Things to Ponder

There were a couple of news items over the past couple of days that I thought were interesting. Some were humorous; at least one was sobering in nature. These are the ones I found humorous.

First was the election of Jim Yong Kim as the new president of the World Bank. Now, that is not humorous and probably a very good selection. As a physician with expertise in the development of the 3^rd world, he appears to be a good pick to lead an organization whose primary goal is development in the 3^rd world. But what I found even more interesting, especially in terms of the Internet, was the nomination of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Nigerian Finance Minister.

My first thought when I heard this (and remember to think in terms of the Internet) was that someone has nominated a Nigerian to head a bank. Do they understand what that means?

The second thing that was the report of a physicist uses the laws of physics to beat a traffic ticket. This was reported on a number of stations (I heard on my NPR station – WAMC) but I like this link (“Physicist Uses Math to Beat Traffic Ticket”) because it has a link to the proof used to convince the court to throughout the ticket.

A couple of conclusions from this

• The law is always on your side; in this case, it was the laws of physics.
  
• You can’t beat Mother Nature.
  
• And always remember that the speed limit in this universe is 3 x 10⁸ m/sec.
  

For those enthralled by the quantum nature of life, we have this apparently true story (it has to be true because it is on more than one website). It took place just outside of Munich, Germany. Werner Heisenberg went for a drive and got stopped by a traffic cop. The cop asked, “Do you know how fast you were going?” Heisenberg replied, “No, but I know where I am.”

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