So, we enjoyed lunch with a Mathematician/Physicist/Quantum-Mechanic the other day. Dude sat there expounding all over my dining room about how atoms drive some scientists crazy because their behavior is totally unpredictable. Like, when you look right at one it behaves as a wave. But when you look away, it behaves as a particle. I think. I might have that backward. I believe the idea is encapsulated in something called The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, but I'll have to go watch The Big Bang Theory to be sure.
Anyway, it's obvious that Mr. Heisenberg has kids, and that his kids have atoms. Because my little mini-me's totally do that whole Uncertainty-thing on a daily basis. In fact, I can be right in the room with them, mere inches away, and prove Mr. H's theory:
Me: "Don't touch those brownies before dinner."
Child-Atom: "Yes ma'am."
Me: (Turning my head) "Thank you."
Child-Atom: *touch*
Its no wonder scientists are smart and predicty and stuff. They have kids. Which, I think, pretty much makes me a scientist too. I can predict all kinds of things. Check it out:
— If Atom A (me) runs out of time to fix dinner and whips together a box of mac n' cheese (adding a can of chili to make it hearty), all of Atom A's little quarks will come home starving to death and demanding more than can be found in a box. If, however, Atom A (me) makes a standing rib roast, complete with a proper balance of vegetables, breads, gravy, and coconut rice pudding, the ungrateful quarks will have eaten snacks that someone else's mother-atom sent to their soccer/band/play practice, and they won't be hungry.
— If Atom A (me) rolls out of bed with her hair on sideways and her face one grease-slick away from solving the oil crisis, throws on her baggy pants and besmirched work shirt and begins thinking about scrubbing the baseboards, Atom B (a.k.a., Little Quark) will bring all of Atom B's friends over to make ice cream, passing the living room where Atom A is trying to disappear into the wall. And that one friend whose mom (Atom C) is a perfect housekeeper and never has facial oil-slicks will also be there.
— If you (Atom D) are entertaining a Mathematician/Physicist/Quantum-Mechanic for lunch, when it comes time for him to go home, one of your quarks will lead him right through your laundry room — which is in a constant state of entropy — in order to get to the garage. Despite your use of hand gestures and semaphore to keep them out.
So, Mr. Heisenberg, I have something to say to you. Based on my life's experience, your Uncertainty Principle? It ain't so uncertain.
I need to remember that whole thing about stuff changing states when you look the other direction. Aside from the kids and house, which certainly behave uncertainly exactly the way yours do, life does that to me, too. I’m looking right at it and it does XYZ, then when I look away, I could swear it’s doing ABC. Mostly this means that when something untoward happens I think ‘OMG, this is BAD’, but then if I look away I can see that it might not be bad and in fact, it might be …. good.
Oh, I like that way of looking at it! I’ll have to peek at it more and find what’s good.