A friend of mine recently cam back from a motivational/self-esteem seminar. She said that one of the instructors told about a group of quantum physicists/scientists who were trying to figure out how to make quarks move. (I don't know why or how either.) After all the different methods they tried had failed, they finally noticed that a quark would move when a scientist had a thought about it moving (or something like that). I believe that the point of the story was to show a connection between positive thought processes and physical results. However, the whole story seems fabricated to me, just to prove a point. Does anyone know anything about this? Does anyone know enough about quarks to tell me whether this could be true or not?
2006-11-30 07:09:53 · 5 answers · asked by army of me 2 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
Quarks are too small to perform such an experiment, and they are ALWAYS moving.
2006-11-30 07:23:46 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are no such thing as free quarks under normal conditions. They are forever bound up in more complex particles. Moving them is a bunch of crap and there would be no way to even measure the fact that they moved. Sounds like the usual motivationl BS to me. The only thing that moves is money from your account to theirs.
2006-11-30 07:17:52 · answer #2 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its not like you can just have a jar of quarks under a microscope. They're too small to look at in real time, and tend to either go back to being protons and neutrons or fly off in all directions. It sounds like this goes in the same bin as the people who think they can talk to water or that parrots have psychic powers...
2006-11-30 07:23:02 · answer #3 · answered by Wise1 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Considering that it's impossible to create isolated quarks in the first place, I'm going to call BS on that instructor's story.
2006-11-30 07:15:32 · answer #4 · answered by Robert A 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Absolute BS! I hate it when I hear people that say things that are so completely false, yet they say it with a sense of credibility and it then becomes acceptede. You would have no idea how many things that students say in physics classes .. "Well my uncle said that blah blah blah...."
If I woulda been there I would have stood up and interrupted him and asked him for a refrence. I don't let things like that slide. If someone is speaking to me and trying to sound intelligent they better well have somthing to back it up.
2006-11-30 07:28:39 · answer #5 · answered by travis R 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