The Jargonisphere
Today I was dining with a number of my fellow grad students when a bicycle pulled up beside us. The make was something called a "Quantum Race," which is an amusing thing to call a bike that pulls up next to a group of physicists. Apparently it was manufactured by a company called "Klein," which is almost appropriate*.
But it does leave me to wonder: why is the word "quantum" so popular? It's just the Latin for "how many." Physically, it simply refers to things which exist in discrete chunks instead of continuous distributions. I suppose that it's just that the implications of the quantum theory are so bizarre that the word has become a synonym for a sort of science-powered magic. I would blame Deepak Chopra, but realisticaly, he probably ripped the idea off from Fritjof Capra.
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* Poor Mr. Fock.
But it does leave me to wonder: why is the word "quantum" so popular? It's just the Latin for "how many." Physically, it simply refers to things which exist in discrete chunks instead of continuous distributions. I suppose that it's just that the implications of the quantum theory are so bizarre that the word has become a synonym for a sort of science-powered magic. I would blame Deepak Chopra, but realisticaly, he probably ripped the idea off from Fritjof Capra.
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* Poor Mr. Fock.