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Particle Census

Title text: Remember, your answers to the physics census are confidential; we will not be issuing Pauli exclusion principle citations.

Explanation

This is incomplete:
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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 - Because there are a lot of particles in the universe, and many are quite difficult to reach.^{[citation needed]} As well as that, saying where some of the particles are, at least when you get to more spacebound areas, would be difficult too. And unless the particles happen to be at absolute zero, they will be moving around a lot. So 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.

The title text refers to the Pauli exclusion principle. This states that no two fermions can occupy the same quantum state. As the results of the census are confidential, physics officials will not use it to determine if any particles are violating it and issuing citations. This confuses physical laws, which describe how the universe works, with societal laws, which state what is allowed or required by the government.

Trivia

When this comic was uploaded the normal sized image was incorrectly 2x size. It still shows up at 2x size on unixkcd.

Additionally, "indeterminate" is spelt "indeterminite" in the second panel text.

Transcript

This is one of 45 incomplete transcripts:
Don't remove this notice too soon. If you can fix this issue, edit the page!

[First Panel. Megan is standing at a lectern, presumably talking to an audience.]

Megan: Remember, Tuesday is the decennial particle census.

Megan: Physicists will be recording the location of all particles in the universe.

[Second Panel. Zooms out to show the stage Megan is on]

Megan: Of course, this will cause their momenta to become indeterminite, so please plan for some disruption.

[Third Panel. An audience member pipes up from off-panel.]

Audience member: Wait, disruption? Where will my particles go?

Megan: No one can say, but you'll know exactly where they were.

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This is a test. PoolloverNathan^{[stalk the blue seas]} 20:48, 16 March 2021 (UTC)

A foreign student asked me to help fight against his math teacher. That was unusual. He was in that class for just a couple of weeks. The teacher's phone number was sent to me. The student asked me to spam-call the teacher. 172.71.155.55 22:58, 18 September 2023 (UTC)

here i'm just messing around in html, ignore this

^furhhfghure _{guyrburgryhuyvfr} "rvhru"

interesting way of writing quotations xd

hmmm this one of putting "<p>" in a line break will come in handy for when i want it to start at the same place than the first line

Please beware that <p> on mediawiki also disables automatic paragraph breaks, so you need a closing </p> or you'll break automatic paragraph formatting for the rest of the page. Zmatt (talk) 22:06, 31 July 2024 (UTC)

edit: da hek did that "</div>" come from An user who has no account yet (talk) 14:14, 13 October 2023 (UTC)

hi uh its hard to get here. is this a reference to undocumented feature??? hmm... this is interesting.
108.162.241.216 02:05, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

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yum yum ^{[citation needed]}

Hiuiedeixgeyceiyedhcdiedcve {{trout}}

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<a href=" [AT THE JULY 28TH MEETING][tab] "Cancel the meeting! Our cover is blown."> More testing: hello doesthiswork (yesitdoes) This isn't a good name (talk) 22:44, 28 January 2026 (UTC)

‮hi 164.58.172.158 14:21, 23 February 2026 (UTC)

What is this?????????????????????? King Pando (talk) 04:25, 10 March 2026 (UTC)‭

Hello 107.1.219.44 19:29, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

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18 May 2026

		N 23:31	Talk:3247: Particle Census‎‎ (5 changes \| history) . . (+1,314)‎ . . [YZ100‎; TheusafBOT‎; CalibansCreations‎; 2001:861:3f07:a020:cbe1:3bdb:88f9:709a‎ (2×)]
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