Here's a cute game I just worked out

Relative particulation: a game for one player

The object of the game: maximize available fun

Rules:

  1. Use these rules in the order they occur unless instructed otherwise.

  2. If you’re not a particle, you lose immediately.

  3. Imagine four mutually orthogonal straight lines intersecting at your centre and extending as far as you can see in both directions, for reference purposes.

  4. Rotate about one of them at whatever rate results in a tolerable degree of interference from nearby particles.

  5. If an increasing amount of fun does not appear to be approaching, return to step 1.

  6. You win!

Notes:

Some players may, at first, find the manoeuvres described in rules 2 and 3 difficult to execute cleanly. They get easier with practice.

You can try starting by attaching yourself to a much larger particle and using it as a guide, thereby allowing you to ignore, to some extent, the axis about which you are both rotating.

You will find that if you’re not rotating much relative to another particle, you won’t notice it much. You may also find that attempts to rotate in certain ways while attached to a larger particle result in injury if performed without due care and attention.

Even if you continue to have difficulty doing these things for yourself, there is a lot of fun to be had by pretending to be some other particle instead.

It may help if you put labels on your imaginary straight lines so as not to get them mixed up. Labels I like are Time, Size, Mass and Charge.

Enjoy! And do be careful with other players; some of them can become quite unstable if you keep interfering with them.

Errrr… huh?


Coldfire


“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)

Well, at least we know he picked the correct forum for this thread.


My sig line is currently unavailable. Please check this post in 1 hour when we resume our broadcast day.

Coldfire: Why do you express confusion?

Let me see. From my brief reading, are you talking about dancing? That’s the only thing I can get.

Enlighten me.

No, don’t enlighten us. Obviously somebody has way too much time on his/her hands and possibly has an annoying personallity to boot. Maybe this poster should be friends with the one who posted “Anyone Like Statistics?” in GQ a day or so ago.

Here’s a link, if you want to make a friend or play his/her puzzle: http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005017.html

Nice catch Miss Davis-

Its my guess that pqulier is some type of pseudo-scientist that read an article in Discover and now attempting to prove how smart he is.

Guess what? Not smart, just annoying!

-Frankie
Lack of charisma can be fatal

Oh and he is talking about some sort of particle physics!


-Frankie
Lack of charisma can be fatal

Shouldn’t that be a post in the “Things you can do while the network is down…” thread.


I really try to be good but it just isn’t in my nature!

Yeah, I caught the particle physics bit, but I wasn’t impressed. Now if the game involved something like top quarks coming closer as you spin a particular direction, maybe that would be a cute game, but fun, no. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in the room with Schroedinger’s cat. Maybe. (hee hee)

Whaddaya expect from someone who listed relativity as an interest.

Confused in Canada

Keith

A relatively interesting topic? Or a relatively understandable one?

He should stick to compost.

OK, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no rocket scientist. Is there a requirement for large amounts of your favorite recreational intoxicant before this game becomes enjoyable?


“…send lawyers, guns, and money…”

 Warren Zevon