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Donuts Out of Time

Dear Members and Constituents,
When you take a photo of a fast moving object, the amount of motion blur depends on the exposure settings. The shorter the period of time light is allowed to enter the camera, the crisper the image. Still, even the shortest exposure is not instantaneous (the mechanical process of opening and closing the shutter takes a few fractions of a second). But what If you could stop time altogether to capture an image of things perfectly still. What would such an image look like? Once you get past the mechanics (e.g. if light is not moving, how can you see anything?) and any pre-conceived notions that come from being a temporal creature (e.g. the bias towards thinking such an image should be ultra-crisp), you’re ready to explore the question. If things are made of atoms –and atoms are mostly void—then, absent the motion blur of billions of electrons creating the illusion of mass you’d end-up with… well, not a lot. Our snapshot should have well over 99% of the “stuff” missing. Is this relevant? Maybe. Unexpected? Yes. Weird? Right!

Speaking of things unexpected, this morning after dropping my kids off for their planned activities at bring your daughters and sons to work day, I found two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts sitting here at my desk. Weird, right? Now, if you’re wondering whether to have an unplanned donut, remember that as I mentioned, well over 99% of matter is void space… so you’re really only eating a fraction of the substance you think.
Happy Thursday!

Donut update – Mystery solved:
Apparently Ed Stocker’s son Keegan made an executive decision to do a special donut delivery for bring your sons and daughters to work day. Enjoy! (and thank you Keegan!)

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