BastettDec 14, 2023
Santa is a quantum being. His probabilistic nature means he can be in every house at the same time on Christmas.
This is why it's vitally important noone sees him. If he's observed the probabilities collapse and only one house gets presents.
#Christmas
Show threadTryst 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇮🇪  Dec 14, 2023
@Bastett This is the best explanation yet
Show threadBastettDec 14, 2023
@tryst Wow, that means a lot coming from you.
I expected a bunch of people replying with "well actually, quantum..."
Show threadTryst 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇮🇪  Dec 14, 2023
@Bastett I may be smart, hold a masters degree, and be one of the leading minds in my field, but I still tell people about fat electrons and spicy rocks X)
Show threadPlasmaGryphonDec 19, 2024
@tryst @Bastett I still blame experiment problems on fat electrons, especially ones that happen right after normal businesses hours when the power company flushes them out of the system. It's nice to see the junior scientists learning and potentially discovering fat neutrons too now.
Show threadTryst 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 🇮🇪  
@PlasmaGryphon @Bastett This was one of the contributing factors to the unreliability of the data collected in the Fleischmann–Pons experiments. The voltage applied to the cell was assumed, not measured, and it went up on evenings and weekends due to the grid being only lightly loaded.
Dec 19, 2024 at 5:10pmWeb
Show threadPlasmaGryphonDec 19, 2024

@tryst @Bastett these days it's more usually IT runs various scheduled tests while so much equipment communicates over Ethernet and gets weird if the network is slow. Ongoing battle between experiment groups wanting a dedicated network and IT understandably not liking when physicists administrator their own network.

But the old joke was that the fat electrons would fill up the bottom of transformers, and the power company has to flush them out every so often so transformers wouldn't clog. So they switch taps at certain times unleashing a bunch of fat electrons at the same time.