pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down. We descendants of these animals were left with vestiges of their history, including the hiccup. In hiccupping, we use ancient muscles to quickly close the glottis while sucking in (albeit air, not water). Hiccups no longer serve a function, but they persist without causing us harm—aside from frustration and occasional embarrassment. One of the reasons it is so difficult to stop hiccupping is that the entire process is controlled by a part of our brain that evolved long before consciousness, and so try as you might, you cannot think hiccups away.

Not a Single Eff Was Given That Day

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Computer Calculates April 11 1954 Most Boring Day In History

“For fun we wrote the program and set it going. When the results came back the winner was April 11 1954 – a Sunday in the 1950’s. Nobody significant died that day, no major events apparently occurred and although a typical day in the 20th century has many notable people being born, for some reason that day had only one who might make that claim: Abdullah Atalar – a Turkish academic.”
“The irony is though, that having done the calculation, the day is interesting for being exceptionally boring, unless that is you are Abdullah Atalar!”