“Yes, well, it does seem to be the diversion of the moment.”<\/p>\n
“Anyway, they’ve got it all wrong. Physics theories are like my toys.”<\/p>\n
“oh, god…” I was afraid of this.<\/p>\n
![\"i-8704596a2049478c76c6a94e9cf19e31-sm_anime_cat.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/scienceblogs.com\/principles\/wp-content\/blogs.dir\/467\/files\/2012\/04\/i-8704596a2049478c76c6a94e9cf19e31-sm_anime_cat.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
“Go on, name a theory, and I’ll tell you how it’s like my toys.”<\/p>\n
“Do I have to?”<\/p>\n
“Yes! Go on, name a theory!”<\/p>\n
“Fine. Classical mechanics.”<\/p>\n
“Oh, that’s easy. Classical mechanics is like a good bone. You can chew it, and chew it, and you think it’s all used up, but then you come back, and you can still chew it some more.” She wags her tail happily at the thought. “Try another one.”<\/p>\n
“Umm… Classical electrodynamics.”<\/p>\n
“Classical electrodynamics is like my food cube<\/a>. There’s good stuff in there, but you have to work really hard to get at it. Sometimes, you have to bat it all around the room for hours<\/strong> to get the last little bits.”<\/p>\n “I guess I can buy that. God knows, I’ve felt like batting Jackson around the room for hours.”<\/p>\n “The book, or the author?”<\/p>\n “Whichever was handy. OK, how about quantum mechanics?”<\/p>\n “Quantum mechanics is an odd-shaped squeaky toy, like my anime cat, or the demon squeaky ball<\/a>. You think you know where it’s going to go, but then it takes a weird bounce, and you have to chase it some more. But when you get it, it makes all kinds of cool squeaky noises when you chew it.”<\/p>\n “That makes a certain amount of sense…”<\/p>\n “Also, if you chew the legs off, it gets easier to catch.”<\/p>\n “How do you chew the legs off quantum mechanics?”<\/p>\n “Ummm…. The WKB approximation<\/a>?”<\/p>\n “OK, we’re done, here.”<\/p>\n “But I’ve got more! Special relativity, general relativity, nonlinear dynamics…”<\/p>\n “I get it, you’re very clever. Everybody gets it.”<\/p>\n “… analytical mechanics, quantum electrodynamics…”<\/p>\n “Oh, all right. I’ll bite. What sort of dog toy is QED?”<\/p>\n “A bunny made of cheese,<\/a> silly!”<\/p>\n “Walked right into that one, didn’t I?”<\/p>\n “Yep.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “The Internet is silly!” I turn around from the computer. “Yes it is,” I say to the dog, “But what, specifically, makes you say that?” “All these posts about physics theories. Comparing them to women and men and stupid wizards, and relationships. It’s silly.” “Yes, well, it does seem to be the diversion of the… Continue reading Physical Theories Squeak When You Chew Them<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,20,7,11,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogs","category-dog","category-physics","category-science","category-silliness","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chadorzel.com\/principles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}