Incidentally

If you find the previous post here absurd, you can take comfort in knowing that your thinking is in concert with the finest scientific minds in my acquaintance.  A while back I told the story of the guy in the restaurant and about Big Loser to a physicist I have a lot of respect for.  His response was something stronger than a scoff.

“Hell,” he sputtered, “Do you honestly believe that if that was happening it would have been discovered by some dipstick in Kalamazoo or somewhere, instead of by a grad student at MIT?  They have the software and the hardware, and they have the intellects.  If something of that sort was possible they’d be getting rich and bragging about it to one another.

“Some yokel isn’t going to discover something that passes the notice of the mathematicians and physicists all over the world.”

So, you can be sure you’re own reasons for thinking it ain’t so are backed up by some other good thinkers.

On the other hand, I sort of like the idea of some yokel in Kalamazoo or somewhere putting one over on the physicists and mathematicians.  I also take some comfort in knowing it wasn’t long ago when Quantum was a word that had no meaning among those people.  Still doesn’t for a lot of them.

Jack