It has been said that everything everywhere affects everything else. This may be true.
Or perhaps the world is just full of patterns. (Wings)
Or perhaps the world is just full of patterns. (Wings)
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Life can be very difficult subatomic particle in a great big universe. (S)
Biology isn’t just physics and chemistry with knobs on. It’s a whole new world. (JD)
Greebo had spent an irritating two minutes in that box. Technically, a cat locked in a box may be alive or it may be dead. You never know until you look. In fact, the mere act of opening the box will determine the state of the cat, although in this case there were three determinate states the cat could be in: these being Alive, Dead, and Bloody Furious. (LL)
Granny Weatherwax wouldn’t know what a pattern of quantum inevitability was if she found it eating her dinner. If you mentioned the words ‘paradigm of space-time’ to her she’d just say ‘What?’ But that didn’t mean she was ignorant. It just meant that she didn’t have truck with words, especially gibberish. (WA)
'Nothing ever finishes. Nothing’s ever really over.’
It was Johnny who said that. He was surprised at himself. ‘Correct! Are you a physicist?’ ‘Me?’ said Johnny. ‘I don’t know the anything about science!’ ‘Marvellous! Ideal qualification!’ said Einstein. ‘What?’ 'Ignorance is very important! It is an absolutely essential step in the learning process!' (JD) 'I like that explanation,’ said Ridcully. ‘It is elegant, Mister Stibbons.’
‘It’s only a guess, sir.’ ‘Good enough for physics,’ said Ridcully. (SODW) People look down on stuff like geography and meteorology, and not only because they’re standing on one and being soaked by the other. They don’t look quite like real science. But geography is only physics slowed down and with a few trees stuck on it, and meteorology is full of excitingly fashionable chaos and complexity. (FC)
He explained – although ‘explained’ is probably too positive a word, and in this case really means failed to explain but at some length – that it was perfectly possible to travel across the world in a small lamp being carried by one of the party, the lamp itself moving because it was being carried by one of the people inside it, because of a) the fractal nature of reality, which meant that everything could be thought of as being inside everything else and b) creative public relations.
The trick relied on the laws of physics failing to spot the flaw until the journey was complete. (S) 'It’s very hard to talk quantum using a language originally designed to tell other monkeys where the ripe fruit is.' (NW)
'And then there’s quantum, of course.’ The monk sighed. ‘There’s always bloody quantum.' (NW)
'What’re quantum mechanics?'
'I don’t know. People who repair quantums, I suppose.' (E) At last IIa said, ‘What does “quantum” mean anyway?’
IIb shrugged. ‘It means add another nought,’ he said. ‘Oh,’ said IIa, ‘is that all?' (P) ... the thaum, hitherto believed to be the smallest possible particle of magic, was successfully demonstrated to be made up of resons* or reality fragments. Currently research indicates that each reson is itself made up of a combination of at
least five ‘flavours’,known as ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘sideways’, ‘sex appeal’ and ‘peppermint’. * Lit: ‘Thing-ies’ (LL) ... direct levitation is the hardest of the practical magics, because of the ever-present danger of the well-known
principles of action and reaction, which means that a wizard attempting to lift a heavy item by mind power alone faces the prospect of ending up with his brains in his boots. (ER) A Thaum is the basic unit of magical strength. It has been universally established as the amount of magic needed to create one small white pigeon or three normal sized billiard balls. (LF)
... magic had indeed once been wild and lawless, but had been tamed back in the mists of time by the Olden Ones, who had bound it to obey among other things the Law of Conservation of Reality; this demanded that the effort needed to achieve a goal should be the same regardless of the means used. In practical terms this meant that, say, creating the illusion of a glass of wine was relatively easy, since it involved merely the subtle shifting of light patterns. On the other hand, lifting a genuine wineglass a few feet in the air by sheer mental energy required several hours of systematic preparation if the wizard wished to prevent the simple principle of leverage flicking his brain out through his ears. (COM)
Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. (H)
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