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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!we13!ihnp4!fortune!rpw3
From: rpw3@fortune.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: Leaps of Faith - (nf)
Message-ID: <3050@fortune.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 12-Apr-84 23:05:41 EST
Article-I.D.: fortune.3050
Posted: Thu Apr 12 23:05:41 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 13-Apr-84 21:14:58 EST
Sender: notes@fortune.UUCP
Organization: Fortune Systems, Redwood City, CA
Lines: 23

#R:allegra:-239700:fortune:8600015:000:902
fortune!rpw3    Apr 12 20:00:00 1984

+--------------------
| Mr. Caplan.  I am pretty sure that if a room holds 8 gas molecules,
| that in a short while all of them will be on one side for an instant.
| If there are 10^30 molecules I am content to believe that it will just
| take a little longer.  I have a certain naive faith that arithmetic
| continues to work even when I run out of fingers and toes to count on.
+--------------------

The problem with this is that, with a VERY high degree of probability,
LONG LONG before ALL the molecules go to one half of the room, you will
see an event in which MOST of the molecules go to one side of the room,
blowing the walls out due to overpressure (as in a tornado), thus
prematurely ending the experiment...  ;-}

Rob Warnock

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