Where do socks go?

Where Do The Socks Go?

Anyone who has ever placed a pair of socks in a washing machine will
know that the chances of getting a pair of socks back are around thirty
percent or less. While this has driven countless housewives mad, it has
never been the subject of serious scientific study until today. It was
while contemplating the peculiar trait of twinned quantum particles
that got me thinking about the quantum possibilities of a washing
machine. Yes I'm a quantum physicist, but I'm also a housewife and I
guess I just got tired of the black hole inside my washing machine
swallowing my socks.

I did not mention my new area of research to my colleagues—you see
following a pet project in your spare time is acceptable and there have
been some truly weird and wonderful research studies done. There
was Jerome's study in 'Brownian Movement in Random Piles of Dirt'
(we didn't really think he was actually researching anything except
perhaps laziness but to our surprise he actually wrote a paper on
'Randomness and Attraction' based on his research) and then there
was Marshall's research into the 'Ethics of Quantum Research: How do
Atoms Really Feel about Being Split?' following his divorce—but
devoting all your research time into investigating where the blue
blazes your other sock went would not have been well received, no
matter how cleverly I justified it.

My research on twinned particles now had a real life practical
application. If I could get the particles in one sock to twin with the
other sock, studying the behavior of the remaining sock after a
'disappearance' could give valuable clues as to where the other sock
had gone. And if, as I suspected, the vortex motion of the washing
machine, did give rise to a mini black hole, which for some as yet
undiscovered reason socks were particularly attracted to (Make note to
follow the research on the 'Attraction of Socks To Micro Quantum
Events'), then a whole new universe may have just opened up for us.
After many years of research, I finally did it—I created the first pair of
quantumly twinned socks, in a nice Argyle pattern too, and I was ready
to place in them in my washing machine. As expected, one sock
disappeared in the wash. Excitedly I carried the other sock back to the
laboratory to study it carefully. Was the other sock halfway across the
universe? Or just next door? Was it in an alternate universe? Or an
alternate timeline? Was I finally going to be the one to study an object
that had passed beyond the event horizon in a black hole? I could
barely contain my excitement.

I hooked the sock into the monitors I had spent months and several
million dollars constructing. The first results began to show on the
screen almost immediately. The particles whirled round and round (a
residual effect of the motion of the wash I thought to myself) and then
they began to oscillate up and down in a most sickening fashion
reminiscent of the motion onboard a small boat. I could not take my
eyes off the monitor despite a most disturbing sensation of
disorientation and nausea. The particles alternately whirled and
oscillated until I was forced to throw up in my waste paper basket.
Unpleasant yes, but this was important research. I was finally going to
discover where the socks went.

Finally all motion stopped and the sock just lay there, doing nothing. I
glared at it. "DO something!" I hissed at it. "Don't just lie there!" And as if
it heard me the particles started to blink. One long, one short. Two
long, one short. The pattern was annoyingly familiar. Dash, dot, dash,
dot, dash, dash, dot. Where I had seen that pattern before? Finally it
dawned on me - it was Morse code! Now could I remember the code?
It had been many years since I had learned it. I carefully wrote down
the letters …. G . O . T . Y . O . U …. gotyou? That didn't make any sense.
But I double checked it G.O.T.Y.O.U.G.O.T.Y.O.U. it repeated over and
over. Got you?

Just as I was pondering this mysterious quantum message my
colleagues burst out of the store room where they had been hiding
and exclaimed, "GOT YOU!" While laughing and teasing me, "Did you
really think there was a black hole in your washing machine?"
I was furious! "You have ruined my research!" I shook with rage.
Quietly, unnoticed the monitor began to blip again, scrolling the
notification across the screen that the particles being monitored had
crossed an event horizon and were experiencing a temporal
displacement while my colleagues whooped and hollered in
amusement at their trick.

After all the noise died and everyone returned to work still
congratulating themselves on a trick well played, I switched off my
machines one-by-one wishing that I had finally managed to answer
that eternal question—just where do the socks go?
 
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