50-48 #45: HOW TO RESURRECT CATS FROM THE DEAD

50-48 #45: HOW TO RESURRECT CATS FROM THE DEAD, OR, NOTES ON THE MONUMENTAL ASS-THUMPING WE RECEIVED FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA

In 1935, Albert Einstein and others began cooing about quantum superposition. A system—say, a football season or an intensive program of self-medication because you can’t deal with the brutal solipsism metastasizing all around you—will simultaneously exist in all possible states of being until the precise moment of quantum measurement, until the state of decoherence is eliminated. “Subatomic particles,” Einstein said (or, perhaps, might have said), “exist in all places and forms. They don’t exist in a position. They exist in all positions—a superposition! It only collapses out of that superposition when someone has the balls to pull out his fucking ruler.”

Then he said (or might have said) this: “Decoherence, shmecoherence.”

Uppity German bastard.

We here at 50-48 like to call quantum superposition “A Formula for Hope.” For example, fellas: Under the doctrine of quantum superposition, all boobs you haven’t seen can be huge and perfect and exactly symmetrical to the one resting beside it. And ladies, until you start actually asking questions, the fella standing next to you is not—we repeat, NOT—staring at your boobs.

More pertinent to our principal topic, the 50-48 Particle Physics Desk would like to point out that under the doctrine of quantum superposition, the Razorback football team still has the potential to be a one-loss conference champion. Formula for hope, indeed!

But, alas. Along came Erwin Schrodinger, who we here at 50-48 like to call “The Great Cosmic Buzzkill.” Were Schrodinger alive today, watching the Alabama game this weekend with a plate of nachos and a tall glass of sweet iced tea, he (like you) would have found no hope whatsoever in that padded and helmeted fiasco. He would have gone straight to Einstein’s grave, dug up his corpse, and punched it in the face.

Schrodinger responded to the doctrine of quantum superposition by proposing an experiment where a cat is placed in a box with a vial of poison. A Geiger counter would wait patiently for any sign of radiation, and when it found some, the vial would break, release the poison, and kill the cat. But the box is shielding all that pesky quantum decoherence, so nobody knows what’s happening inside. There isn’t a measurement. So the cat, according to quantum mechanical principles, is, at some point, both alive and dead at the same time. A Jesus cat. A zombie cat. Until a custodian comes in, opens the box, and pronounces an official death.

Still, when seen without the piss and vinegar, Schroginer’s cat can also provide us a measure of hope. Sure, Alabama’s two pick-sixes, their 300 yards of rushing, and our complete all-facets meltdown probably registered with any available football Geiger counter, thus breaking the vial, releasing the poison, and destroying the sweet kitty of our season. BUT! The fundamental unknowableness of our future provides all the decoherence we need. And until we get to the end, until we open the monstrous box that is this 2008 season, our cat is both alive and dead at the same time.

A Jesus cat. A zombie cat.
And so, according to the dictates of quantum mechanics, we are a team of ravenous zombies. And according to the dictates of zombiology, we must go feed on human brains to survive. Also, we need to watch out for this bitch. She does not like zombies. Here’s a montage of what she’s capable of doing to us.

Thus the gameplan this week is to practice hard, self-actualize, and be on the lookout for heavily-armed, beautiful supermodels. Oh, and START TYLER WILSON!!!!!! Seriously: If we aren’t really zombies (and we here at 50-48 are not conceding that point), then we have only one more win this season. (Even if we aren’t the walking undead, the power of my hatred alone will allow us to defeat Hootie. If we don’t beat Hootie, I will kill myself and fucking webcast it for all of you to see.) But other than Ole Miss, there are no more wins on that schedule. And so, with a free year of practice without expectation, why not give next year’s backup nine games of real-game experience? He’s obviously more talented than Casey Dick. Casey’s numbers were inflated by bad teams and a brilliant offensive mind. Imagine what that mind could produce with a legitimate quarterback sticking his hands under Jonathan Luigs’ ass. We’ll still have the hell beaten out of us, but at least we’ll score points.

But if we ARE zombies, born like dead cats in a box from the sick mind of Erwin Schrodinger, then infinite possibility is still possible. (No tautology left unturned.) That being the case, we need to start eating a steady diet of brains. We here at 50-48 suggest starting with the UofA freshman class. Statistics show that less than half of them will graduate from college anyway, and an even smaller number will graduate from Arkansas. Why not make them food for the bloodlust of our zombie-cat football team?

This would be the equivalent of swinging the heavy bat before entering the batter’s box. Because the brains we’ll be feasting on this weekend will be incredibly less filling. As you all know, the Hogs enter The Source Of All Evil In the World this week. Without Austin, Texas, puppies would never die. Africans would never starve. And cheerleaders would never get VD. We must muster all of the brain-eating power within us to thwart the Longhorns. They are, without question, the scum of the fucking universe.

Or, perhaps we would benefit from taking a different approach. Instead of seeing the cat as simultaneously alive and dead, we could choose instead to side with Einstein. Our season still simultaneously exists in all possible states of being until the precise moment of quantum measurement, until the state of decoherence is eliminated. The state of uncertainty in college football dictates that we choose to recognize possibility in the face of obvious disaster. We must, like a fat non-zombie cat, stare Schrodinger in the eyes and say, “Fizicks, I defiez dem.”

Suck it, Einstein. Suck it, Schrodinger. WE MUST DEFEAT THE DEGENERATE COLLECTION OF HUMAN FUCKING GARBAGE THAT IS THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS. We must stare down all three, look them in the face, and say, “Decoherence, shmecoherence.”

Fizicks, we defiez dem.

Or, we could just eat their brains.

50-48
Fuck Texas
WPS

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