Quantum Vultures read by computer

What can I say, just getting word to read aloud forces clean up. I can see the rehab shining through just as I slog away and away. I like it because it mechanically works the students working memory. It is so wrong in so many ways.

George and Viola Lay an egg.

George and Viola have been friends for a long time.

They are two of the most caring nano-vultures you will ever meet.

Let me tell you where they live.

They live in a forest but being very small they live in a clump of grass on the forest floor.

Have you ever laid in the grass and seen how it’s a tiny forest down there?

Well for tiny birds like nano-vultures a clump of grass is like a forest.

So, for George and Viola they lived in a forest within a forest.

But there is more, they lived in a tiny crack in a blade of grass which was just like another forest.

So, for George and Viola they live in a forest within a forest within a forest.

George said to Viola, “Dear, its about time we heard the pitter patter of little nano-vulture feet”

Viola looked at George down her big striped beak and said, “How many George?”

Now George was not that good with numbers, there were so many wonderful things that happen when you are as small as a nano-vulture you know. George thought. “Two!”

George could see Viola thinking.

“I know 18!” offered George. That was a bigger number. That was the biggest number George had ever heard, but he was not much in the way of counting because there was always so much else to see and do if you were a nano-vulture.

“Right-O then George, you had better get a nest ready for 18 nano-vulture eggs” said Viola

George was very excited he had something to do. He had seen lots of TV programs on building your own nest. He flew back and forth picking up twigs, all the while never leaving the tiny crack, in the blade of grass, in the forest.

And by and by, when George felt he had the perfect nest, he thought to himself “I have the perfect nest not too big and not too small”, and he said to Viola “Come and look at the perfect nest, its not to big and not too small”.

Viola flew over to George, the time was fast approaching for her to lay the 18 nano-vulture eggs. “Why darling, that is the perfect nest, not too big and not too small”. The nest was just big enough to hold just one nano-vulture egg.

George, thought for a bit, his feathers became ruffled a sure sign he was worried and upset.

“George, it is perfect” Viola consoled him. “Nano-vulture eggs, slide through each other so all our eggs will fit in this perfect nest”

Let me tell you about nano-vulture eggs, and unlike other children’s stories where you may never see a glass slipper or a ginger bread house, I can guarantee you will see a nano-vulture egg. They are called electrons and you will hear of them all the time when you are older because they are real. We have learnt to tame electrons and get them to do all kinds of things like lighting up your bedroom, powering your toys, or running a cake mixer. Nano-vulture eggs aren’t like the eggs you see in the fridge or at Easter, they have no shell. If they have no shell, they have no inside or outside. As you get closer to them there is more of it until you pass right through the center and then there is less of it. It is like walking through a ghost. This is what Viola meant when she said, “Slide through each other”, unlike the eggs in your fridge the nano-vulture eggs can pile into the same spot.

Now there is something else you should know, and every nano-vulture knows that the eggs come in two colours pink for boy eggs and blue for girl eggs. That’s just the way it is. Years later you will remember this story but for “electrons” instead of boy and girl its called “spin up” and “spin down”. You don’t have to worry about any of that now, lets get back to the story.

Viola had that look in her eye. “Squark” She laid a nano-vulture egg.

“Blue, it’s a blue egg, a boy! . . . . er. . . . it’s a girl!” cried George.

George was amazed, this was the most wonderful thing that happened in the crack in a blade of grass in the forest. Something was wrong. The egg fitted perfectly. Still George was worried about something. Something was not right.

Viola said “George, you had better get an egg centering stone. One strong enough to hold in 18 eggs, or if you can’t find 18, 17 will do”

George suddenly remembered what he had been taught at nano-vulture school. These egg centering stone somehow stick to the eggs and as they are very heavy and small, and the eggs the are very light and big the egg won’t blow away. But why was he asked to find a stone that can attract 18 eggs? He couldn’t spend time thinking, he had to rush, Viola had that look in her eye. Who knows what would happen next?

George flew around the crack in the blade of grass in the forest. He looked and looked there were lots of stones that could attract one egg, some two. He was getting desperate. There was a 12 one, no that wouldn’t do.  There was a 17 one, “No I need an 18 one because we are having 18 eggs”

While George is flying around hunting for egg centering stones, we should have a little conference about them. Let me tell you about egg centering stones. Unlike other children’s stories where you may never see an owl and pussycat in a boat or a bean stalk rising up into the clouds, I can guarantee you will see egg centering stones. They are called nuclei and you will hear of them all the time when you are older because they are real. Just like the stone George is looking for nuclei are very small and heavy. The sun is so hot in the sky because it is making heavier nuclei by squishing together lighter ones. Every time it makes a heavier nucleus there is a shower of heat and light. Coming back to George he could squeeze together some of the 1 egg centering stones to build up 2,3,4 all the way up to 18, but his beak is too weak. That is why he has to keep searching.

“I can’t find a single 18 egg centering stone, not a single one!” George sighed. He flew to where he remembered seeing a 17 egg centering stone. And by and by he found it. He picked it up in his beak. It was so heavy. Could he fly? He beat his nano-vulture wings and with his little webbed feet ran as fast as he could and just, only just took to the air. Now you might ask do nano-vultures have web feet? Well the story of why they decided they were nano-vultures will have to wait for another day. But I can tell you it involves George and Viola going to a mythical beast’s convention, and hungry Sam the camel fish who was ahead of George and Viola in the queue eating most of the pages out of the “What mythical beast is that?” book. But back to the nest, the perfect nest.

