Today is my Birthday!
(pauses for the internet audiance to complete singing “Happy Birthday”)
Thank you. Thank you. I was recently asked: “If it were possible to hold them in separate buckets, which would weigh more? Tuesday or Thursday?”. I’m sure you like many have found yourself pondering this very question more than once.
Doug suggested that: “Easy. Thursday is much more fun as it is closer to the weekend. Hell in college it WAS the weekend. Thursday is obvioulsy lighter than Tuesday.”
Well as a birthday treat to you, the davidmeade.com readers, I will finally post the answer to this age old question:
This is a fascinating question and in defense of Doug (whose answer was incorrect) it is a very complicated issue. During my tenure with the Meade Institute of Deep Thinking’s Zimbabwe (MIDTZ) research center we performed extensive tests that showed that Tuesday and Thursday in fact had the exact same weight (baring gravitational variances caused by placing one day on the moon, or by the more classified research which was going on down the hall). The reason the days seem to be of varying weight is a matter of frame of perspective and the translation of potential to kinetic energy.
You see it was discovered at Mitzy (that’s how we pronounce MIDTZ) that any given week has a set level of potential energy as it begins. Weeks with a great deal of activity (and note this can indeed simply be potential activity) have a greater deal of potential energy than weeks with no or little expected activity.
It was shown that as the week progressed the total weeks potential energy (PE) was (as one would expect) translated to kinetic energy (KE) as described by the following formula:
KEw-a = SUM(PEw(s):PEw(c))
And where the remaining PE for the week was
PEw’ = PEw(s) - KEw-a
For this reason during weeks with average to moderate potential activity, Tuesday would by definition have far more PE than KE while Thursday would have far more KE than PE. While the actual weight of the days remains constant when holding either day in a bucket the apparent weight is influenced by the amount of KE being exerted on the bucket (and thusly supported by your arm). For this reason Thursday APPEARS to be heavier simply because is has far greater KE as the week rushes toward conclusion.
It is important to note however that due to the variances of measurement due to frame of perspective Tuesday can feel heaver than (its following) Thursday, when the weak of measure has inherently less PE than the prior week.
