Scientific American

[joggerjayne]

It's funny what odd magazine's you'll pick up when you're in a massive queue at COSTCO.

Once you get to the checkout, and you've made the magazine all ratty, you feel obliged to buy it.

So now I'm an expert on dark matter, Higgs bosun particles, America's international dependancy on indium, manganese and niobium, and the Chicago particle accelerator which was decommissioned last month.

Any questions on science ...

... I'm ya gal !!

[joggerjayne]

(sorry about that stray apostrophe in "magazines")

[seadogg]

Forgive me JJ but its boson, much as I would like it to be bosun.

[joggerjayne]

Trim ...

If you live near the CERN installation in Switzerland/France, then almost certainly.

Also, apparently the Chicago people used to fire their particles off, and they were collected somewhere else (sorry, bit wooly on the details there), so you may have uncovered a stray particle from Chicago.

I would try some Ibuprofen, but not those low dose UK ones. Buy some proper Ibuprofen on your next holiday to Spain. It will knock out an elephant and, hopefully, cure your headache.

[venator]

Why haven't the RSPCA taken any action over Schrodinger's cat?

[joggerjayne]

seadogg ...

Thank you.

I wonder why there is a capital "H" for Higgs, but no capital "B" for bosun. Sorry, I mean "boson", obviously.

[joggerjayne]

venator ...

Because it is already dead, so they'd be wasting their time.

On the other hand ... it's not dead.

Or is it ???

[seadogg]

Would have thought that colliding with a Large Hadron would be a good headache cure.

[douglas9401]

Higgs is a proper noun, boson ain't. It's like atom or molecule, too small to fit a capital on. :)

[venator]

Mr Schrodinger is causing this poor animal severe mental distress during the times when it's putatively alive. In any case, keeping it in a closed box for many years is cruel, and there is noyhing in his works regarding toilet facilities or feeding, as far as i know.

FREE SCHRODINGER'S CAT NOW !!!!!

[Prudie]

I haven't read it for a long time but it used to have really good brainteasers in it.

[seadogg]

Did you hear about the Higgs boson who walked into a chuch. The priest said "we dont allow your kind in here". "O.K". replied the H-b" but without me there can be no Mass".

[joggerjayne]

Brainteasers, prudie?

For brains other than mine, I think.

I normally grab a Grazia, or one of the numerous American gossip mags. But not this time, oh no.

[WyeDyed]

The problem with trying to free Schrodingers cat is that it is quite happy in its state of being both alive and dead at the same moment. As soon as you open the door it becomes one or the other.
So STEP AWAY FROM THE CAT!

[venator]

But how do you know it's happy, the hypothesis doesn't go as far as opening the box - this poor animal is stuck in there forever.

[joggerjayne]

How do philosophers get away with this stuff?

If I was staggering home from the club after fifteen vodkas, and blurted out ...

"The cat ... is both alive ... and dead!" ...

... would they teach that in universities?

[WyeDyed]

But as soon as you open the box you have a 50% chance of finding a dead cat which was not dead until you opened it. You wouldn't want to kill it would you?

[venator]

You have to be a foreigner with a funny accent to get anywhere in this field.

[bibblebub]

aren't your drinking habits part of national curriculum already?