Quantum Physics
- Details
- Published on Friday, 31 August 2007 08:36
- Written by Bob Graham
We all know the saying, “it’s not rocket science” but have you ever realised that we troot catchers can go beyond this into quantum physics? Don’t believe me? Read on, but first a few notes. The way science works is that some bright spark heads off to uni for a few years, collects a Phd and then comes up with a “world shattering” idea.
And that’s all it is - an idea - although they prefer to call it a theory. Then some government starts shoveling shedfulls of money at him to bring his idea into reality. The scientist works an “academic” year, say twenty weeks much of which is spent swanning off around the world to conferences. Of course the idea usually comes to nothing but if you have a lifetime of government grants why worry.
This is why the transporter on the Starship Enterprise will never work: and the scientists know it. The reason it will never work has been known since the 1920s but the scientists are bright enough to know that governments are run by politicians who are not exactly noted for any intellectual abilities and they want a transporter, impossible or not. Werner Karl Heisenberg explained, in 1927, I think, that his Principle of Indeterminacy (or Uncertainty) meant that if a transporter was developed anyone who used it would come out of the other end with arms sticking out of his head, eyes in his arse, and his reproductive organs in the back of his throat. Not something any reasonable man would want although I’m not convinced that women would complain. And do you know, we troot catchers have known all about this for years although we call it a “Buggeration Factor”.
So you arrive at the water which is nicely fining off after some recent rain; the colour of a pint of heavy. The air temperature is perfect, the wind is ideal and the cloud cover is on the good side of fine. You tackle up with a song in your heart for you know this will be a fishing day of a lifetime - and it is. Every cast lands exactly where you want it to land, big troot attack your flee with gusto and there’s never any thought that they’ll break you or shake the hook. Paradise, nirvana, heaven, call it what you will, your at one with the great fraternity of successful troot catchers. And when you get home your tea’s waiting for you, she pours you decent glass of the good stuff and afterwards - well I’ll leave that to your imagination - each to his own.
The “Buggeration Factor” or “Principle of Uncertainty” says that days like that will never, never, never be repeated. The next morning everything seems the same but - the dawn was minutes earlier, the wind is a few degrees different and the water is very slightly lower - no fish. And that’s Heisenberg for troot catchers. Who says we troot catchers are numpties?
But recently some scientists have foreseen the “transporter” gravy train hitting the buffers and have come up with an even wilder idea - “Entangled Photons”. Look, I suspect that some of you think I’m making this up so if you don’t believe me - Google it. And don’t confuse it with entangled protons, that’s something else again.
There, now do you believe me. “Entangled Photons” promise to nullify the effects of the “Principle of Uncertainty”. Now you know why scientists have Phds and the shovels are digging into the money pile again.
Since you’ve read it you don’t need any explanations except for an illustration of how it applies in the troot catching world. Once again you’re at the side of the water and a good trout rises to your flee. Sadly, for you, it comes off and, in an instant, every troot for miles around knows that your flee is to be avoided. There you are, “Entangled Photons” for troot catchers as we’ve always known it.
Next time we’ll have a wee swim around the watery world of Relativity and prove that we were there before Einstein.
Bob Graham is an occasionally lucky gentleman who claims he does not do very much these days other than try to catch trout five or six days a week. Bob is a regular at Hillend Reservoir and lives in Whitburn West Lothian.