14-year-old poking fun at Stephen Hawking. — Page 2

lildogs - I agree with your assessment, but I also think it's a shame that an opportunity was missed to teach them a little something about life.

Prof. Hawking has (to be exact) atypical ALS. Not may people live as long with this disease as Rath pointed out.
A great book and a wonderful read by Hawking is "A Brief History of Time" This man is such a genius, that he can explain Blackholes and the Quantum Physics so that a 5th grader (and sometimes younger) can have a basic understandig!
B
BTW if I was there and your teacher, those kids would have gotten detention!

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i've wanted to pick up this book for years... maybe this is my incentive to do so... there also was a time about 15 years ago, when i bought a whole bunch of books on quantum physics, because i wanted to know what it was all about, and yes, i read everyone of them... i remember being particularly fascinated with the idea of Schroedinger's Cat... i don't remember the specifics of it right now, though...

Ah, Schroedinger's Cat. It's fun as long as you don't think about it too hard. :P

Basically, a cat is placed in a closed box along with a tiny piece of radioactive material. There's a geiger counter, and if it detects any radioactive decay, a hammer will hit a container of hydrochloric acid (ouch!) and kill the cat. Let's say we leave the cat in the box for an hour before opening it. The cat's life depends on whether or not an atom decays.

Like a lot of fun questions in physics, this one is about the role of the observer. Since we have such a small amount of radioactivity, the Geiger counter may or may not detect it. You don't know if the cat is alive or dead until you look. So before you open the box, is the cat alive or dead? Think about it.

Ah, quantum physics. If you want to confuse yourself, that's the field for you.
Schroedinger's Cat

Updated On: 9/17/04 at 12:40 PM

OMG!! Poor cat...

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no, the act of opening the box merely collapses the two tentative universes into one reality... whether the cat is dead or alive is determined by the radioactive decay...

How sad that people are so small minded and stupid to poke at someone with a debilitating disease. I hate people.

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At least kids have the excuse of immaturity and possible ignorance. Some adults, though, seem to do everything in their power to convince me they are wastes of oxygen.

(Can you tell I've had to deal with stupid people today?)

Thanks, guys. It's so awesome that there are people out there who have their own lives and problems, and then you can come here and deal with mine. Much love.

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