Thursday, July 07, 2011

A Table Design Inspired By Quantum Physics?!

Another cringe-worthy moment! Wow! Two in a day!

It appears that a designer has come up with a "Quantum Table", which presumably a design inspired by, what else, quantum physics!

Before I go barf, I have two questions to ask:

1. What makes this designer think he/she knows anything about "quantum physics" to be able to be "inspired" by it?

2. What is it about this table that has anything to do with quantum physics? I looked at the photo, and if someone didn't tell me that it was inspired by quantum physics, I wouldn't have guessed. And considering that I think I know a lot more about quantum physics than the average Joe (and presumably, this designer), one would think that I would have noticed any "resemblance".

From the looks of it, I think this is a Spaghetti Table, if you want my opinion.

Zz.

8 comments:

enderw88 said...

Hey, should have said "inspired by string theory" then no one could have questioned him!

rob said...

perhaps it is better described as inspired by Lissajous Figures.

Pi-Guy said...

Looks like a sum over [half a dozen] paths.

Tom said...

To be fair, the gravitational potential of objects on the table is quantized.

Anonymous said...

I think its quite clear. When you flip through a textbook on the topic, you first see an image of electrons circling around a core ( the legs) and later pictures of some wavefunctions, rendered in 3d (the objects on the table). its a cool table. I wonder if somebody made a coffe mug with a cnc machine after a wavefunction? Unpractical, but nerdy.

ZapperZ said...

Really? I'd like to see the pictures in your textbook to check if you see actual similarities here.

Zz.

Anonymous said...

I was referring to the popular rendering of the Bohr-Sommerfeld atom, like here http://www.watblog.com/2009/11/03/wattech-quantum-computing/
(newatom.jpg)
the colorful one. Just let your imagination flow. I don't think he read Messiah.

People even baking cookies after wavefunction:
http://www.evilmadscientist.com/article.php/atomiccookies

ZapperZ said...

Bohr-Sommerfield atom looks like that?

Besides, it said "quantum physics", not "old quantum physics". I still see no resemblance of quantum physics here.

My question stands. Would anyone be able to make the connection to quantum physics if no one tells you what that furniture's inspiration was?

Zz.