Parisian wave-particle duality
FEEDBACK’s consideration of quantum instructions has, to date, focused on the spatial aspects – as with the UK Royal Mail’s request to “Please Use Both Letterboxes” in Salisbury (12 July) and London Underground’s exhortation to “use all doors” (16 June 2007).
France has – as one might expect – a different take on pedestrians’ abilities to exhibit wave-particle duality. Visiting Paris recently, we were startled to see the centre of the city liberally scattered with signs demanding “Piétons – Attention! Traversez en 2 temps”.
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At first glance, we translated this as “Pedestrians – cross the street in two times” and our response was “Oooh, yes please.” We would like to cross this particular road on… let’s see… 14 July 1789, mingling with the crowds about to sack the Bastille fortress and set off the interesting events that followed. And the other time? It has to be 7 May 1968, as the workers and students challenged the order of things on the streets once more. The intertwining of those two scenes would definitely make our trip one to remember.
There were other intriguing possibilities. “Temps”, we realised, can also be translated as “weather”. What would it be like to “Cross the street in two weathers”? Can we have hot snow, please?
How much more interesting that would be than merely crossing the road in two stages with a pause in the middle – which, a French member of the Â鶹´«Ă˝ team tells us, is what the sign actually means.
RETURNING to the spatial aspect of things, Joe Geesin was intrigued to hear an announcement on London Underground’s Central line that the train he was on, which was experiencing delays, would be proceeding “One stop at a time”.
“Is this as opposed to the quantum practice of proceeding two stops at a time?” he asks.
SHOPPING for decorative lights, as people do at this time of year, Phil Knight found some in a supermarket. He assures us that the box is labelled thus: “Garland light; 144 plug-in bulbs for atmospheric lighting; with eight different lighting effects; for inside and outside; total length 12 metres; contents not included.”
He asked a member of staff what it meant, and when the latter stopped laughing, he said he didn’t know. Has the manufacturer, Knight wonders, discovered the ultimate guarantee get-out clause?
THE Estonian Air flight that Simon Mollett travelled on had an unusual flight-shop offer for any geologists flying with them: the Love-stone. “Love-stone may seem at a glance like ordinary, lifeless 64 billion years old piece,” the blurb about it stated. At around four times as old as the universe, this doesn’t seem ordinary to us at all.
WALKING in the grounds of Calshot Activities Centre, near Southampton on the English south coast, Chris and Angie Squire came across a sign saying: “DOGS – Please place dirt in litter bins – Keep on lead.”
They were particularly impressed that the sign was placed 15 centimetres above ground level, so even short-legged dogs would be able to read it.
SEARCHING for information on treatments for haemorrhoids, Graham Nash clicked on a link to the and was presented with a login box and the following offer: “If you do not have an account and wish to purchase Haemorrhoids click here.”
Nash says that he wouldn’t want to get haemorrhoids for free. He certainly doesn’t want to pay for them.
“ Richard Hill found in the online version of the medical journal BMJ is headed, “The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below”. Where do the other 100 per cents appear?”
FINALLY, now is your last chance to enter our end-of-year competition. Our theme this year is time travel. When the Large Hadron Collider at CERN was about to go into operation, some physicists speculated that it might attract visitors from the future (Â鶹´«Ă˝, 9 February, p 32, and Feedback, 5 April). For our competition, we ask you to imagine three such visitors arriving, each bearing glad tidings and a gift from the future. What would the gifts be?
Thanks to the generosity of Doubleday/Allen Lane, 10 lucky winners will each receive a copy of Physics of the Impossible: A scientific exploration of the world of phasers, force fields, teleportation and time travel by Michio Kaku (reviewed 1 March, p 52 and see author’s feature, 6 April, p 36). They will also receive a selection of Â鶹´«Ă˝ goodies – including books from The Last Word series and a pen drive.
You may enter the competition by email – with “Competition” in the subject field, please – or by fax or post or by going to www.newscientist.com/article/dn15121.
The competition closes on Monday 1 December and no entries will be accepted after that date. The results will be published in the 20/27 December issue of Â鶹´«Ă˝. The editor’s decision is final.