The Biggest Day of This Photon’s Life

Prologue

This story deals with a seeming paradox in the world of quantum physics. That is, that light can be proven to be both a particle and a wave, depending on how you look at it. It stems from theories and experiments from the mid-twentieth century; Einstein and all that.

Story

It was the big day for this photon – there he sits, snugly, in the particle accelerator, waiting for the green light.

For months he has been preparing for this moment; hanging out with the larger electrons, learning ow they came to be as big as they are, while he was still barely a nucleus.

To the mesons and bosons he had spoken, whilst they raced along backwards and forwards, (and sometimes both!). From them he learned the order of things, the ‘elimentariness’ of the world.

And now he was ready, sitting there, waiting for the electromagnets to warm up. Soon he would be journeying, at the speed of light, towards the most important event of his life!

Soon it came – the hum in the background, the green light came on – he was off! Out through the barrel of the gun he went, out into the unknown, out into the world!

And there it was – the famous dark screen that his contemporaries had whispered about. ‘Be careful,’ they had said, ‘for a choice awaits you there. Beware of That Which Watches.’

Onwards he hurtled, and then he saw them – two there were, many many orders of magnitude larger than himself – looming, gaping holes in the screen. He knew his purpose then, he knew what he was here to do. He braced himself,preparing for that most sacred act that a photon can perform.

He concentrated and, slowly but surely, as he sped along, his whole being stretched, blurred, smoothed and spread. He was going for it! He was now truly a wave, spreading though the ether, a movement of energy, not of particles; propagating himself towards the voids in the screen.

But wait! What is this? As he approaches the screen he can see, concealed behind each hole – particle detectors!

‘Oh no!’ he thought – ‘if That Which Watches’ is expecting a particle, how will It notice me, if am but a wave?’ Losing his concentration completely, the photon collapses back into a single particle, and just scrapes through one of the holes in the screen…

And there he is picked up by one of the detectors, like an all-seeing orb, as passes on to the sensitive plate beyond.

the photon hits this new plate and comes to rest, the agony of the journey and the energy expended in collapsing from wave to particle finally spent, all remaining of him a single spot on a photographic plate.

Epilogue

In another world a human being looks up from a small photographic plate and turns to another human, saying ‘You see, Albert, I told you light was a particle…’

Thanks to Sarah de Nordwall and the Scanners crew for inspiration and support.

Disclaimer: I know the physics isn’t bang on; it’s just a story x

No Adverts!

In exchange for something we want, we will agree to look at a certain quantity of advertising.

This is understood as a form of exchange – you give me free email, I get adverts down the side of the page. There are many examples of this.

But what are we exchanging? Our attention? The use of some part of our brain, connected to the visual cortex? Whatever it is, advertisers hope that it is more or less directly connected to an impulse to follow the advert, eventually allowing someone to connect to our bank accounts.

Many people don’t click through or, if asked, wouldn’t say that they even look at the adverts. However, they are still there, pulling on your attention, at the edge of your vision.

There’s a big question here:

Is the source of this attention finite or infinite? If infinite, then we are getting a good exchange. But, if it is finite, or somehow degradable, we may not realise the consequences of such transactions – until it is too late…

[cue ominous roll of thunder and flash of lightning, briefly illuminating your fear-filled face]

Cheers,

Philip

Shit! Lets talk about money…

Okay, its come to the point where i want to work with someone on helping them develop their idea. We both want to work together, and agree that the venture should be profitable to both of us, in equal measure to what he has brought to the project.

Problem is- how the hell do we decide what this actually means!!

It’s easy, if i just help him develop a prototype and hand it over – then i should just charge an hourly rate; the more complex the prototype the longer it takes, the more it costs. Simple.

however, what if i want to offer more than that, if i want to offer my design and development expertise, or my opinions on directions in marketing the product, or introduce him to specific people i have in mind who can lend a hand? This doesn;t fit with the hourly rate…

It all comes down to risk, and how much i am prepared to gamble on this guys idea…

I need some professional advice, and quick!

PS: Do not contact me offering services of a business nature – i am well served in that department, and this post should in no way be construed as a request for a barrage of emails from ‘invention’ companies, venture capitalists from Peru or anything else.

cheers,

Philip

hooray for the post!

A nice thing happened this morning – i recieved the design registration for a little toy of mine!

Always nice to get a certificate through the post

You can see the game in this video:

Now i just have to decide what to do with it!

Begining to Start to Think

Okay, so i don’t feel ‘like’ other inventors. There are websites. there are clubs. but they don’t feel right.

The world, IMHO, does not need more electric carving knives or rotary toothbrushes. How about products that help people learn or, better yet, help people want to learn? I came up with an idea a while back for a bookmark that will help people doing research – books, dissertations etc. That felt right, or at least along the right lines.

Somehow i want to help people open up their lives a little bit, engage with the scary, uncomfortable but real world. Where i am at the moment it seems like that means less products, not more.

I feel like a politician proposing the dissolution of all governments. And thats not going to be an extremely popular idea. In fact, its scary and uncomfortable.

Play is another thing. Not idle play that is just a distraction, but real play that is inspiring and full of wonder. That, i guess, is why i came up with the marble game.

