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Had a dream last night that the Nobel Prize in physics had gone to the maker of a line art cartoon. It was a short cartoon explaining the cause of a recent disaster.
Someone (who would have won the Nobel Prize in physics had things gone as planned) had invented a device which created a localized field [mumble mumble technobabble invert magnetism mumble iron structure mumble] designed to reduce the effective weight of a fair-sized highway bridge, thus reducing the structural stresses. A test was scheduled. Calculations showed that the bridge being tested should, once the device was activated, have an effective weight of a mere 44 pounds.
Unfortunately, there were some last-minute changes to the testing schedule, so the sign in front of the bridge looked like this:
Bridge closed for testing atnoon 3pm today.
There had been cars on the bridge when the device was activated, and the iron frames of the vehicles had interacted with the expanding bubble of the device's field before it could take stable hold, and bad things had happened.
And so the person who made the cartoon illustrating that story won the Nobel Prize that would otherwise have gone to the person actually running the experiment.
And then, after watching the cartoon and learning the story, I woke up.
Someone (who would have won the Nobel Prize in physics had things gone as planned) had invented a device which created a localized field [mumble mumble technobabble invert magnetism mumble iron structure mumble] designed to reduce the effective weight of a fair-sized highway bridge, thus reducing the structural stresses. A test was scheduled. Calculations showed that the bridge being tested should, once the device was activated, have an effective weight of a mere 44 pounds.
Unfortunately, there were some last-minute changes to the testing schedule, so the sign in front of the bridge looked like this:
Bridge closed for testing at
There had been cars on the bridge when the device was activated, and the iron frames of the vehicles had interacted with the expanding bubble of the device's field before it could take stable hold, and bad things had happened.
And so the person who made the cartoon illustrating that story won the Nobel Prize that would otherwise have gone to the person actually running the experiment.
And then, after watching the cartoon and learning the story, I woke up.
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