Jennifer Gooch’s mission was to create a simple Web site where people could go to find their lost gloves. Even if no happy reunions ever took place, she was just content to spread a little goodwill.But just a month since http://www.onecoldhand.com went live, the Carnegie Mellon University art student is busier than ever. She’s reunited four gloves with their owners, is working on similar sites for cities around the globe, and is planning a book to showcase her found gloves.
Four. Wow, that is impressive, I would have thought zero.Why do I think that? No, not because I think the dog ate the glove or there never was a second glove, as some people think. But rather, because of my Theory of Everything linking String Theory and Quantum Theory.I’ll spare you the details, but I’m able to prove the link. First, you have to know something important about quantum theory.According to quantum theory, a given quantum particle … a minimal subatomic particle like a quark … varies in its relation to time and space probabilistically. This means that one can never be sure exactly “where,” or even “when,” this particle is, if you are looking at just one particle. At the macro scale, we seem to exist at a particular time and space because of averaging effects, like the rabbit that the statisticians “shot,” if you get my drift.Well, I’ve discovered through a combination of both empirical and theoretical work that if matter is organized in a certain shape, there is a tendency for all of the quantum-sized particles to shift in time and space almost simultaneously. The degree of simultaneity is correlated with the overall distance in “space” that the particles shift. This happens under certain limited environmental conditions.The shape is a folded plane, much like a common sock. So, for instance, under environmental conditions of relatively high ambient heat and low humidity, all the particles that make up the sock disappear from where they were and end up somewhere else, very far away, almost always in an alternate but similarly configured universe. Except for a little bit of lint, the sock is gone. The most likely environment in which this will happen turns out to be in a common clothes dryer.The same works for mittens and gloves, but because of shape effects (that I will explain another time if I have the chance) it happens more with mittens than with gloves.The dispersal effect across universes, for reasons that I will not go into here, is biased, so some universes are “donor” universes, while other universes are “recipient” universes, on balance. It can be shown that we (“we” meaning, that if you can read his blog you are in “this” universe) live in a donor universe. But we do receive a certain number of socks, mittens, and gloves from other universes that are otherwise fairly similar to (but not exactly like!) our own!This is why, as is well known, most of the time socks seem to disappear from your dryer, but every now and then, seemingly inexplicably (but explained clearly by my theory), an “alien” sock … a sock looking much like an earthling sock, but on further examination with no known earthy source of manufacture … appears in your drier.Many, many of the individual mittens and gloves one sees lying about the highway are the same. They are alien mittens and gloves that have shifted here from another, parallel, universe. This can be easily shown. Clearly, the conditions of transfer for mittens and gloves are slightly different, in fact, in a very symmetric way (as I would have expected) from that of socks: Slightly cooler and damp conditions enhance the probability of a mitten-shift or a glove-shift.I await with great anticipation the results of Jennifer Gooch’s groundbreaking research! The data she collects will be invaluable. To prove my theory!
Have you read the breakthrough novel of the year? When you are done with that, try:
or Paperback
*Please note:
Links to books and other items on this page and elsewhere on Greg Ladens' blog may send you to Amazon, where I am a registered affiliate. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases, which helps to fund this site.
I’m so glad science has finally solved this age-old mystery! I knew a man once who claimed he was the only person in existence whose contribution to what we today (since your post) know as a ‘recipient universe’ was rejected and returned. His Stanfield longjohns, having disappeared while in the dryer, reappeared weeks later – on top of the fridge.
Mitten -shift…brilliant;-)But this passage below describes my sleep patterns precisely, but in place of lint, I would add that it is likely only drool left on my pillow…”The shape is a folded plane, much like a common sock. So, for instance, under environmental conditions of relatively high ambient heat and low humidity, all the particles that make up the sock disappear from where they were and end up somewhere else, very far away, almost always in an alternate but similarly configured universe. Except for a little bit of lint, the sock is gone.”Oh, yeah: in your theory, I am the sock …
The glow gloves/glowing gloves are designed for signing in the dark, however, you can get creative and find other uses for the glove.