Science
Related: About this forumA Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney
A bit of context. Before Mitt Romney, those seeking the presidency operated under the laws of so-called classical politics, laws still followed by traditional campaigners like Newt Gingrich. Under these Newtonian principles, a candidates position on an issue tends to stay at rest until an outside force the Tea Party, say, or a six-figure credit line at Tiffany compels him to alter his stance, at a speed commensurate with the size of the force (usually large) and in inverse proportion to the depth of his beliefs (invariably negligible). This alteration, framed as a positive by the candidate, then provokes an equal but opposite reaction among his rivals.
But the Romney candidacy represents literally a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense. To be honest, even people like Mr. Fehrnstrom who are experts in Mitt Romneys reality, or Romneality, seem bewildered by its implications; and any person who tells you he or she truly understands Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.
Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romneys behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-Im-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-Im-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.
The basic concepts behind this model are:
Complementarity. In much the same way that light is both a particle and a wave, Mitt Romney is both a moderate and a conservative, depending on the situation (Fig. 1). It is not that he is one or the other; it is not that he is one and then the other. He is both at the same time.
Probability. Mitt Romneys political viewpoints can be expressed only in terms of likelihood, not certainty. While some views are obviously far less likely than others, no view can be thought of as absolutely impossible. Thus, for instance, there is at any given moment a nonzero chance that Mitt Romney supports child slavery.
Uncertainty. Frustrating as it may be, the rules of quantum campaigning dictate that no human being can ever simultaneously know both what Mitt Romneys current position is and where that position will be at some future date. This is known as the principle uncertainty principle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-quantum-theory-of-mitt-romney.html?_r=2&src=tp&smid=fb-share
opihimoimoi
(52,426 posts)tclambert
(11,087 posts)he does have some friends who own research labs.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)would he take the cat's position if it appealed to scientists?
Demeter
(85,373 posts)there must be...hundreds of NYT readers who can actually get the references....
but it IS very clever.
As for Romney, he is the Shrodinger Cat, or maybe the Cheshire Cat:
Alice: But I don't want to go among mad people.
Cheshire Cat: Oh, you can't help that. Most everyone's mad here.
{laughs maniacally; starts to disappear}
Cheshire Cat: You may have noticed that I'm not all there myself.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)David Javerbaum is an American comedy writer and former executive producer of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He was hired as a staff writer there in 1999,[citation needed] promoted to head writer in 2002 and became an executive producer at the end of 2006.
He has shared in 11 Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, two Peabody Awards and Television Critics Association Awards for both Best Comedy and Best News Show. He was also one of the three principal authors of the show's textbook parody America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, which sold 2.6 million copies[citation needed] and won the 2005 Thurber Prize for American Humor.
TahitiNut
(71,611 posts)The mitt-wit is quarky, to say the least.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)in order to find any.
Fumesucker
(45,851 posts)Unlike say a Newtrino which has quite a bit of color if little charm.
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)Gotta share this one to my Facebook page!
EmeraldCityGrl
(4,310 posts)laconicsax
(14,860 posts)The first and foremost being that Mitt isn't quantized. Quantum mechanics is the physics of quantized particles, so it's incorrect to call the behavior of romnions (mittions?) quantum. What is being described is the probabilistic nature of romnions, which while similar to those of quantized particles, isn't the same.
The second, is that light isn't both a particle and a wave. It's a particle called a photon. Photons exhibit some wave-like behaviors, but are still particles.
And on edit: an interesting property of romnions is that their probabilistic wavefunction doesn't appear to collapse on observation--a romnion appears to have the ability to have multiple positions simultaneously.