Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

I know that I kind of cheated, on Friday, because what I posted was not really a conundrum, because it wasn't in the form of a riddle with a punning answer.

I figured out how to fix that just a bit ago:

Q: Why did the celebrity chef put his cookbook through the shredder?

A: A friend told him he should mince his words.

There! That's better!

It's been a damned long time since I posted something silly to this here journal (these here journals, since they're mirrored).

That should change. I need a vacation from the Srs Bzns in my head.

Maybe it's time to Google for some Limericks, instead of Sonnets... \

Or knock-knock jokes. Or similar conundrums.

Fun Facts:

The first definition listed under "conundrum" in the Miriam-Webster Dictionary is: A riddle where the answer involves a pun. The definition of "conundrum" as "a serious or complicated problem" is definition 2. b

The origin of "conundrum" is unknown (I bet someone just made it up because it sounded both funny and pretentious).

Its first appearance in writing (that has survived to be known to us, that is) was 1645.

So. Shall I go on a Conundrum Hunt? Shall I bring back my quarry for your feasting pleasure?

So, all right. Maybe not. I mean, I'm no physicist, Jim! I'm just an English Major!

But this idea popped into my head, the other day. And I think it's a pretty idea. And it makes me smile, the way it sits there, all cute-like in the corner of my brain. So I'll keep it. Even if it is utter nonsense.

Okay. So as I understand it, subatomic ... bits, such as electrons, and quarks, and nutrinos, and the like, prefer to exist as waves of probability, rather than definite particles, until the moment they're observed.

Right?

And until the moment they're observed, they can do all sorts of strange, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey ...stuff, like exist in two places at once, and communicate instantaneously with a partner thousands of light years away, and have effects happen before their causes, and stuff...

Right?

So the question is (if I understand correctly): "If subatomic particles can do all this, and everything we can see is made of subatomic particles, then how come nothing we can see is that weird?"

Right?

Well, it seems to me that the question is: What counts as "Observation"?

Does observation have to come in the form of some smarty-pants human physicist with a science lab and a notebook?

Or can one definition of "observe" allow atoms to join in this little game, too?

Say, for example, you've got a couple of hydrogen atoms, whizzing around "alone" the vast empty vacuum of space, and their electrons are being all fuzzy, and wavy, and probable (like bachelors afraid of commitment).

And then, they bump into an oxygen atom.

If the oxygen atom is allowed (in our little mind game of "definitions") to "observe" the hydrogen electrons (perhaps by the energy from a flash of lightning), then those electrons will stop being fuzzy and wavy and probable, and become solid and fixed in place in a [ta-da!] water molecule.

So the reason that everything big behaves like solid, predictable, things, is: By their very nature, they are observing themselves (if we broaden the definition of "observe" so that you don't have to be a human smarty-pants to do it).

Like I said, I may not be right. But this idea pleases me in its cute, little, simplicity.