A Review of Physical Inebriology* (physics humour)
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  THE JOURNAL OF CHIMERICAL PHYSICS, 27:1-3, 1991 May 3
©1991 The Theoretical Institute of Chimerical Physics. All rights reserved. Printed in Canada.
 
         
         
  A REVIEW OF PHYSICAL INEBRIOLOGY

JEFF VAVASOUR
Department of Physics, Memorial University of Newfoundland
Received 1989 April 1; accepted 1990 June 16

 
         
         
 

I. INTRODUCTION

Intoxication is a field which has long interested not only physicists but scientists from a variety of disciplines. In ancient times, it was regarded within an almost mythical context. It was not until the 17th century that the revolutionary work of pioneer Isaac Persey firmly established inebriation as a domain of science.
We shall begin our investigation of this fascinating field by reviewing Persey's Three Fundamental Laws of Intoxication:

1. Any particle that is not intoxicated will remain unintoxicated, unless acted upon by a drink.
2.
The intoxication of a particle (named a "person" in honour of Persey's contribution to this field), is related by

E = SP,

where P is intoxication potential measured in glasses (symbol "g"), E, is the degree of drunkenness (or ebriety) measured in buzzes (symbol "b"), and S is the "specific stewability", the constant of proportionality. The "buzz" and "glass" are the units of choice in Physical Inebriology. The modifiers are as for the SI system. For example,

1 cg = 1 centiglass (a rare quantity)
1 Mb = 1 megabuzz
   
3. For every pleasant drinking action there is an equal and opposite unpleasant reaction.

From these basic relations has evolved a field of study which is fervently pursued by scientists the world over. In this paper we highlight some of the key developments in inebriology with particular focus on some of the more prominant subdisciplines.

II. CLASSICAL INEBRIODYNAMICS

In extensive experimental study, Antoine Bacchanal observed a correlation between conversational entropy and the
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  magnitude of ebriety. Bacchanal observed that, for a given difference in inebriation, conversation appeared random and disordered. Two persons lying in a common cerebral reference frame, that is having the same degree of drunkenness, did not experience any of these conversational difficulties, however.
This phenomenon resisted quantitative evaluation for some time, until, one Sunday morning, Bacchanal reached a breakthrough in reasoning. All observations at this point had been conducted using a relative intoxication scale. A proper mathematical formulation required a common, universal system of measurement, and so, the Absolutely Sloshed Scale was born.
This simple premise lead to the development of an accurate model of the time-evolution of an inebriated person, with a fairly good macroscopic prediction made from the Mentwell-Blitzmann distribution. Unfortunately, some discrepancies between observational properties and the classical model began to become apparent.
In the Blitzmann model, the frequency of emission from a person increased with intoxication without bounds -- the so-called ultraviolent catastrophe. Predicted probability distributions were also shown to be inaccurate, particularly in systems of low ebriety. This, of course, lead to well-known modern revisions of the classical theory.

III. QUANTUM INEBRIONICS

In an unintoxicated system, one might expect a successful transition probability to approach unity. In reality, this is not the case. Though the system would behave orderly on a large scale, there were present microscopic instances of conversational and dexterous disorder. Such entropy came as a surprise to loyalists of the classical ideals, who chose to suppress disclosure of these observations. It soon became indisputable, however, that serious changes to classical models were necessary.
The first of these was the establishment of a zero-point inebriation to reflect the degree of inherent disorder in unintoxicated persons. Experiments followed which confirmed the presence of this quantity, termed "idiocy". It was soon
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  discovered that all persons possessed an intrinsic idiocy. Interactive forces were also hypothesised and later observed which served to raise a person's idiocy levels when in the presence of other idiotic persons. This condition is known as "multiple degenerate idiocy".
This quantisation also provided a successful resolution to the ultraviolent catastrophe, in which the quanta of intoxication potential, alcohons, were absorbed by a person in discrete amounts. The probability that these alcohons are re-emitted increases with intoxication, and tends to return the person to the uninebriated ground state. For persons with a large degree of ebriety, this transition can take place in several intermediate steps. It was observed that the time to the next alcohon excitation, or recovery time, was increasingly longer in such cases.
This gave rise to the curious effect of supermobility. For an ensemble of persons in mixed levels of ebriety, it was observed that persons in the unintoxicated ground state could flow freely through small openings while persons in an excited state of intoxication experienced resistance. This resistance was hypothesised to be a consequence of momentum transfer between the excited person and the walls near the opening. For a sufficiently high total ensemble intoxication, though, this supermobility broke down as excited persons began to exchange momentum with persons in the ground state.
Another consequence of the quantum model was the so-called Party Exclusion Principle. Persons had long been observed to travel in close groups through intoxication fields, but the distribution between intoxication levels was far from arbitrary. For any given group, only one person would remain in the unintoxicated state at any time. Excited persons rarely interacted with this ground state person, but curiously, this person seemed be the chief motivator which carried the group through the intoxication field. This person has been designated in modern inebriological terminology as the "driver".
This identification of groups and driver persons is of importance, as not all unintoxicated persons were observed to obey the Party Exclusion Principle. The exchange particles of idiocy, jokeons, were observed to undergo a weak interaction with alcohons and often served to delay alcohonic emission and increase the conversational entropy of excited persons. The relation between idiocy and interaction with intoxicated persons have led theorists to hypothesize the presence of a strangeness quirk in such "active" unintoxicated persons.
Quantum inebrionics has greatly helped our understanding of the stewing phenomenon, but it is not the complete picture. In fact, certain difficulties arise as an extension of the quantum model. For example, in De B'ys interpretation, degrees of freedom should become frozen out as intoxication decreases, contrary to observed phenomena. In the explana-
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  tion of inebrial mechanics, we must turn to the relativistic model of Albert Beerstein.

