Tuesday August 10, 2004

Having tea with Stephen Hawking...

I got a comment on my last entry that I thought was interesting thought fodder:

Perhaps it is time to consult a professional. Stephen Hawking comes to mind. You know, that whole 'tea cup falling up' thing. This problem you are having with time may only be a symptom of something far more serious. Be careful. Watch behind you. Entropy may not be heading you face on any more. Ellis

I bent and twisted this around in my head on my way home. Ok, there was other stuff in there as well; you may see some of it sticking to this clever point as I go. I'm not entirely certain that I understand Ellis' point, but I will bravely give it a go.

This has to be the first time that someone has suggested that I consult a professional, referring to the esteemed Stephen Hawking. I read his book A Brief History of Time when it first came out. What a fantastic network of neurons that man has developed. Stephen probably wouldn't waste a cranial wrinkle talking to the likes of me about my issues. Though I'm sure he is a very gracious person, indeed.

The tea cup thought exercise is in the book. Bear with me - I haven't read the book in a while, and I can't find my copy now. Essentially he is saying that, while extremely unlikely, it is still possible that a tea cup that has fallen and broken onto the floor could come back together and jump back onto the table. Honestly, I don't remember if his broke or not, and I think that makes a big difference. An interesting thought. One I might have noodled with perhaps even without his Stephen Hawking's mental guidance. If I remember the argument, it started with air molecules in a container and the fact that they are always moving about. Similarly to the tea cup, it is extremely unlikely, but possible to find all of the molecules in the same side of the container.

Here is my array of simple thoughts and questions on the matter. Hint: Set your expectations low here. I was just talking about Stephen Hawking's work, and this is going to be a fairly abrupt transition into my head.

1. I can't even get super glue to work. "How did you glue your hands together?", I have heard numerous times before... "How's my tea cup?", I almost always reply.
   I don't think I could seriously apply this to a tea cup, though the air molecule thing is really interesting. Don't the molecules in tea cups move substantially slower than air molecules? It's hard for me to tell because I can't hardly see them.
2. If the tea ended up back in the unbroken tea cup, sitting on the top of the table it was knocked off of, does the 5 second rule apply? Do you drink the tea?
3. I'm guessing you should drink the tea. At least you know where it has been. Consider yourself walking into a room to find a cup of tea waiting for you on a table. You know it was prepared for you, but it was unsupervised for a short time. Do you really know that it hasn't gone through such an event?
4. When you are done with the tea, do you wash the cup in the dishwasher? Or by hand? The dishwasher might break it, you know...
   Personally, I would take great care of it. I wouldn't use it again until I had an entire set of such marvelous tea cups. They wouldn't have to match, except in their experience of having been completely shattered and then jumped back onto the table with all of the pieces landing such that the cup was fully intact.
   At that point, I would invite people over and have an extraordinary tea party. "Careful with that, it has been through a lot and is very special to me" would be my constant refrain that evening...

If I have caught Ellis' point with no distortion, I think the message is that (based on my last entry) I might now be experiencing time in such a way that these occurrences may be more likely. I feel more prepared now, having put some thought into it. I will be watching tea cups more closely for a while. A few of you may find yourselves having an interesting tea party with me and Stephen Hawking some day soon...