A Matter of Utmost Importance
WARNING: THIS ENTRY HAS NO BASIS IN SCIENTIFIC FACT
It's still true that I have a massive test tomorrow, and I need to be studying. It's also still true that my Certification depends on an even more massiver test in two weeks that requires months of non-stop preparation. And yes, I promised you all that I would be offline for the next couple weeks preparing for these massive tests, but, well, this is important....
Once and for all I am going to solve one of the great troubling misunderstandings of our time: I can pray all I want that strapping my textbook to the top of my head will save me on tomorrow's exam, but osmosis will not save me. Why? Because it isn't osmosis. Osmosis is active transport. The maid chucking you bodily out door is active transport--you didn't just wander outside on your own, she had to chuck you out. So it's not osmosis, it's diffusion that will save me, right? Diffusion is passive transport. The water balloon you threw at the maid used Pascal's Law (diffusion)...there was a lot of water in the balloon, there was very little on the maid, so when the balloon exploded, the water went from high-concentration (balloon) to the low-concentration (maid's face) without you having to spread the water about yourself. Likewise, there is lots of knowledge crammed into my textbook, but little in my brain, so the knowledge should flow from high-concentration to low-concentration with no effort. The problem is that my brain is crammed inside my skull, which is waterproof, and (as I'm sure you can tell) also knowledgeproof. So what is it, then? Good ol' gravity, of course!
If, however, I'm half-asleep asleep face-down on my textbook, it could well be osmosis (since studies have shown that you absorb about 50% of the knowledge you're exposed to when you're drowsy). If I were awake and reading it, it would definitely by the active transport of knowledge (that is, osmosis). It's possible that diffusion might work if I have the textbook fed to me intravenously, but how to do that is covered in the sequel to my textbook.
So as you can see, osmosis COULD save me if I were willing to put energy into it. Personally, I'm holding out for gravity. In the end, gravity (nearly) always wins.
In unrelated news based on my recent lj-tagging adventure, it appears that my long term memory is only good for about two and a half years.
It's still true that I have a massive test tomorrow, and I need to be studying. It's also still true that my Certification depends on an even more massiver test in two weeks that requires months of non-stop preparation. And yes, I promised you all that I would be offline for the next couple weeks preparing for these massive tests, but, well, this is important....
Once and for all I am going to solve one of the great troubling misunderstandings of our time: I can pray all I want that strapping my textbook to the top of my head will save me on tomorrow's exam, but osmosis will not save me. Why? Because it isn't osmosis. Osmosis is active transport. The maid chucking you bodily out door is active transport--you didn't just wander outside on your own, she had to chuck you out. So it's not osmosis, it's diffusion that will save me, right? Diffusion is passive transport. The water balloon you threw at the maid used Pascal's Law (diffusion)...there was a lot of water in the balloon, there was very little on the maid, so when the balloon exploded, the water went from high-concentration (balloon) to the low-concentration (maid's face) without you having to spread the water about yourself. Likewise, there is lots of knowledge crammed into my textbook, but little in my brain, so the knowledge should flow from high-concentration to low-concentration with no effort. The problem is that my brain is crammed inside my skull, which is waterproof, and (as I'm sure you can tell) also knowledgeproof. So what is it, then? Good ol' gravity, of course!
If, however, I'm half-asleep asleep face-down on my textbook, it could well be osmosis (since studies have shown that you absorb about 50% of the knowledge you're exposed to when you're drowsy). If I were awake and reading it, it would definitely by the active transport of knowledge (that is, osmosis). It's possible that diffusion might work if I have the textbook fed to me intravenously, but how to do that is covered in the sequel to my textbook.
So as you can see, osmosis COULD save me if I were willing to put energy into it. Personally, I'm holding out for gravity. In the end, gravity (nearly) always wins.
In unrelated news based on my recent lj-tagging adventure, it appears that my long term memory is only good for about two and a half years.