Vivian is getting chatty. Some conversations from the last month or so:
Vivian and I are playing. Vivian:"Daddy, you happy?"
Me: "Yes."
Vivian: "I happy too."
Vivian is sitting down to dinner. Vivian: "Mom, tastes good."
Jo: "Thanks."
Vivian: "Daddy cook?"
Vivian is at Nicolle's house and sees Devyn and Grace dressed up for a dance. Vivian: "Mommy, I want party dress too."
Vivian is riding on my bike carrier and Carol's riding ahead and grumbling. Vivian: "Grandma grouchy?"
Vivian and Carol are doing their morning chores and Carol is throwing out yesterday's coffee. Vivian: "Grandma coffee yucky."
Vivian is watching Dora and the show ends. Vivian: "Daddy, I watch more Dora."
Vivian sees some of the taffy that she and Jo got back from Savannah. Vivian: "Mommy, I need candy."
Vivian is at Robbe's trying on a necklace that Robbe made for her. Vivian: "I see more necklace?"
Vivian is back from San Antonio Zoo. I ask her what she saw. Vivian: "Hippo. Potamus."
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Saturday, February 07, 2009
Quantum Teleportation
Like the note on "Mind Reading" in early Jan, here's another geeky newsworthy event so that someday Vivian may marvel how primitive we were. This is about quantum physics which I won't pretend to understand. It was reported in Science on Jan 23rd.
It all starts with Schrödinger's cat. You can't tell whether the cat in the box is alive or dead until you open the box to look at it. Till a quantum orientation of a particle is read, it is in a quantum superimposition of all the states it can be in. In 1993 a scientist at IBM postulated that this enables us to willingly entangle multiple quantum particles and then move them apart at which point they continue to have this spooky action at a distance thing - and if the experiment is cast in terms of reading and writing information, then the information from one seems to get written to another, and voila - you have teleportation.
It's taken 16 years to produce a working experiment in which information was magically moved between two atoms almost one meter apart. Two atoms were placed in two boxes about a meter apart in a lab in Maryland and some quantum information was written on to one atom. Then they were put in quantum entanglement by using an interesting process: a laser pulse was used to simultaneously excite each atom to produce a photon. Every once in a while (OK - once in every 100 million tries) a system of optics and a semitransparent beam splitter trapped one "red" and one "blue" photon being simultaneously emitted by the atoms. The optics prevented you from knowing what atom emitted which photon and the two atoms were thus now entangled. The graphics below are from the NYT.
Next the scientists went back to the atom on which the information had been written and read it's quantum state. This destroyed the information. But due to entanglement, the information could now be measured on the second atom.
Vivian - they may still be making crappy Star Trek movies long after it actually becomes possible to beam Kirk up.
It all starts with Schrödinger's cat. You can't tell whether the cat in the box is alive or dead until you open the box to look at it. Till a quantum orientation of a particle is read, it is in a quantum superimposition of all the states it can be in. In 1993 a scientist at IBM postulated that this enables us to willingly entangle multiple quantum particles and then move them apart at which point they continue to have this spooky action at a distance thing - and if the experiment is cast in terms of reading and writing information, then the information from one seems to get written to another, and voila - you have teleportation.
It's taken 16 years to produce a working experiment in which information was magically moved between two atoms almost one meter apart. Two atoms were placed in two boxes about a meter apart in a lab in Maryland and some quantum information was written on to one atom. Then they were put in quantum entanglement by using an interesting process: a laser pulse was used to simultaneously excite each atom to produce a photon. Every once in a while (OK - once in every 100 million tries) a system of optics and a semitransparent beam splitter trapped one "red" and one "blue" photon being simultaneously emitted by the atoms. The optics prevented you from knowing what atom emitted which photon and the two atoms were thus now entangled. The graphics below are from the NYT.
Next the scientists went back to the atom on which the information had been written and read it's quantum state. This destroyed the information. But due to entanglement, the information could now be measured on the second atom.
Vivian - they may still be making crappy Star Trek movies long after it actually becomes possible to beam Kirk up.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
Plan B?
Jo and Vivian went to Savannah to visit with Laurel and Jess (why the emphasis - see comments). Here's an incident that happened on the DFW-Savannah flight, as related to me later by Jo.
It was a small plane. Vivian was very excited when the wheels touched the tarmac during landing. Apparently she said "Wow" with much enthusiasm several times. This lead to several comments about how cute Vivian was.
And then the cabin was plunged into darkness for an instant when they switched to airport power at the gate. For that moment all was absolutely quiet - except Vivian, that is. She exclaimed "Oh Shit!" rather spiritedly. Everyone heard it and there were some laughs and chuckles and comments. This spurred my little angel to keep on repeating the phrase over and over again much to everyone's amusement.
Safe to say the Oopsy Daisy thang ain't workin'.
It was a small plane. Vivian was very excited when the wheels touched the tarmac during landing. Apparently she said "Wow" with much enthusiasm several times. This lead to several comments about how cute Vivian was.
And then the cabin was plunged into darkness for an instant when they switched to airport power at the gate. For that moment all was absolutely quiet - except Vivian, that is. She exclaimed "Oh Shit!" rather spiritedly. Everyone heard it and there were some laughs and chuckles and comments. This spurred my little angel to keep on repeating the phrase over and over again much to everyone's amusement.
Safe to say the Oopsy Daisy thang ain't workin'.
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
Orange Kitty
A couple of months ago a stray cat wandered into our neighborhood. He was strong and orange and friendly and pretty soon he wasn't going hungry. Jo took him down to the shelter to get him scanned in case he was chipped - but he wasn't. So Orange Kitty became a regular fixture around the homes where he collectively lived. This morning, he meowed at our bedroom doors at dawn and was at the front door when I let Abe out. Abe and he didn't get along. They screamed and snarled at each other.
On the way back from dinner tonight we discovered Orange Kitty's still form on the sidewalk on 45th street. He must have been hit by a car and then someone had laid his body out on the sidewalk as nicely as he could. He was still warm. We called Robbe - who had put a collar or two on Orange Kitty and fed him frequently. And in the moonlight we buried Orange Kitty in the yard under a big pecan tree.
Vivian would see him and say "Orange Kitty"! Will she wonder what happened to him...?
On the way back from dinner tonight we discovered Orange Kitty's still form on the sidewalk on 45th street. He must have been hit by a car and then someone had laid his body out on the sidewalk as nicely as he could. He was still warm. We called Robbe - who had put a collar or two on Orange Kitty and fed him frequently. And in the moonlight we buried Orange Kitty in the yard under a big pecan tree.
Vivian would see him and say "Orange Kitty"! Will she wonder what happened to him...?
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