{"id":277,"date":"2007-10-02T02:37:58","date_gmt":"2007-10-02T06:37:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=277"},"modified":"2007-10-02T02:37:58","modified_gmt":"2007-10-02T06:37:58","slug":"australian-actresses-are-plagiarizing-my-quantum-mechanics-lecture-to-sell-printers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/?p=277","title":{"rendered":"Australian actresses are plagiarizing my quantum mechanics lecture to sell printers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tried to think of a witty, ironic title for this post, but in the end, I simply couldn’t. The above title is a literal statement of fact.<\/em><\/p>\n

A reader named Warren Smith informs me of an Australian TV commercial (which you can watch on YouTube<\/a>), in which two fashion models have the following conversation:<\/p>\n

Model 1: But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves — then what is<\/em> it about?<\/p>\n

Model 2: Well, from my perspective, it’s about information, probabilities, and observables, and how they relate to each other.<\/p>\n

Model 1: That’s interesting!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The commercial then flashes the tagline “A more intelligent model,” followed by a picture of a Ricoh printer.<\/p>\n

More intelligent, or simply more shameless? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, allow me to quote from Lecture 9<\/a> of my Quantum Computing Since Democritus notes:<\/p>\n

But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves, or particles — then what is<\/em> it about? From my perspective, it’s about information and probabilities and observables, and how they relate to each other.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For almost the first time in my life, I’m at a loss for words. I don’t know how to respond. I don’t know which of 500,000 possible jokes to make. Help me, readers. Should I be flattered? Should I be calling a lawyer?<\/p>\n

Update (10\/3):<\/strong><\/font> [Sydney Morning Herald]<\/a> [The Age]<\/a> [Slashdot]<\/a> [BoingBoing]<\/a> [AdNews]<\/a> [Scientific American blog]<\/a> (Let me know if you find others) (I’m actually in Riga, Latvia, where it’s 8:30am, and just woke up to find all this. I’m going to take a shower now.)<\/p>\n

Also:<\/strong><\/font> Please let me know if you get any more “CPU quota exceeded” errors. I just enabled an option to speed up PHP scripts, which might or might not solve the problem. Bluehost sucks<\/a> — never use them for anything!<\/p>\n

Update (10\/4):<\/strong><\/font> Thanks, everyone, for the free legal advice! From half of you I’ve learned that I’d be an arrogant, stereotypically-American jerk to pursue this case further; from the other half I’ve learned that I’d be a na\u00efve idiot not to. The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my central goal in life, namely for everyone to like me.<\/p>\n

Also:<\/strong><\/font> Many commenters seem to assume the pilfered quote is just my expression of the conventional wisdom. Well, it should<\/em> be, and I wish<\/em> it were! But as Avi Wigderson pointed out to me, the idea that quantum mechanics is about information rather than waves or particles is still extremely non<\/em>-standard, and would have been considered insane fifteen years ago.<\/p>\n

Update (10\/5):<\/strong><\/font> This is not to say it’s my<\/em> idea (as other commenters assumed I was saying)! If any entity can claim “ownership” of the idea, I would think it’s the entire quantum computing and information community. The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my secondary goal in life, namely for everyone to understand me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I tried to think of a witty, ironic title for this post, but in the end, I simply couldn’t. The above title is a literal statement of fact. A reader named Warren Smith informs me of an Australian TV commercial (which you can watch on YouTube), in which two fashion models have the following conversation: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[30,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-277","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mirrored-on-csail-blog","category-quantum"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=277"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=277"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=277"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/scottaaronson.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=277"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}