Learning is the same – not consuming factoids at an ever-increasing rate, but real, inspiring, wonderful learning that helps you look at the world in new and unexpected ways.

I’m not sure what this all adds up to yet, but the direction feels right. As long as i can stay away from this being simply an artistic or aesthetic concept. If i can put this into practice, then that will feel right, to me.

Cheers,

Philip

PS: If, for some reason, you do not have full motor control of your arm or wrist, as many people do not, then electric carving knives are a good, helpful product. Thing is; for what proportion of electric carving knife owners is this the case?

A Cup-of-Tea Kind of Day

It’s been a cup-of-tea kind of day. One cup after another. Check emails. Nothing. Check Twitter. Not interested. Search the web. Too slow.

I’m slowly looking back to me in my early twenties, and I want what he had. young, dumb and full of cum. A flexible mind that went everywhere. Could think itself round corners and slide laterally to come up with solutions to problems that could be recognised as worthy by the majority of the western world.

~But the world knows he wasn’t perfect. Too fickle, not confident. No discipline. Nothing ever came of those ideas, of course, although we’ve seen some of them come to market recently. nothing came of it because there was o belief, no recognition that ‘this could work’, that people might welcome these things into their lives.

So what my life needs is the flexibility of thought that ‘he’ had, with everything that I’ve learnt since added on. I’ve seen many amazing things and met so many interesting people. I’ve learnt more about myself than i thought possible.

It’s possible that the two can’t be linked – that my knowledge and habits now preclude that flexibility of mind that i’m looking for. But i’ll look none the less.

In the meantime it’s looks like i’m going to put the kettle on again. i really like sitting in the garden with my oversized mug and the cat playing at my feet. time to breathe. Time for a really good cup of tea.

” I haven’t met anyone who regretted following their dreams”

I’ve just finished watching John’s interview with Tom Hodgkinson. Tom wrote How to Be Free which a friend bought me for christmas.

his book, i can confidently say, is what started me on the road to being where i am now. Ten months later i have given up my job as a school teacher and jumped feet-first into self employment.

Tom, in the interview, is absolutely right when he says that noone regrets going after their dreams. Even if this inventor lark doesn’t work out financially or whatever, it will still have been orth it. Just to know that it was something that i could do, and that i did it, gives a lovely warm feeling that would make office-drones puke.

Shortly after reading it i got help, from John, in the form of support and encouragement. John says that the ideal is to play all day and get paid. (one out of two so far, John!)

I got on to John through the ideas of Barbara Sher, who says that its okay to be intereseted in lots of different things, not just one thing. Halleluliah!

Its still early days, but at least im enjoying it

So thanks to everyone who’s influenced me a long the way, and to everyone who i’ve yet meet!

Cheers,

 

Philip

A Universe Lies Therein…

Universe in a sugar cube

If I understand this correctly…

 

Planks constant indicates that objects on the level of the quantum world are something like 10^-27 grams in mass.

 

To get a better idea of how mini that is, if you take something that is 10²⁷ cm in lenght it will take a billion billion billion of them to measure 1cm. That’s a lot of quantum thingies, for very little distance.

 

A sugar cube is about a centimeter across.

 

Taking things the other way, if we line up 10²⁷sugar cubes, how far will they reach?

 

Well, John Gribbin, in his 1995 book Schrodinger’s Kittens, explains it like this:

 

“The stanard unit of length measurement in astronomy, the distance light can travel in one year(one light year) is about 10¹⁸ cm; so 10²⁷ sugar cubes side by side would stretch across a distance of a billion (10⁹) light years. The most distant objects kown in the universe, some quasars, are about 10 billion light years away. so 10²⁷ sugar cubes would stretch one tenth of the way to the most distant known quasar.”

 

 Reading this blew my mind. It seems that the humble sugar cube serves as not only analogy for the tinyness of the world of quantum physics, but also for the enormity of the world of classical physics.

Nice idea, but no.

Would you buy this?

So many products, so little time!

Okay, there’s plenty of products out there, many of them good, wholesome products that will really change your life.

SO WTF ARE THEY DOING LOOKING LIKE THIS??!!

Time and again i’ve seen the products that can actually make your life better (i have no idea whether i’m endorsing this product or not), but the execution is so off-key that it alienates the people who really want to use it.

I can see this product delivered, internet order only, in a brown paper bag with the label ‘gift item’ to throw off any nosey neighbours who might catch you actually taking delivery of this heinous product.

There are a couple of things about this product that get me:

• What does it support, apart from kidney failure?

• In this, the twenty-first century, is there really room for products that have no relevance to how people feel and act? Okay, ‘does-what-it-says-on-the-tin,’ but who wants to wear that thing?

This is the opposite of inclusive design – it says ‘if you wear me, people will point at you and laugh, knowing that they are fundamentally better human beings than you are.’

I’m sorry, but that is just not acceptable.

Let the inventors of the world unite to bring people more beneficial products that they will be PROUD  to wear. Even in public!

Fun might do it!

Change the world, make things fun! Sorry that this is viral, but they do have a point.

Cheers,

Philip