Schrodinger's Cat

[Sister Mary Lunatic]

No: HPFGUIDX 1332

LOL!  Has anyone here ever read Isaac Asimov's short story, entitled "The
Endochronic Properties of Resublimated Thiotimoline"?  It's pretty funny.

Asimov wrote it when he was a graduate student, as a joke on the convoluted
language and theories of quantum science.  In it, the experimenter proved
that a certain compound had (more or less) gained the ability to read the
mind of the experimenter, so to speak, and to dissolve, or not to dissolve,
depending on whether the experimenter REALLY planned to add water to it, or
was just standing over the beaker with a glass of water waiting for the
chemical to dissolve on its own.  This thread on Heisenberg and Schrodinger
reminds me of it.  Here's a short synopsis:

Thiotimoline is a crystal with the unique property that it dissolves just
before you add water to it. Isaac Asimov invented Thiotimoline for his first
published short story, but only discovered its true power years later when
defending his doctoral thesis. A stony-faced examiner suddenly asked him to
explain the nature of thiotimoline. Asimov nearly panicked trying to decide
whether the examiner understood that thiotimoline was a joke. As you
probably know, Asimov did get his Ph.D.