Rocksteady at Court

"Frederick Rocksteady Rushing, Pater familias of 26 children and loving husband to your lovely child bride, after your countless good acts in service to Lord Charles Townshend, also known as Lord . . . 'Turnips', and your singularly brilliant repair of the royal household's wireless network, and your finding the glitch in the software of the Q device and recovering Prince Albert from near certain death, I offer the thanks of the British Empire, its peoples, the royal titles and lands of your beloved Kingston, and this gift card for your family to stay for free at Legoland."

Rocksteady Rushing was gobsmacked at his fortune but he realized that the reason he fled Jamaica in the first place was the utter lawlessness of the place. He started to interrupt the royal personage, as he opened his mouth Prime Minister Disraeli shot him a withering look which bade him quiet. And given Disraeli's desire to cut Rockstady off before he made a spectacle, the wily minister passed a note to the Queen.

"And since I have installed you as Viscount Kingston you shall require the services of some of the Empire's finest troops to bring order to your fair island. I offer you the services of 3 battalions of the Royal Gurkha Rifles, 5 battalions of the Royal Horse Artillery, 3 battalions of the Queens Own Rifles, and the 22nd Armored Brigade."

Minister Disraeli made a small sound and whispered to her that the latter unit did not yet exist.

The queen mildly miffed that her whim had been contravened stiffened and continued.

"We shall substitute the 22nd Armored Brigade with the Royal Dragoon Guards which I believe are just back from the Sudan. As soon as those lads are rested and ready we will provide them to you."

Freddie Rushing could not believe his luck to have come all the way from the worst cesspool in Jamaica to be here in Windsor being received by the royal court and soon to be installed as the power in his homeland. He owed it all to being good at math. To having taken those tough classes, having worked complicated theorems in the dirt in the back of his shanty, and having stumbled across Lord Turnips as he surveyed his Jamaican land holdings that day when Lord Turnips could not figure out how to provide a 20% tip on restaurant check. That simple service to the great Lord Turnips had turned around the lives of all 29 members of his family.

"your humble servant ma am. Would the i gaan fe bed i fe continue massagin' your feet?"

Barrister's Keepe Kidz Korner!!!!

Kids, have you considered the possibility that if Lady Marzipan and Johnny Sixguns were isolated from the rest of the universe, except for the gravitational pull exerted by the Earth and the Moon, both might evolve into a non-localized quantum state over the next 20 years?

Wowzers! That’s a whole heap of quantum uncertainty without even considering the eigenvectors!!!

See, boys and girls both Johnny Sixguns and Lady Marzipan, as they sit in their lifeboat, are being bombarded by photons and those zany photons have their own quantum states which get all tangled up with each other.

So, how do keep track of all those crazy states?? Here’s a hint: the Lyapunov exponent is about 10 days for the both of them and this system is dissipative.

The BK Kidz Korner Challenge:

Clever children please post a 10-15 page white paper which models the various system states (a system in this case being Johnny Sixguns, Lady Marzipan, the lifeboat, the aforementioned gravity & photons plus a few sharks) and proposes a solution to their quandary (avoiding the non-localized quantum state). The lucky winner shall receive a gift certificate for 5 Crowns, 3 shillings and a halfpenny (good at all Barrister’s Keepe Gift Shoppes!).