YOU MIGHT BE A PHYSICS MAJOR...

• if you have no life - and you can PROVE it mathematically.
• if you enjoy pain.
• If you know vector calculus but you can't remember how to do long division.
• If you chuckle whenever anyone says 'centrifugal force.'
• if you've actually used every single function on your graphing calculator.
• If when you look in a mirror, you see a physics major.
• If it is sunny and 70 degrees outside, and you are working on a computer.
• If you always do homework on Friday and Saturday nights.
• If you know how to integrate a chicken and can take the derivative of water.
• If you think in 'math.'
• if you've calculated that the World Series actually diverges.
• If you hesitate to look at something because you don't want to break down its wave function.
• If you have a pet named after a scientist. If you laugh at jokes about mathematicians.
• If the Humane society has you arrested because you actually performed the Schrodinger's Cat experiment.
• If you can't remember what's behind the door in the science building which says 'Exit.'
• if you have to bring a jacket with you, in the middle of summer, because there's a wind-chill factor in the lab.
• If you are completely addicted to PhysLink.com.
• If you avoid doing anything because you don't want to contribute to the eventual heat-death of the universe.
• If you consider ANY non-science course 'easy.'
• if when your professor asks you where your homework is, you claim to have accidentally determined its momentum so precisely, that according to Heisenberg it could be anywhere in the universe.
• If the 'fun' center of your brain has deteriorated from lack of use.
• If you'll assume that a 'horse' is a 'sphere' in order to make the math easier.
• If you understood more than five of these indicators.
• If you make a hard copy of this list, and post it on your door.

If these indicators apply to you, there is good reason to suspect that you might be classified as a physics major.

1. To approximate all problems to ideal cases.
2. To use order of magnitude calculations whenever deemed necessary (i.e. whenever one can get away with it).
3. To use the rigorous method of "squinting" for solving problems more complex than the addition of positive real integers.
4. To dismiss all functions which diverge as "nasty" and "unphysical."
5. To invoke the uncertainty principle when confronted by confused mathematicians, chemists, engineers, psychologists, dramatists, and other lower scientists.
6. When pressed by non-physicists for an explanation of (4) to mumble in a sneering tone of voice something about physically naive mathematicians.
7. To equate two sides of an equation which are dimensionally inconsistent, with a suitable comment to the effect of, "Well, we are interested in the order of magnitude anyway."
8. To the extensive use of "bastard notations" where conventional mathematics will not work.
9. To invent fictitious forces to delude the general public.
10. To justify shaky reasoning on the basis that it gives the right answer.
11. To cleverly choose convenient initial conditions, using the principle of general triviality.
12. To use plausible arguments in place of proofs, and thenceforth refer to these arguments as proofs.
13. To take on faith any principle which seems right but cannot be proved.

Consider:

1. When you drop a cat from a few feet, it lands upright.
2. When you drop a piece of buttered bread, it lands with the buttered side down.
3. If you strapped a piece of buttered bread to the back of a cat, which would land first?

First the source of the forces must be understood. The force acting on the bread is not the butter, as some may think. Without the bread, butter wouldn't land bread side up, and therefore the force could not possibly be in the butter. We know the force is not the bread because it has been experimentally proven that bread does not land any particular side down without butter. The bread/butter force is caused by the fusing of bread and butter particles together. This fusion causes energy to be released in the form of shifting gravity and antigravity energy to opposite sides of the bread/butter continuum. The gravity energy naturally shifts to the butter since it is denser then the bread, while the antigravity energy shifts to the bread side.

The energy in a cat for landing on its feet comes from the feet themselves. This has been proven experimentally. Cats without feet have a near zero success rate of landing on their feet. We will call this energy cat foot energy. Considering the equal but opposing bread/butter and cat foot forces one would expect the cat to spin violently about its axis. However the strength of these forces must be considered. A regular cat is not structurally stable enough to withstand the torque the spinning causes. I should not have to describe the way the cat's limbs give way, the way the legs wrench around until the feet are on the same side of the cat as the butter. And thus the cat can then land on its feet, butter side down.

We are now researching the possibility of using structurally reinforced cats for levitation systems, but so far the cost is too high to be practical. Several attempts at producing economically viable systems were made by separating the feet so that the instability of the cat would not be a factor. At first there was difficulty because there was no cat to tie the bread to. Later it was discovered that when not attached to a cat the feet lost their cat foot force over time. It is hypothesized that the feet need to be living to exert the cat foot force, and so far no practical method has been found for keeping the feet alive other than a cat. Attempts are also being made to breed flat cats with no legs (only feet). There are many other problems related with this method of levitation as you may well imagine, but they are beyond the scope of this discussion.

-Harold G Sputsberry PHD Institute for Alternative Energy Research