Feynman on the Supernatural

The nurse recorded the time of death, 9:21 P.M. He discovered, oddly, that the clock had halted at that moment —just the sort of mystical phenomenon that appealed to unscientific people. Then an explanation occurred to him. He knew the clock was fragile, because he had repaired it several times, and he decided that the nurse must have stopped it by picking it up to check the time in the dim light.

—from James Gleick’s biography of Richard Feynman

I was sitting in my chair a couple of days ago when it started to shake. I googled earthquakes. Nothing. Was there a cat beneath my chair? Didn’t find anything. A couple of hours later, the news reports that a nearby quarry blast caused a seismic event.

So bring me the supernatural in a jar and we’ll find out that it is made out of quarks (or whatever quarks are made of).