Space-time Bender

Quantum Qorner
The Science of Tomorrow Applied Today

Space-time Bender

Quantum Gravity in a bottle: Trappist Beer unlocks secret to anti-gravity

Formulation means it’s near impossible to fall over

But mind you don’t lose your head! (and beware of Graviton Reflux)

Special Report by Science Editor Round A.Bout

(Originally published in the May – August 2011 Edition of the GTG)

The Flying Trappists

Poechenellekelder , Brussels, Fri May 20th:

It’s the Holy Grail of Beer Science: a beer that not only tastes good but prevents you falling over

The brew is the result of over 25 year’s of dedicated research by a reclusive group of Trappist Monks. Using just simple brewing technology and pure ingredients the monks have succeeded where countless physicists with their supercomputers, billion dollar cyclotrons and coal mines full of dry cleaning fluid have failed: they’ve managed to successfully unify Einstein’s General Relativity with Quantum Mechanics and in the process discover a genuinely useful application

The new process – trademarked ‘Enlitenment’ – instills their beer with an amazing property: it enables drinkers to defy gravity

How does it work?

In simple scientific terms the beer uses a recently discovered process of quantum particle exchange which by means of entanglement transports the drinker’s brain cells to a parallel universe whilst simultaneously filling their head with an exotic vapour consisting of Bose-Einstein Condensate and anti-gravitons. As the vapour builds up the effect is to apply a positive upward force to the neck and shoulders keeping the drinker upright at all times

After decades of research and only slow progress the ‘eureka moment’ came when the monks realised they simply had to produce a beer with bubbles in it that are smaller than the grains of space-time. Not only does this produce a perfect head but it also enables inter-dimensional brain cell exchanges with a minimum of fuss or side-effects

At the end of the brewing process the beers have negative Final Gravities (FG) necessitating special handling procedures (which if not applied can result in amusing but inconvenient effects such as that shown in the photo above)

Drink Aware

The monks stress that the science is still in its infancy and drinkers are warned to to keep strictly under the recommended volume limits. So long as the drinker doesn’t consume too much the process reverses itself overnight – with the exotic gasses venting themselves from the unconscious drinker in the normal harmless manner

Modest over consumption leads to too much pressure on the neck and shoulders and can result in a serious headache the following morning or even cause spontaneous Graviton Reflux, where the anti-gravitons reveal their particle-wave-duality in a most uncomfortable manner

The tipping point however is when the drinker imbibes sufficient beer for their mind to enter a Bose-Incoherent State, beyond which all sorts of strange phenomena can occur

For smaller individuals drinking too much might result in involuntary flight as the upward force exceeds body mass and the victim loses contact with the ground. This can be most distressing for the afflicted drinker because due to the resulting Liquidity Gap they might be unable to reach their beer on the table below! This can be very distressing

But for larger drinkers the effects can be even more serious. When the drinker has sufficient mass it is theoretically possible for their neck to break under the strain and for the ‘free head’ to fly uncontrollably around the room. This can be quite messy and is unlikely to endear them to the bar management

If all goes well in the public trials the beers will be released for sale in time for Christmas

Explanatory Diagrams:

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