Comments on: Squirrel Wavelength

By: Vasant

Vasant — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:48:29 +0000

Clearly it’s a case of the ‘Red shifting squirrel’. I propose a name akin to that german sounding cat; Hubble’s squirrel. Now you see it now you don’t. I pity the dog!

By: I for one welcome our new Squirrel Overlords | Bad Astronomy | Discover Magazine

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:00:10 +0000

[...] that? See it? Today was colder than the time I took the Squirrel Wavelength photograph. That means lower energy, and the squirrels, with lower energy, can’t jump as far. The [...]

By: Law Mom

Law Mom — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:14:26 +0000

Clearly this was a drunk squirrel.

By: Mchl

Mchl — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 17:55:45 +0000

Aside from the squirrel which IS NOT on the picture, I’d like to point out, there actually IS an UFO on the picture. But once again dr Plait, being part of government cover-up agenda, is distracting us from really important topics.

By: Crux Australis

Crux Australis — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 16:43:52 +0000

Was that a spherical squirrel in a vacuum?

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:32:42 +0000

IVAN3MAN: NUTCRACKERS?
GAK!!! COUGH!!! CHOKE!!!! Coffee spewing from nasal orifices,,,

Ok. I’m done,,,

GAry 7

By: Phil Plait

Phil Plait — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 15:19:28 +0000

James Cronen, that’s hysterical! I wish that guy had written more about it, but I guess they only gave him one page. His fence looks like mine, too.

By: WJM

WJM — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:56:19 +0000

Ban dihydrogen monoxide now! It’s killing people!

By: IVAN3MAN

IVAN3MAN — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:43:16 +0000

Gary:

I wonder what would happen if we slammed two squirrels into each other?

A pair of nutcrackers.

By: Todd W.

Todd W. — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:25:18 +0000

@Gary

what would happen if we slammed two squirrels into each other?

The observing scientist would exclaim, “Aw, nuts!”?

By: Gary Ansorge

Gary Ansorge — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 14:22:53 +0000

Metre and Paul h:

Thanks for the expansion on my original hypothesis,,,I knew there was a reason we invented computers,,,much less register overflow,,,

Wow! 10^-32cm? That’s only a couple of orders of magnitude larger than the Plank Length,,,I wonder what would happen if we slammed two squirrels into each other? Would they form an Earth gobbling black hole? Or perhaps some gooey Stranglets?
Quick, we must sue the natural order to prevent such heinous experiments.

GAry 7

By: Pion

Pion — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:39:44 +0000

Can you determine the exact location of the squirrel from that wavelength and the momentum that created it? Could you run a few squirrels through the twin-slit experiment to help me get to the bottom of this?

My brow is furrowed. . .FURROWED I tell you!

By: Metre

Metre — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 12:30:46 +0000

@Paul H

I guess that explains a lot about the grades I got in physics.

By: icemith

icemith — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 11:28:03 +0000

@Autumn, (at 10:03 pm above)

I think you are on very flakey ground, just _mentioning_ dihydrogen-monoxide!

And we in the Southern Hemisphere are being sadly deprived of it at the moment, due to some Squirrel having cornered the market. But we will have revenge in a few months.

Ivan.

By: csrster

csrster — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:04:21 +0000

Tony, tony, tony, what can I say but “Nuts to you!”.

By: Autumn

Autumn — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:03:28 +0000

Just have to ask from down in Gainesville, Fl, what is that white powdery substance you have used to calculate the squirrel’s wavelength? I hope it was environmentally friendly. I’ve heard some unscrupulous louts are in the habit of using the dangerous dihydrogen-monoxide as the powdered medium.
Luckily we never see such horrors down here.

By: Paul H

Paul H — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 05:02:24 +0000

@Metre

*ahem* 3.3*10^-32 cm. *cough*

And you might have gotten away with it too, if you’d just used SI units.

By: ThoughtCriminal

ThoughtCriminal — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:53:49 +0000

European squirrel or Asian squirrel?

I don’t know… AAAHHHHH!

By: ND

ND — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:50:50 +0000

not standing but cute bouncy squirrel wave.

By: Doug

Doug — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:26:08 +0000

What’s the frequency Kenneth?

By: Shane Killian

Shane Killian — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 01:14:02 +0000

I doubt that’s a standing wave…

By: James Cronen

James Cronen — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:12:11 +0000

There was a short article in the February, 2006 issue of The Physics Teacher very much along these lines.

http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=PHTEAH000044000002000085000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes

By: Kyle

Kyle — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 22:59:22 +0000

Geeks of the world unite. Where else but here can with have conversations about the wave length of squirrels, or disprove DeBroglie’s hypothesis.

By: Mike Torr

Mike Torr — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 21:01:52 +0000

“that’s up in the ham radio range… It wasn’t a squirrel, it was a pig!”

…unless its name was Hammy. “I can burp my ABCs!…”

By: Metre

Metre — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 20:35:54 +0000

@ Gary Ansorge and @ Dylan

No, no, we’re after the De Broglie wavelength, not the frequency. Assuming the squirrel is traveling at a non-relativistic 1 mph (~500 cm/s) and that its mass is 400 g, we get:

lambda = h/mv = 6.6*10^-27/(500*400) = 3.3*10^-22 cm

So either the BA’s fence is very small or we have disproved de Broglie’s hypothesis!