Choosing a Session: A Physicist from the Future Drinks Rum During Q&A

[James William Hall]

The premise is straight forward: A physicist from 100 years in the future grants a serious Q&A with physicists of today by issuing tickets whereby the questioners had to choose to attend one of three consecutive one hour sessions, A, B, or C. The physicist from the future tells everyone that he will be drinking a liter of his favorite rum steadily throughout the whole three hours. Which of the three sessions would you choose to attend?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Is this a story premise? If so, what is the point of us selecting A, B or C? Or is unrelated to SF?

I objected to the creation of this section, afraid it would become a magnet and/or dustbin for substandard threads. Please tell me that's not what this is.

 

[difalcojr]

I think you are right. This is not a question/answer section like the real science threads. I found out myself that serious science matters can get very non-serious solutions in this section. Came to realize, I guess, that this was the FICTION section, and I was serious about a real science question, and was in the wrong section.

Instead of dumping the whole section, possibly pre-screen sub-par threads closely, block bad ones, and advise members of why the substandard material was blocked.

I joined this forum last August, somewhat desperate to make known a new, monochromatic, monocentric, perfect singlet/doublet lens model for all wavelengths. I have a BS, worked as an engineer in my lifetime. I did manage finally to get the members and patient Mentor to verify my results. Which was the only way the equations could be validated. New, unverified ideas are against forum rules, and the associated threads were closed, accordingly. The mentors used great temerity to keep the thread open online, though, and I applaud them loudly for that. It was not a homework problem, though, nor was it even in existing textbooks.

So, this section has been fun and needed by me. I have posted some diagrams and a short story that give out the lens model information in this section too. My find is still fiction, but valid science fiction. I am happy to be able to post it somewhere. Optica Publishing rejected my paper. I too wish there was a section to discuss new ideas seriously, but only informally. Maybe separating SF from Fantasy in this section would do it. One part real, the other unreal.

That spaceship artwork in this section by that artist was great too. Very creative.

 

[Vanadium 50]

That's all well and good, but it doesn't answer the question, and that will probably limit the number of useful answers you get: Is this a story premise? If so, what is the point of us selecting A, B or C?

 

[difalcojr]

Premise for what? What's the storyline of that? It's a moronic question that only an alcoholic physicist, when drunk, might even think of answering, I'd reckon. Unless he wanted to destroy his reputation by giving any response at all.

 

[berkeman]

The premise is straight forward: A physicist from 100 years in the future grants a serious Q&A with physicists of today by issuing tickets whereby the questioners had to choose to attend one of three consecutive one hour sessions, A, B, or C. The physicist from the future tells everyone that he will be drinking a liter of his favorite rum steadily throughout the whole three hours. Which of the three sessions would you choose to attend?

There is an obvious answer that transcends the discussion of whether the Sci-Fi subforum is worthy of inclusion at PF. I think the answer is pretty obvious.

Spoiler

If you slip the right drug into their drink early in the first hour, they will end up answering anything you want with no ability to conceal anything. Duh.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_serum

 

[pinball1970]

I suppose it could make for an amusing aside as part of a larger plot, like a Vogan poetry reading.

 

[BWV]

Maybe the physicist from 100 years in the future won’t know much more than physicists today

 

[Vanadium 50]

The OP left immediately after posting and hasn't been back since. He sure fooled us good, didn't he?

 

[pinball1970]

Maybe the physicist from 100 years in the future won’t know much more than physicists today

MOND versus Dark matter argument still going ;)

 

[Frabjous]

The OP left immediately after posting and hasn't been back since. He sure fooled us good, didn't he?

Or we lost an opportunity to question a drunk physicist from the future.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Is it possible that the OP is a visitor from the future, here to distract us with the absurd and inane, lest someone here develop some nefarious technology? Our Person from Porlock, as it were. It would explain so much.

 

[difalcojr]

Possibly. Alternatively, a crack sleuth like Columbo might smell something a little fishy about the first question itself. Troll bait?!

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't know if it is troll bait - but it does seem like a stink bomb. It's also not original. The idea was done much better almost a half century ago in the Barney Miller episode The Child Stealers.

Harris: You realize that we don't believe any of this.
Time Traveler: That's why I can tell you.

 

[PeroK]

Pass the bottle!

 

[Vanadium 50]

Pass the bottle!

If a time traveler goes back in time, buys a bottle of Scotch and takes it back to his own time, can he legally sell it as 100 years old?

 

[Frabjous]

If a time traveler goes back in time, buys a bottle of Scotch and takes it back to his own time, can he legally sell it as 100 years old?

I believe aging is counted in the barrel, not the bottle.

 

[difalcojr]

(P.S. In previous post above, I mistakenly used an incorrect English word, i.e., 'temerity'. Should have been 'temperance'. I thought they were synonyms. Turns out they're antonyms!! My apologies to the Mentors.)

Ah, demon alcohol. Kinks sang a song about it.
"Here's a story about a sinner. He used to be a winner who enjoyed a life of prominence and position."


Witness also now the sad tale of once-famed physicist Matt Foley, seen here still in recovery, as he performs, as only he could perform, his famous classroom demonstration, the explanation of the physics of Energy and Newton's second law.

 

[Algr]

The premise is straight forward: A physicist from 100 years in the future grants a serious Q&A with physicists of today by issuing tickets whereby the questioners had to choose to attend one of three consecutive one hour sessions, A, B, or C. The physicist from the future tells everyone that he will be drinking a liter of his favorite rum steadily throughout the whole three hours. Which of the three sessions would you choose to attend?

It seems like there is something missing from the question. There is no indication that the physicist would be evasive, or that one might get the "wrong" session with the physicist too drunk to answer. I thought there might be a twist where the time traveler is still going backwards and so gets less drunk as time goes on. But the question doesn't really support that either. So I agree. Weak thread.