X-Message-Number: 3583
Date: Tue, 3 Jan 1995 19:56:21 -0500
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <>
Subject: Re: CRYONICS: Ghost cryonics.

> Assume we start with a salt block, In a dry environment, this one will
> flow at very slow speed, something as one or some micron per year.
> At this velocity, even an object as big as a bacteria is a quantum
> system.

Nice try, but no Nobel prize.  The atoms in the crystal are moving at
a fair velocity, it's just that they are constrained not to move very
far before bouncing back.

At temperature T, objects of mass M will have random velocities whose
root-mean-square average velocity is sqrt(kT/M), where k is Boltzman's
constant of 1.38E-23 joule degrees.  At room temperature the average
atom in the salt crystal will be moving at about 10 meters per second.
The resulting quantum wavelength is much smaller than an atom.

I strongly recommend you get Feynman's three volume _Lectures on
Physics_, and work your way through them.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=3583