IV. INEBRIAL RELATIVISTICS

In a series of thought experiments, Beerstein was led to postulate the existence of a universal catatonic constant (symbol c) -- the limit of intoxication. This postulate would irrevocably change the view of inebriology, predicting several effects which seemed preposterous to the classical intellect.
Time dilation was the first practical consequence to be predicted by Beerstein's Especially Relativistic concepts. In the cerebral reference frame of a person whose ebriety approached the catatonic constant, time would appear to stop. Beerstein demonstrated that, as intoxication increased, the intrinsic time-keeping mechanisms of the person would lose synchronisation with the local reference frame, showing an increasingly shorter passage of subjective time as the catatonic constant was approached.
Other attributes were also predicted to be affected by Relativity. The forces required to displace a person would increase as the person approached c. This clearly implies a relativistic mass increase. Supermobility was also placed in a new light with the introduction of Relativity. As persons approached c, openings became subjectively narrower, decreasing the probability of a resistance-free flow.
These ideas were disputed by many as an affront to common sense, but Beerstein later demonstrated that common sense itself was actually a classical invention requiring a universal, absolute cerebral reference frame. Beerstein pointed out that numerous investigations, including the now-famous Michelobe-Morality experiment, had failed to produce any evidence for this concept.
Beerstein's contribution has enlarged our view of inebriology, and is considered to be one of the greatest theoretical contributions to intoxication of the 20th century. The failure to recognise Beerstein's Relativistic behaviour in the past has been attributed to the fact that ebriety of catatonic magnitudes is a concept outside classical experience.

V. UNIFIED FEEL THEORIES

There is, unfortunately, some conflict between relativistic and quantum inebriology. De B'ys paradox has been one of the chief stumbling blocks in the unification of inebriological concepts. Quantum theory predicts a reduction in degrees of freedom for the uninebriated case while relativistic mass increase would seem to imply a reduction in degrees of freedom in the catatonic limit.
The most promising resolution of this difficulty involves the introduction of higher dimensions. Hypothesising a seven-dimensional continuum, unintoxicated persons will be located entirely within the usual four-dimensional space-time, termed the reality subspace. As ebriety increases, the
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  orientation of persons will change such that a certain component will exist in the higher spacial dimensions, and their projection into the reality subspace will be reduced. By extension, catatonic persons will be entirely orthogonal to reality. Thus, persons in a catatonic state will observe the uninebriated persons in reality subspace to be immobile, exhibiting no degree of freedom, while ground state persons will observe the same behaviour of their catatonic counterparts.

VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS

The higher-dimensional theory is a particularly difficult concept to demonstrate or denounce, as classical observational techniques based in reality subspace are ineffective, and scientists have been, as yet, unsuccessful in bringing their apparatus into a coexisting state of ebriety. Progress has, perhaps, been hampered by the lack of a large number of theorists to supplement the efforts the numerous experimentalists. Nevertheless, research continues to be popular throughout Canada and the world.

References

Bacchanal, A. 1893, Absolutely Sloshed
Beerstein, A. 1905, General Relaxativity
Beerstein, A. 1912, Inebriety and Space-time Distortion
Bore, N. 1912, The Alcohon Excitation Myth
Michelobe, L. and Morality, A. 1899, J. Mod. Digressions, 42, 11, 35-408
Persey, I. 1665, Principia Intoxicatia
Vavasour, J. 1988, A Study of Idiocy

     
             

 

*This "paper" was printed in the November 1991 issue of Physics in Canada.


©1991 Jeff Vavasour. Updated June 11, 2009.