Webcomic Beacon

Webcomic Beacon #147: THREE YEAR ANNIVERSARY!

Fes, Tanya, and Mark, are here to celebreate THREE YEARS of THE WEBCOMIC BEACON! We are also joined by two of the new TWCB crew, Adam and Alex! We attempt to talk talk about webcomics.. pffft HAHAHA! No we don’t try too hard, but we have a lot of fun on this episode, talking about whatever! Thanks to all who have contributed to the show and listened to the show!

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Cover Art by: Ahmed Fahim (Antisoshell). Be sure to check out all the art we’ve received over the years!

Help us put together a room party for Penguicon 2011! Please consider buying a sponsorship for the show. $20 for Core Episodes, $10 for EPs or Newscasts. Donate or sponsor $50 worth, and we’ll specially design a drink based off of your webcomic name.

Notes: The break song was Schrödinger’s Cat by Peter Greenstone, Antisoshell, Fan Animation, Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Schrödinger’s Cat, mentioned XKCD strip, Hello The Future (Blue), Jinxtigr, Penguicon, Two Cents in 60 Seconds, Two Kinds, The Adventures of Blue Bird, The Apple of Discord, TV Tropes, Digital Strips, Gigcast, The Dish, Medium Large, Webcomics Weekly, Toilet Genie, The System, Super Art Fight, Slightly Off-Topic, Sherm Sherman Twitter, Gayzilla Twitter, Demon Eater, , Milestones: Life of Nob T. Mouse (14 yrs) and Ardra (5yrs)

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With regard to the uncertainty principle, it may be easier to explain the theory by looking at particles on a quantum level. Let’s say you have a photon going right on a horizontal plane.

You don’t know how fast it is going but you do know that you observed it going right 1 second ago. To know its speed, you can therefore observe where it is now and then extrapolate an average speed based on the distance travelled in that last second.

The only problem there is that to observe the photo requires its interaction with another body; be it your eye when observing directly, or an intermediary particle that will relay information back to you. This interaction changes the properties of the photon in a way that is analogous to a cue ball hitting a coloured ball on a snooker table.

So we observe the photon and now we know its speed. We can even tell its velocity at that point. Great! But now we don’t know where the photon *is*. Why? Because we smacked another particle into it. If the photon still exists (which isn’t a certainty by any means), the chances of it still moving in the same direction (or at the same speed, for that matter) are slim to none.

So there you have it: the Uncertainty Principle stops you knowing everything because, to quote Futurama, you change the outcome by observing it.

The problem with that, is that it’s not merely “observing” in the traditional sense, meaning “not interfering, while standing back and watching”.

When you are using tools to DETECT things, you aren’t observing. You are doing things, and interrupting things. Yeah, sure semantics, detecting isn’t the same as observing. You are fucking with it, at some level.

You’re always fucking with it at some level. Your observations on a day-to-day basis rely on photons being bounced off objects (sight); signal transfers due to contact (feeling, taste, smell); or direct interference with the path of energy waves (sound). The only difference is that the scale you’re working at means there is a limited amount of noticeable changes when working at ‘normal’, macroscopic levels. When you get down to the quantum level, everything is far more delicate; hence the uncertainty principle has a substantially greater effect.

Congratulations on 3 years! Just so we can support Fes and his competitive spirit, we just dropped new episodes of the Gigcast #196 and #197. =) Hope you guys are still going in another 3 years. Good Luck and Great Work!

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