Rationality Quotes February 2013

arundelo

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

Another monthly installment of the rationality quotes thread. The usual rules apply:

Please post all quotes separately, so that they can be upvoted or downvoted separately. (If they are strongly related, reply to your own comments. If strongly ordered, then go ahead and post them together.)
Do not quote yourself.
Do not quote comments or posts from Less Wrong itself or from Overcoming Bias.
No more than 5 quotes per person per monthly thread, please.

So, uh, what's the explanation?

The story appears to be apocryphal. I've heard many versions of it associated with various famous scientists. The source quoted is a collection of jokes, with very low veracity. Additionally, there are no independent versions of the story anywhere on Google. By the way, the quoted date of Sommerfeld's death is also incorrect. I wonder if there even were (unpowered) ceiling fans in Munich's trolleys during that time.

0TrE13y

Perhaps because pressure is (approximately) constant, for every molecule going into the car, one must leave it (on average)?