Advanced Principles of Quantum Physics as Demonstrated by the Mastery of Squash

It was a beautiful winter day yesterday and, flush with the vigor of a professor in the prime of his life, I decided to take a stroll through campus. Lost in a reverie about a monumental scientific discovery that I have been on the verge of making, I looked up to find myself outside of Warfield Hall. Was it by accident that Rectshaffen was teaching his Advanced Dairy Chemistry Workshop in that very same building? Or was it fate that drew me to quietly open the door and sit down in the back row?

Ah, to be a young Dean's List student once again. I sat back and mentally answered each of Rectshaffen's questions before they left his supple lips. Of course, I have always found that he teaches well below even the poor caliber of today's student and the boredom showed on the faces of the young scholars present. As I scanned the room, my attention was caught by the eyes of a stunning young Sophomore coed whom I had not encountered before on campus. In an instant I recognized that here was not a young female who would be satisfied with the gropings and fumblings of the oversexed teenagers she called her classmates. It was the (slightly) older mustachioed professor in the back row who had raised her pheromones to the point of screaming and she let me know it with an unmistakable look that said "I want you Prof. Sax." (I assume she knows my name even if I do not know hers).

Now I am INTIMATELY familiar with Sec 5.3 of the Ethics Handbook that specifies the boundaries of student/teacher sexual relationships. So I decided to romance her with my mind instead of my body (which I believe the Dean's office will never be able to outlaw try as they may).

Holding her gaze, I cleared my throat and raised my hand. Rectshaffen turned back toward the class, away from his low-fat milk curdling formula and before he could speak, I stood and deftly, mercilessly tore down the theorem he had placed on the board. The class was stunned. Here was true intellectual rigor at last! Rectshaffen feebly tried to interrupt but I was not to be deterred until I had said my peace, all the while staring into the eyes of my muse. Fifteen minutes into my manifesto, scribed by Eros, but spoken in the words of Avogadro, the class filed out and Rectshaffen approached me in a rage as if I had torn apart his latest 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle. By the look on his face, I realized that this would come to blows if we did not find some other more dignified outlet for the manly animosity simmering between us. There was no question this would have to be settled on the squash court.

Within the hour we were on the court and locked in athletic battle. Rectshaffen (ranked #245 (tied) amateur over 45y.o. in the tri county region), powered by rage defeated me (ranked #245 (tied) amateur over 45 y.o. in the tri county region) in the first three games. And that's where my comeback began, or would have, if the match had not devolved (again) into an argument over an out-of-bounds shot.

Rectshaffen hit a limp left wall backhand boast that smacked the side wall clearly out of bounds. Counted properly this would have improved my score to 4 serving 8 (an excellent position from which to mount my comeback). But Rectshaffen had the gall to challenge the out-of-bounds call, insisting the ball had landed in. Try this trick with anyone, ANYONE else in the scientific community and you might get away with it, but with the discoverer of the Saxton (the smallest particle known to science), you picked the wrong man to try to cheat Rectshaffen!

And here our quantum physics lesson for today begins.. First you need to understand something about string theory, chaos theory and squash. String Theory tells us that a ball traveling through the air moves along invisible strings that can only be seen in the sixth dimension. Like so:


In this picture, the ball is bouncing off of the front wall and must travel along one of the blue "strings" on its way back toward the viewer assuming of course the viewer is moving at less than the speed of light. This may seem counter-intuitive but science often seems this way when you're starting out, so I suggest you just believe it. So we know that any given shot only has a certain number of strings that it can possibly travel on. But which one? Well that's where chaos theory comes in. Simply put, chaos theory tells us that we cannot possibly tell where a ball bouncing off a wall will land. The ball will randomly choose a string and (barring a strong wind) will follow that string indefinitely until it hits a wall (or a racquet or an eye).

So, you are asking, Professor Sax, how can you possibly know Rectshaffen's shot was out of bounds? Well let's begin with the evidence:

1. Rectshaffen's shot left a mark on the front wall. So we know where the original bounce began.
2. From that point, though we cannot possibly know which string the ball followed on the rebound, we can map all possible strings arising from that point (there are five, or Avagodro's constant divided by 3).



I've mapped them out in the image below:
Note how every possible landing spot (gray circle) put Rectshaffen's shot OUT OF BOUNDS! It is beyond the scope of this blog to explain how these spots are determined but basically it has to do with the Saxtons in the individual strings and how they align with the magnetic field of the court. Of course, Rectshaffen is ignorant of not only string theory but has a weak grasp on chaos theory and even doubts the existence of Saxton's! So the argument was moot after 45 minutes and I stormed back to my house more convinced than ever of the need for our university to be more selective in its hiring processes. Luckily Chelsea was home to hear about my day and assure me that of course Rectshaffen's shot had clearly been out!

As frustrating as the experience was, I am glad it has allowed for this concise and clear lesson into the basics of quantum physics. For those of you in my Physics Symposium, please print out the sticker below and wear it to class so I know you fulfilled your assignment and read this blog.



And Rectshaffen, I publicly challenge you to defend your ridiculous claim that your ball was in (and the claim that you can't digest dairy). I am going to make you a "guest blogger" on this site so you can show your intellectual ineptitude to the entire university community. Let the great debate begin!

I hope you have enjoyed and understood this entry.