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Quantum Mechanics may be the ultimate mindfuck. Einstein was no fan -- he famously wrote "God does not throw dice," referring to his distaste for the statistical formulation underlying quantum theory. Despite his misgivings, quantum physics has proven effective at describing all manner of natural phenomena since its formulation in the early 20th century. That said, the formalism does lead to some rather odd or paradoxical conclusions.

Not least among these is the notion of Quantum Entanglement -- that observable qualities of systems may be statistically correlated, even though the systems may be separated by vast spatial distances. An example is a pair of entangled electrons -- one will have spin up, one spin down, but the individual states are indeterminate until a measurement is made. However, once the spin of one electron is measured, the spin of the other will become determinate instantaneously, and more importantly, superluminally. Einstein labeled this theoretical phenomenon "Spukhafte Fernwirkung" -- "spooky action at a distance."

These graffiti, placed on opposite ends of a bridge, embody the notion of entangled states, each with Einstein's appellation and a measured spin wavefunction -- up for Alice and down for Bob, whose wavefunction has collapsed once Alice makes her measurement.

For more on entanglement and Einstein's view, I also suggest reading about the EPR Paradox.

I was biking through Kiwanis Park in Tempe earlier today and came across this excellent street sign mod. Someone has placed clear vinyl stickers with hula hoops (complete with motion lines!) printed on them around the waists of a few crosswalk signs. They're apparently a meme that started via distribution at The String Cheese Incident concerts. I cracked up when I saw the first -- I'm glad there are other people in Tempe who want to bring some spirit into the streets, especially if it's an irreverent Discordian spirit! I saw four total -- luckily I had my camera with me so I snapped a couple photos:

It's no secret that I'm a big Wikipedia fan -- I've got a serious case of NADD and about half my browser tabs at any given time are Wikipedia articles. One of my favorite quirks about the site are the little [citation needed] tags that users can place in an article, indicating that a dubious claim needs a reference. One day an idea struck -- what statements are more dubious or outright ridiculous than those in advertisements? Thus, an OM project was born. I had 250 8x2 inch stickers printed, which I handed out to friends, who circulated them further. In true wiki fashion, the final placement of the stickers is a collaborative effort, now distributed and anonymous. If anyone sees one somewhere, please make a photo! I've been tagging my photoset on Flickr with citationneeded and wikiffiti -- more should start showing up in the next few weeks. I'm also providing the source Photoshop file (or as pdf) for anyone who wants to print their own batch. Note that you may have to resize the canvas or change the image mode to CMYK depending upon the print service used.
Update: A few people have asked via Flickr about printing services. I found uprinting.com via google, and ended up using them simply because their minimum order size was 250 instead of 500 -- there may be better or cheaper options available. They simply have a quote form you fill out, then you upload your file (such as the CMYK one above). Very painless overall.