[289] in Humor
HUMOR: Car Keys and Quantum Mechanics
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Wed May 25 10:28:06 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 25 May 94 10:26:06 EDT
Date: Tue, 24 May 1994 21:41:14 -0400 (EDT)
From: Steve Berczuk <berczuk@space.mit.edu>
...
From: Usenet Oracle <oracle-vote@cs.indiana.edu>
Subject: Usenet Oracularity #650-02
Selected-By: forbes@ihlpf.att.com (Scott Forbes)
The Usenet Oracle has pondered your question deeply.
Your question was:
> Most knowledgable Oracle whose germs I'm not worthy to be infected by,
>
> Where are my car keys?
And in response, thus spake the Oracle:
} Your car keys are, at once, both everywhere and nowhere.
} Unfortunately, by failing to continuously observe your car
} keys, you have allowed their quantum wave function to once
} again enter a state of indeterminate fluctuation. Your car
} keys currently exist (or don't exist) in a quantum state,
} and only by observing your car keys can you cause their wave
} function to collapse to a state of existence.
}
} Yet, you must realize, that by looking for them already, you
} may have inadvertantly caused the keys' wave function to
} collapse to a state of non-existence. The keys, then, will
} stay in this state of non-existence so long as you are
} thinking of the keys and not finding them (i.e. continuously
} observing their non-existence). To effectively find your
} keys, therefore, you must stop thinking about them and stop
} looking for them. Only when this happens will your keys
} resume their quantum mechanical fluctuations. If then you
} search for your keys and do not find them, then you
} must forget about them again and repeat the process until
} you find them.
}
} A very quick way to undertake this (rather than running
} everywhere trying to find your keys) is simply to put a box
} in the middle of your room. When you forget about your
} keys, look in the box. It is equally probable that your
} keys will pop into existence there as anywhere else. One
} drawback, however, it that the box will occasionally contain
} a cat (live or dead).
}
} I am uncertain as to what you owe the Oracle . . . either a
} vial of poison or a radioactive source.
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