3247: Particle Census
| Particle Census |
 Title text: Remember, your answers to the physics census are confidential; we will not be issuing Pauli exclusion principle citations. |
Explanation[edit]
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This is one of 46 incomplete explanations: This page was created at an INDETERMINITE TIME. Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page! |
This comic references the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. Put simply, it states that there's a limit to how precisely we can know both the position and momentum of a particle — the more precisely we know one, the less we know the other. Megan says they're taking a census of the positions of all particles in the universe, so they'll be known precisely; therefore, all their momenta will be unknowable. And by the time we use the census results, we won't know where any of the particles are, we'll just know where they were at the instant their positions were recorded by the census.
In the United States, the Constitution mandates that a population census of people living in all the states be taken every ten years. This is primarily for the purpose of apportioning representatives to Congress, but it has come to be used for many other demographic purposes. There's no legal requirement for a decennial physics census; if physicists want to do this, it's their own decision. However, it's not really possible to measure the positions of all particles in the universe, as there are a lot of particles in the universe, and many are quite far away.[citation needed] And unless the particles happen to be at absolute zero, they will be moving, potentially quite fast. So it would be a needlessly difficult census.
In the third panel, someone speaks up and is worried about what they will do with the particles in the potential “disruption”. Randomly taking someone’s particles and relocating them would be considered unpleasant,[citation needed] even if you tell them where the particles are going.
If indeed all particles locations was determined (as exactly as possible) it would have to be done using very high energi particles (where would they then be?), and thus all the particles measured would after wards move very fast (less than the speed of light of course, but close to it). Thus everything (and everyone) would be destroyed. So the concern voiced is very fair, but of course unnecessary as it would not be possible to perform the task that Megan claims will happen.
The title text refers to the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two fermions — types of particles that include all ordinary matter — can occupy the same quantum state. As the results of the census are confidential, physics officials will not use it to determine whether to issue citations for particles that violate the exclusion principle. This confuses physical laws, which describe how the universe works and by their nature cannot be violated, with societal laws, which declare what is allowed or required by the government.
Transcript[edit]
- [Megan is standing behind a lectern, addressing an unseen audience.]
- Megan: Remember, Tuesday is the decennial particle census.
- Megan: Physicists will be recording the location of all particles in the universe.
- [Zoom out to show Megan is on a podium behind the lectern. She holds one hand, palm up, out towards the still unseen audience]
- Megan: Of course, this will cause their momenta to become indeterminite, so please plan for some disruption.
- [The same scene with Megans hands held down. A voice comes from off-panel at the left through a star burst at the edge of the panel.]
- Audience member [off-panel]: Wait, disruption? Where will my particles go?
- Megan: No one can say, but you'll know exactly where they were.
Trivia[edit]
- When this comic was uploaded the normal sized image was incorrectly 2x size. It kept showing up at 2x size on unixkcd for awhile.
- "Indeterminate" is spelt "indeterminite" in the second panel text.
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The 'standard' and '2x' sized images had unexpected sizes, so an imagesize parameter has been added to render the image consistently with other comics on this website. See the web archive for more details. --TheusafBOT (talk) 18:54, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
GRAMMATICAL ERROR! Should there be a category for grammar mistakes (Example 1662: Jack and Jill, where there was a grammar mistake.)? YZ100 22:20, 18 May 2026 (UTC)
- Indeterminite? Location (singular)? 197.185.221.9 04:20, 19 May 2026 (UTC)
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