George landed and said “Rrr, Rrrr, Grr” and then open his beak to then say “I looked every where and finally found the right nano-vulture egg centring stone”. As he said this the very heavy, very small 17 nano-vulture egg centering stone dropped out of his beak and fell on the beautiful blue egg.

It didn’t break because it is different from a normal egg. A nano-vulture egg has no surfaces, no inside or outside, it only exists more as you move toward it, and after you pass through and come out the other side it exists less. George and Viola closed their eyes, they were worried. They opened them to look for the nano-vulture egg centering stone. It wasn’t sitting on top. It hadn’t bounced of to the side. It wasn’t underneath so it hadn’t fallen straight through. It was very very small and very very heavy. Where could the nano-vulture egg centering stone be? Viola and George both had to work together to lift the egg to look underneath as it was now very heavy. Viola looked at George. George looked at Viola. They both looked into the nano-vulture egg, there was the egg centering stone floating in the very centre of the egg.  “There it is!” they both said.

Viola had that faraway look. “Squark , Squack”  Out popped the second egg it was pink!

“It’s a girl…er no a boy!” George cried.

The second egg fell into the first perfectly filling the nest. It had no surface, no inside no outside. As you get closer to the centre there is more of it until you pass right through the centre and then there is less of it. Let me tell you about things falling into one another. Unlike other children’s stories where you may never meet the muffin man or Jack Frost, I can guarantee you will see things falling into one another. They are called wavefunctions and you will hear of them all the time when you are older because they are real. What Viola is going to do next will reshape her next nano-egg with her expert beak work actually does happen with real wavefunctions.

Viola had that faraway look. “Squark , Squack…..Quack”  Out popped the third egg it was blue!

“It’s a ……. a girl!” George cried.

But something was wrong, the third egg wouldn’t slip into the other two to be held in place by the nano-vulture egg centering stone. Viola looked worried. George looked worried.

Then Viola went into a trance, her eyes spinning in opposite directions. She whirled her beak inside the third egg, and it transformed. It looked a little different as if there was an egg within an egg. Very hard for me to describe as I wasn’t there. That’s what George said it looked like. But it did the trick and all three eggs now lay through each other with the nano-vulture egg centering stone in the very centre.

And so, the story continued. The far away look. The squarking. The trance. The expert beak-work. New patterns inside the eggs. Proud parents looking at their nest built for one egg, but now housing more as they slid through each other.

We join the story at the last 18^th egg.

Viola had that faraway look.  George thought “What’s happening?”

“Squark , Squack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack, Quack,  …..Quack”  Out popped the eighteenth egg.

“I knew it! It is a boy!” George cried. “What a clever nano-vulture, I am never wrong” he thought.

Now for the trance and expert bill-work. Two circle whirls, and one, two, three cross strokes. Marvellous work. Such skill!

George felt a little nervous. This was nano-vulture egg number 18. He had been through a lot. They had both been through a lot. It was really so intense. His mind went back to when he was searching for the nano-vulture egg centring stone. He remembered the enormous weight. The run up, his web feet running running running and up into the air.  Although thinking about it now he could have just walked over to the nest. Then, he dropped it didn’t he. No he placed it carefully in the centre of the egg, that is where you would expect to see an egg centering stone. But something was still worrying him, think further back, run time in reverse. What a nightmare, had he not been able to find an 18, but bought back a 17 instead.  What was he thinking? Why did he do it? Why? Why you stupid nano-duck – I mean nano vulture.

George opened his eyes. All the eggs were in the nest sitting through each other. It seemed a bit snug but no one would know. There was nothing to know. Viola was calmly going through a book of atomic orbital names. It was written in the 1920’s by an Austrian.

Let me tell you about those stones that hold onto one extra nano-vulture egg. Unlike other children’s stories where you may see a gingerbread man closing in on you in your rear vision mirror or a snow man turfing out all your frozen food to make room for himself in the freezer, I can guarantee you will see stones that hold onto one extra nano-vulture egg. It is called electron affinity and means while only a few types of atoms lack this ability most are more stable with one extra electron. This means if you add more electrons to neutral atoms, they will overlap and release energy.  The most dramatic is for chlorine that has a nuclear charge of +17 and by going from -17 to -18 electrons releases the most energy. For the moment you are not going to encounter electron affinity at school. Perhaps someone ahead of your teacher in the queue ate those pages out of the science books. But if you can’t get to learn about chlorine ions, you can definitely eat them, just ask for extra chlorine and sodium ions on your next serve of chips.

So, what happened to Viola and George? Well many years later they got a letter that they red intensely that said they were only dreamt up as learning tools for children. George looked into Viola’s eyes, Viola looked into George’s eyes. Time to fly away and go on a cruise. Soaring in circles in the desert never really attracted them.  They always liked the look of those rivers and waterways. However, when it came time for take-off they had accumulated so much stuff, so many books on Quantum Mechanics they were just too heavy.  They took the bus instead. Where did they go? Well some say they went into some child’s brain. There is a little door just inside the ear apparently. And there they help the child imagine quantum physics even though they are seeing different things on the classroom blackboard.

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