Plagiarism, of a cute nature


Scott Aaronson has a money-can't-buy experience:

A reader named Warren Smith informs me of an Australian TV commercial (which you can watch on YouTube), in which two fashion models have the following conversation:

Model 1: But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves — then what is it about?

Model 2: Well, from my perspective, it’s about information, probabilities, and observables, and how they relate to each other.

Model 1: That’s interesting!

The commercial then flashes the tagline “A more intelligent model,” followed by a picture of a Ricoh printer.

More intelligent, or simply more shameless? Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, allow me to quote from Lecture 9 of my Quantum Computing Since Democritus notes:

But if quantum mechanics isn’t physics in the usual sense — if it’s not about matter, or energy, or waves, or particles — then what is it about? From my perspective, it’s about information and probabilities and observables, and how they relate to each other.

Postscript: Responding to his (many, many) comments, Scott stumbles upon two fundamental truths that many a blogger will relate to:

The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my central goal in life, namely for everyone to like me.

The longer I blog, the more I despair of ever achieving my secondary goal in life, namely for everyone to understand me.

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