This is so good that I just had to pull it out of the comments into a post of its own.
A couple of posts back I cracked a modest little gag based on the idea of a children’s book called ‘The [Schrodinger’s] Cat in the Hat’s Big Book of Nuclear Physics, which I chose to illustrate with a modest shred of poetry after the fashion of Dr Seuss, to whit:
“Oh do go on, he dared, he dared.
Please tell us why E = mc squared
For surely then we’ll see, we’ll see
Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty”
A simple enough little joke, I thought, but one which motivated Pete Gray of The Curator’s Egg to respond in kind with this:
“…But in the box he chose to linger
Mouthing curses at Schrodinger
Waiting for the Geiger’s chatter
Waiting for the phial to shatter
Waits till he can’t wait no more
(For waiting’s such a dreadful Bohr)
Until at last the lid is pried –
Open and someone looks inside.
Relief! Survival! Best of men! –
But Erwin clamps it shut again.
And so the cat just lay there thinking
Tail just twitching, eyes unblinking,
“Werner says you can’t be knowing
Where I’m at AND how fast I’m going.
But I exactly know my speed
(Well, zero isn’t hard to read)
And that implies,” so thought the cat,
“Momentum’s nada – which means that
My position can’t be guessed –
There, I knew you’d be impressed –
So I don’t need to mess with locks –
It’s time to think outside the box.”
Well others here will understand
The consequences, though unplanned,
Of mixing up – that cunning devil! –
The micro with the macro level.
An hour passed. Erwin came back
And opened up the box a crack,
Then wider still and stood to stare –
The box was now completely bare!
And as he stuck his head inside
He caught a whiff of cyanide
And dropped down dead (they say it hurts –
I say it was his just deserts).”
Which, in all, is far too bloody good merely to sit in comments and well deserved of its own feature post and a nomination for Tim Worstall’s Brit Blog round up come Sunday.
Pete, you’re a genius.
UPDATE:
Pete’s now topped off his poem with an introduction, you can read the completed piece here – an absolute must visit.
Fame at last! I’ve now added an introduction and put the whole thing up on http://www.redbadge.co.uk/egg/.
Timmy Elsewhere
Short piece at the Globalization Institute. And this, at Talk Politics, is a must read. Right, back to the travel plans. Toodle Pip!