June 02, 2004
The Theoretical Physicist
I’ve spent a great deal of time looking at career possibilities, job opportunities, and continuing education in an effort to escape my current salt mine. As I examined these options it occurred to me that they all share a sort of unsavory “work” trait. Despairing of finding an appropriately low effort vocation I nearly gave up. But then I stumbled upon the theoretical physicist (not literally, that would just be silly. There's nothing silly at this website). A theoretical physicist’s job is to perform “Thought Experiments.” To the uninitiated, a thought experiment is an experiment conducted by doing nothing. Really. My hand to God. Nothing.
The Theoretical Physicist (TP) is derived from the theoretician and the Physicist. The Theoretician takes a current assumption about how the world works, and then thinks about it. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work. He looks at a flower and then says “I think that flower will always be red.” Then, he never looks at the flower again. That’s it. Just, “I think this will never change,” and then he thinks about how it won’t. Naturally, once other people started to occasionally look at the damn flower the poor theoretician was put right out of business.
That’s where the Physics comes in. Physics is a discipline filled to the brim with improvable assumptions and complex mathematical descriptions of things like cheerios. This, finally, is a place the theoretician can really let loose. One famous TP was Erwin Schrödinger. Erwin invented a thought experiment to demonstrate how quantum physics works. He suggested locking a cat in a box with a flask of acid. Then setting up the acid in such a way that there is a 50/50 chance it will burst forth and slay the feline. This is a perfect example of a thought experiment because nobody has any chance of actually trying it. Also, the experiment was designed to prove that we must, mathematically treat the cat as though it is both alive and dead. Even if we could try the experiment all we’ll do is kill a cat (maybe) The (alleged) death of Mr. Whiskers would only serve to prove the experiment useless, because what mathematical equation requires a (rumored) dead cat? We have set up an experiment where the results are irrelevant, the process is unimportant and by definition unknowable and by the time we’ve finished all we’ve done is snuff out the life (possibly) of an innocent house pet.
The TP’s position is thus secure. They can all call upon the spirit of Erwin to protect them, and should anybody ever try to prove the results PETA will eat them.
Posted by DjDuk at June 2, 2004 02:40 AM
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