Slightly Off KIlter

Normal is overrated


It’s Physics

There's a joke about Science:

If it wiggles, it's Biology.
If it stinks, it's Chemistry.
If it doesn't work, it's Physics.

Perhaps to this we could add:

If you don't understand it, it's Quantum Physics.

The following sentence is excerpted from a news article on Superconductivity and the 2003 Nobel prizes in physics and medicine.

While helium-4 is a boson, helium-3 is a fermion, so the two isotopes have quite different quantum properties.

Aalthough I'm willing to take the second half of that sentence on faith, I find the fact that it apparently follows naturally from the first half of the sentence to be amusing. "While helium-4 is a boson…". Ohhhh. Of Course! (Not 🙂

I am nevertheless entranced. I'm thinking of turning the first half of the sentence into a bumpersticker 🙂

While helium-4 is a boson,
helium-3 is a fermion