R6 and Ducati 999

Met up with Steve, my kpmg/city national bank co-worker’s husband who rides a Ducati 999 and R1. We went to Azusa for some canyon riding! Woot! Had a blast and learned a lot. Ever since I’ve been traveling and getting my hustle on with filming and martial arts competitions, I’ve really neglected my baby (my R6) and today it was good getting my feet wet with riding the canyons. Hopefully, in a few months I will hit up the track. I’ll also have to save up to get one piece suit and some nice riding boots. I think boots are a must have.

Anyways, today was awesome and I came home exhausted. We rode for about 3-4 hours.. well including my travel time too. I gotta remember to look through my turns, shift my body over the line to the direction I want to turn, put my foot on the pegs and dont worry about the rear break so much, push down on left peg and right handle bar to make a tighter right turn (vice versa for other side), relax my arms, follow a smooth line, speed up through the turn, and accelerate out at the peak of the turn. I know some of this stuff is basic sounding, but it’s good to remind myself.

Afterward we went to a cool cafe for some coffee/food. I had a salad with chicken, apple, and mandarin oranges. Delicious! And since.. we lived to ride another day.. I treated myself to a root beer float! Steve is a fireman so he sees a lot of mortality and so we had a good discussion about perspective on life and death. I also commented that in cultures where your “job” does NOT define you.. and you wake up every day knowing the answer to “what do I wake up for every day?” as opposed to thinking that your being is tied to your job.. you will live a happier and healthier life… because ultimately we retire or no longer can work our jobs.. then those people sort of lose a sense of self and without a purpose we lose a part of our will to live.

Anyways, I think it’s healthy to be put in perspective with our mortality once in a while so I enjoyed that root beer float heartily!

Here’s me saying.. remember to keep the rubber side down! See you next time!

azusa canyon ride day

Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
In fairly short order, physicists studying the quantum level noticed some peculiar things about this tiny world. For one, the particles that exist on this level have a way of taking different forms arbitrarily. For example, scientists have observed photons — tiny packets of light — acting as particles and waves. Even a single photon exhibits this shape-shifting [source: Brown University]. Imagine if you looked and acted like a solid human being when a friend glanced at you, but when he looked back again, you’d taken a gaseous form.

This has come to be known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. The physicist Werner Heisenberg suggested that just by observing quantum matter, we affect the behavior of that matter. Thus, we can never be fully certain of the nature of a quantum object or its attributes, like velocity and location.

This idea is supported by the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. Posed by the Danish physicist Niels Bohr, this interpretation says that all quantum particles don’t exist in one state or the other, but in all of its possible states at once. The sum total of possible states of a quantum object is called its wave function. The state of an object existing in all of its possible states at once is called its superposition.

According to Bohr, when we observe a quantum object, we affect its behavior. Observation breaks an object’s superposition and essentially forces the object to choose one state from its wave function. This theory accounts for why physicists have taken opposite measurements from the same quantum object: The object “chose” different states during different measurements.

Bohr’s interpretation was widely accepted, and still is by much of the quantum community. But lately, Everett’s Many-Worlds theory has been getting some serious attention.

Many Worlds Theory
Young Hugh Everett agreed with much of what the highly respected physicist Niels Bohr had suggested about the quantum world. He agreed with the idea of superposition, as well as with the notion of wave functions. But Everett disagreed with Bohr in one vital respect.

To Everett, measuring a quantum object does not force it into one comprehensible state or another. Instead, a measurement taken of a quantum object causes an actual split in the universe. The universe is literally duplicated, splitting into one universe for each possible outcome from the measurement. For example, say an object’s wave function is both a particle and a wave. When a physicist measures the particle, there are two possible outcomes: It will either be measured as a particle or a wave. This distinction makes Everett’s Many-Worlds theory a competitor of the Copenhagen interpretation as an explanation for quantum mechanics.

When a physicist measures the object, the universe splits into two distinct universes to accommodate each of the possible outcomes. So a scientist in one universe finds that the object has been measured in wave form. The same scientist in the other universe measures the object as a particle. This also explains how one particle can be measured in more than one state.

As unsettling as it may sound, Everett’s Many-Worlds interpretation has implications beyond the quantum level. If an action has more than one possible outcome, then — if Everett’s theory is correct — the universe splits when that action is taken. This holds true even when a person chooses not to take an action.

This means that if you have ever found yourself in a situation where death was a possible outcome, then in a universe parallel to ours, you are dead. This is just one reason that some find the Many-Worlds interpretation disturbing.

Another disturbing aspect of the Many-Worlds interpretation is that it undermines our concept of time as linear. Imagine a time line showing the history of the Vietnam War. Rather than a straight line showing noteworthy events progressing onward, a time line based on the Many-Worlds interpretation would show each possible outcome of each action taken. From there, each possible outcome of the actions taken (as a result of the original outcome) would be further chronicled.

But a person cannot be aware of his other selves — or even his death — that exist in parallel universes. So how could we ever know if the Many-Worlds theory is correct? Assurance that the interpretation is theoretically possible came in the late 1990s from a thought experiment — an imagined experiment used to theoretically prove or disprove an idea — called quantum suicide. (You can learn more about it in How Quantum Suicide Works.)

This thought experiment renewed interest in Everett’s theory, which was for many years considered rubbish. Since Many-Worlds was proven possible, physicists and mathematicians have aimed to investigate the implications of the theory in depth. But the Many-Worlds interpretation is not the only theory that seeks to explain the universe. Nor is it the only one that suggests there are universes parallel to our own.