# Abnormal Physics

**URL:** http://discourse.iapct.org/t/abnormal-physics/808
**Category:** CSG1993
**Created:** [December 21, 1993, 5:08pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/abnormal-physics/808 "1993-12-21T17:08:51Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@William\_T\_Powers2](http://discourse.iapct.org/u/William_T_Powers2)
#### Post date: [December 21, 1993, 5:08pm UTC](http://discourse.iapct.org/t/abnormal-physics/808/1 "1993-12-21T17:08:51Z")

</div>

[From Bill Powers (931221.0820 EST)]

I predict that from now until June, the motto will be "Light,  
more light!"

Martin Taylor (931221) --

> **···**
>
> > From me:
> 
> > > Control systems create abnormal physics.
> 
> > From you:
> 
> > Why is this abnormal physics?
> 
> ---------------------------------------  
> &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Abnormal Physics
> 
> Balance a broomstick on end (the bottom of the unstable  
> broomstick moves instead of the top).
> 
> Stand up in a gale (you lean into the wind instead of away from  
> it).
> 
> Hold a bucket under a faucet until it's full (the supporting  
> muscles shorten instead of the bucket descending as its weight  
> increases to stretch the muscles).
> 
> Keep a marble spinning halfway up the side of a bowl. (Pick  
> marble off table and put it in bowl. Pick up bowl. Move bowl in  
> circle to make marble climb wall and circle at constant height.  
> Maintain as long as you like).
> 
> Prevent a vortex from forming (Stick your finger in the middle).
> 
> Make the vortex spin half as fast (Stir gently with your finger).
> 
> Make an arm behave as if it had a different mass and as if the  
> muscles had a different spring constant (Spinal control systems)
> 
> Climb a hill.
> 
> Drive a car 20 miles through traffic to a specific parking place.
> 
> Drive a car from Pagosa Springs to Alamosa over the San Juan  
> mountains (Wow! Sure is lucky there was a road there. Sure is  
> lucky the car stayed on it).
> 
> Put on a shirt and button it (highly improbable).
> 
> Arrange a shelf of books alphabetically by title, author, or call  
> number. Or by color. Or by size.
> 
> Find some food and eat it (Note that the "energy stream" does not  
> maintain itself).
> 
> Do a scratch spin on ice-skates and end up on one knee facing the  
> judges.
> 
> Make a bed.
> 
> Make a chair.
> 
> Pump up a swing.
> 
> Sort socks into pairs.
> 
> Flip a coin and put it down showing heads 50 times in a row  
> (probability 10^-15)
> 
> Shake a coin in a bottle so it ends up heads 100 times in a row  
> (stop shaking every time you see the coin at the bottom showing  
> heads).
> 
> > From a bowl containing 1000 white beads and 10 black beads,
> 
> remove all the black beads without removing any white beads.
> 
> Place 100 beads in 200 bins with a bead in every second bin.
> 
> > From a shiffled deck, deal a bridge hand in which each person
> 
> ends up with Ace through King in a single suit.
> 
> Write your name.
> 
> Make a rubber ball rise off a table at constant vertical speed,  
> make it pause 5 sec, and make it return at constant speed to the  
> tabletop without bouncing.
> 
> Heat a pan of soup, with all objects in the room starting and  
> finishing at a temperature lower than that of the soup.
> 
> Get out of a locked, barred room without picking the lock or  
> breaking the bars (pay the fine).  
> ------------------------------  
> All these abnormal physical behaviors of physical objects are  
> made possible by the fact that you can sense things without  
> disturbing them, and produce an action that will cause parts of  
> the environment to behave in ways contrary to what would have  
> happened if you not acted to control your perceptions. As a  
> control system, you can produce acts which are not caused by  
> antecedent forces, and hence are not simply part of a normal  
> physical interaction. You can cause physical variables to covary  
> with other physical variables in ways contrary to natural law. Of  
> course the free variable in all these acts is your own behavior,  
> your ability to create arbitrary forces unrelated to the forces  
> that naturally occur. These forces are not caused in the normal  
> way, but are based on extremely low-energy sensing processes  
> which by themselves are incapable of producing any actions. Your  
> thoughts and intentions cause the environment to exhibit unlikely  
> relationships and outcomes, none of which would exist if it were  
> not for the presence of living control systems.
> 
> There is one condition that is tacitly agreed to in doing any  
> valid scientific experiment, in physics or elsewhere: hands off!  
> If you're checking a chemical assay by weighing the products,  
> keep your thumb off the scale. If you're timing the swings of a  
> pendulum, don't breathe rhythmically or otherwise on the swinging  
> bob. If you're using a mass spectrometer, leave your magnet at  
> home. Scientific experiments are supposed to run by themselves,  
> without the need for anyone to keep looking and nudge them along  
> if they're not progressing right. To take any kind of purposive  
> action during an experiment (other than designing it, setting it  
> up, and turning it on) is cheating.
> 
> But we cheat all the time. The pictures on the wall didn't get  
> there by any ordinary physical process. Breakfast doesn't appear  
> on the table through any normal set of physical or chemical  
> interactions. Lab equipment isn't a natural outgrowth of natural  
> deposits of minerals. The oranges in the geometrical stack at the  
> supermarket didn't climb up and arrange themselves. The  
> probability of practically anything you find in your environment  
> being what it is and where it is is incalculably close to zero.  
> Abnormal physics. It's everywhere.  
> ---------------------------------------------------------------  
> Best,
> 
> Bill P.