\documentstyle{article}
\begin{document}
\title{QUANTUM MIX-UP\\
A True Story}
\author{ata@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Don Dodson)}
\date{}
\maketitle

\begin{quote} 
            ``The laws of physics have no basis in reality.\\
             They describe the operation of the human mind.''\\

                                     --- Robert Anton Wilson\
\end{quote}
 
    Reality inverted itself, revealing the truth at the core of all
these illusions.  Suddenly I could see more clearly, although my eyes
were closed.  The world remained the same, but reality changed
completely.  In the background, Carl Sagan's voice droned on about
trillions of trillions of stars.  Everything stopped and increased in
its rapid ascent towards the depths of nothing.  Suddenly, I was
surrounded by fourty-seven trillion black cats who were both dead and
alive and were therefore neither dead nor alive.  It all depends on
which space-time continuum you happen to be in.  A short, bald man
approached me and asked ``What if the earth were toroidial,
duo-equatorial and uni-polar?'' and walked on before I could respond.
 
    Then I perceived a little bearded man in a white robe on the
non-Euculidean checker-board with me, infinitely far away, but
approaching.  Space became time and time became space in a
never-ending cycle, and the man approached.  I noticed that each time
he passed one of the ambiguous cats, he pointed his non-existant staff
at it and read one of the infinite numbers from the parchment in his
hand.  As he did this, each cat disappeared but was still there.
Finally the man approached me, glanced at me absent-mindedly, and
began to read another number.  Half way through the lengthy number, he
looked up at me again with a puzzled expresion.  ``What are you doing
here?  This is Schrodinger's Cat's department.  Humans are on plane
\#1793242123, department, um, it's slipped my mind.  Ask the thing at
the Information Desk.  I'm going to have to complain.  I've had over
seventy-three billion quantum mix-ups this afternoon.  They had a pink
elephant in with Pavlov's Dogs.  Quality control isn't getting their
job done.  We've had so much trouble since Heisenberg came up with his
principle.  What's it called?'' he pondered, scratching his head with
his non-existant staff.  ``I'm uncertain.  Oh yes!  That's it.''
 
    Throughout his speech I couldn't get a word in edgewise, and he
certainly wasn't helping to clear up any questions.  As far as I could
see, there were three possible explanations for what was occuring:
either I was having a really strange dream, or I was the subject of
some government experiment, or there was something other than tomato
juice in that tomato juice I drank last night.  Finally, having
collected my jumbled thoughts into another, equally jumbled state, I
asked, ``Who are you?''
 
    ``Who am I?''  He repeated with a look of genuine suprise. ``Why,
I'm the Eigenstate Determiner.  What universe are you from?''
 
    ``What do you mean `Which Universe?' I'm in THE Universe, I
think...  My god...''
 
 ``Yes?'' he answered before I could finish.
 
    I jumped.  He sure didn't look like the gaseous vertibrate
alpha-male I had seen pictures of.  ``Oh, nothing,'' I responded,
hoping he wouldn't zap me.  Then, as an afterthought, I asked, ``Say,
how do I get back to Earth?''
 
    ``Just go the the Information Desk and they will send you to your
department where you will be assigned to an eigenstate,'' he answered.
``Well, I've got to go,'' he continued.  ``Time is about to pass.''
He turned and hurried off, making more cats disappear and still be
there.
 
    I realized, too late, that I had no idea where this Information
Desk was located, so I began wandering randomly among the forty-seven
trillion black cats.  After several hours of this, Robin Hood jumped
out from behind of an invisible tree.  ``Who goes there?'' he
demanded.  I noted that the arrow in his bow was greatly
foreshortened.  ``Me,'' I responded, wondering if my answer gave him
the information he wanted.  Finally , after a long pause, I asked
``Where is the Information Desk?''
 
    ``Oh, you're another of the Quantum Mix-Ups, not a probability
bandit.  You never can tell these nano-seconds.  Its right over
there.''  He pointed behind him.  There, just a few giga-parsecs in
the indicated direction, was the Information Desk.  I walked through
the Yeti department and past a few hundred trillion Shakespears trying
to duplicate the writings of a monkey typing random keys on a
typewriter.  Finally I got in line behind a pink elephant and
seventy-three billion other very confused life forms, including a few
other carbon based ones.  I waited for a few eons and soon got to the
front.  A little green thing with a badge identifying it as a ``Quantum
Corrections Officer'' glanced up at me.
 
    ``There you are,'' it snapped, appearing slightly annoyed.
``Well, wadaya want?''
 
    ``I was just wondering if I could get back to Earth,'' I replied.
 
    Its three eyes peered over the tops of its spectacles.  ``Why
should I tell you?''

    ``Because I'm important!'' I blurted out.
 
    ``No you're not,'' it snapped back.  ``You are merely a character
in a story.  For all I know, you may not exist at all.  I once had a
cat with that problem.  Very sad.  Very sad indeed.''
 
    ``But I'm the main character!'' I implored.
 
    ``All right, all right,'' it conceded, with the air of one who has
been interupted from something very important.  ``Plane \#1793242123,
department \#6443512, right that way.  Better hurry.''

    I started out ``that way''.  En route I was approached by little
men selling stone postcards from Crete, but they were driven away when
Belgian endives began raining out of the sky.  Finally I could see a
huge group of people in the distance.  As I got closer I recognized
all of them as being me.  I joined them and began discussing politics,
religion, water floridization, and other scandals.  They seemed to be
a very agreeable group of people.  After quite a while my attention
was caught by the little man in the robe.  He was busy making other
me's disappear but still be there.  At first this enraged me, but soon
it didn't seem like such a big deal.  After all, there were nine
hundred seventy-six trillion of me here.  Eventually the little man
approached me and began to consult his parchment.  I could see what I
recognized to be the Probability Wave Equations scrawled on it.
 
    ``Wait a minute!''  I demanded.  ``What are you doing?''
 
    ``Measuring you,'' he replied, pointing his non-existant staff at
me and reading off some big number.
 
    Reality uninverted itself and truth became hidden in illusions
once again.  My eyes were open, but I could not see clearly.  The
world remained the same but reality changed completely.  I became
aware of my physics teacher explaining the theory behind the
Schrodinger's Cat paradox: ``If you put a cat in a box with a devise
which will kill the cat at a completely random time, you don't know if
the cat is alive or dead until you look in the box.  According to the
Probability Wave Equation, it is alive in one alternate parallel
universe, and dead in another.  However, the laws of Quantum Mechanics
prove that, until you open the box, the cat is both dead and alive and
is therefore neither dead nor alive.  The only way to tell which
eigenstate you are in is to look in the box.  Measurement is merely a
method to determine which universe you are in.''

{\flushright --- Don Dodson\\ The Mad Fishmonger\\ }
\end{document}
