Reply to: Science in Secondary Schools

[Zippy]

ok.
are you still there ?

No. I'm hiding behind the sofa like I do when the Jehovah's Witnesses come round

[Menelaus]

Why not just butter the cats back to produce a perpetual motion machine just before it hits the ground? Won't need to worry about whether it's alive, dead or a probability thingy then anyway.

Good idea. Wrap copper wire around it and attach a couple of magnets - you'd be able to generate a small electrical current

[NotAllThere]

... a third state...

Bloody Furious

[ASB]

Why not just butter the cats back to produce a perpetual motion machine just before it hits the ground? Won't need to worry about whether it's alive, dead or a probability thingy then anyway.

[Menelaus]

So the cat is either dead or not dead... which is it?

Neither - that's the point of the experiment; it's in a third state, hence cat-as-waveform

[Menelaus]

We made a rail gun in physics.

PK & I nearly made TNT in A level Chemistry but we got stopped about ten minutes from finishing. There's nothing like boiling concentrated nitric acid fumes corroding a rubber bung to attract a Chemistry teacher's attention...

... except a reputation.

Sweet! I was tulip at chemistry, I'm afraid - hence getting an E (and I don't mean the street parlance for MDMA either, more's the pity)

[BrowneIssue]

If you'd paid attention in Physics you'd have learned how to make really really big explosives.

We made a rail gun in physics.

PK & I nearly made TNT in A level Chemistry but we got stopped about ten minutes from finishing. There's nothing like boiling concentrated nitric acid fumes corroding a rubber bung to attract a Chemistry teacher's attention...

... except a reputation.

[Menelaus]

Damn! You had to ask the question. Now the uncertainty has collapsed.

He might have been, had you not asked.

ah, cat as waveform

[NotAllThere]

...Chemistry taught me the basics of making explosives...and Physics, erm, sleeping.

If you'd paid attention in Physics you'd have learned how to make really really big explosives.

[BrowneIssue]

Is Shrodinger coming into this soon?

Damn! You had to ask the question. Now the uncertainty has collapsed.

He might have been, had you not asked.

[Menelaus]

He joined the Armed Forces. So, yes, I suppose.

Oi! Not all service personnel are psychopaths.

Some of us left the services well-adjusted. Now, excuse me whilst I have this session of sitting in the corner with my nervous twitch.

[BrowneIssue]

Did he grow up to be a psychopath?

He joined the Armed Forces. So, yes, I suppose.

[EternalOptimist]

Is Shrodinger coming into this soon?

damn that lizard. trumped me again

[expat]

If you drop a cat or a guinea pig from the fifth floor it probably won’t die as it’s terminal velocity is much lower than that of a human and insufficient to kill it as long as it lands on its legs. It may well have sore legs for a while though, and I’m not suggesting people throw cats or guinea pigs out of windows. Save that treatment for uppity project managers and agents.

You can drop a mouse down a thirty-yard mine shaft, and on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away - a rat is killed, a man broken, and a horse splashes.

-- JBS Haldane

[Pogle]

When I was ickle, my big bruvva showed me the correct way to throw a cat.

You pick it up one handed with your hand under its ribcage / tummy. Then lift your arm very fast and at the last moment pull your hand back (with fingers bent) so as to get the cat spinning fast.

The cat will stick its legs out rigidly in an attempt to do something when it lands. That's the amusing bit. This ensures that when the spinning cat hits the ground, it won't be getting up in a rush. Not with a maximum of three functional legs, anyway. That's the non-amusing bit.

NB: I only attended the lecture; I have never attempted to reproduce the experiment.

Did he grow up to be a psychopath?