The Radioactive Life of Socks

[insane_alien]

Around three months ago i purchased 10 pairs of socks.

 

i now only have 3 pairs left.

 

if we assume that the disappearence of socks is a random occurance then it is likely that socks follow a decay curve not unlike a radioactive substance and decay exponentially.

 

if we plug these numbers into wolfram alpha(or work it out by hand) we end up with a halflife of 1.72 months.

 

in order to test this hypothesis(and get moved up into the proper science forums, which, if i'm right would be the first thread to do so) i'm calling on YOU to submit data on your socks over time so we can further refine the half life and determine if all socks have the same half life or if some socks are more stable than others.

 

perhaps post a picture or a short description so we can classify the sock.

 

here's mine

[Klaynos]

You're going about it completely the wrong way. Socks are sentient, when they disappear they have run away to join the secret sock army, they're going to rise up to kill us all, the UN is conspiring to keep this from us all!

[swansont]

No, no, no. Socks are fermions. While in the dryer (usually) they can undergo an interaction that puts them in the same state as an identical sock. But this is forbidden by the Pauli exclusion principle, so the degenerate sock pressure causes one of them to tunnel out.

 

edit: since this is a stochastic process, one would expect the exponential decay.

 

(Look for a blog post on this. I have more ideas.)

[Klaynos]

Does this mean behind every dryer there is a big pile of socks?

[swansont]

Possibly. I don't know where they go when they tunnel, other than "outside the dryer"

[insane_alien]

well, make some observations or your sock population and record them here and we'll analyse the data and see if we can figure out whats really happening once and for all.

[Klaynos]

I think my socks are feral, there's two places I keep them, I've no idea about the starting population, the population in the wash or 'lost' at any given time...

[Edtharan]

No, no, no. Socks are fermions.

Only if you use too much starch...

 

Possibly. I don't know where they go when they tunnel, other than "outside the dryer"

I think this might actually be proof of higher dimensions. These are said to be rolled up, and you roll up socks, the sock have mass and this causes space to curve, so rolling your socks up causes an increasing curvature of the space around them, eventually causing them to be rolled up into these higher dimensions.

 

well, make some observations or your sock population and record them here and we'll analyse the data and see if we can figure out whats really happening once and for all.

Unfortunately, if sock disappearance is caused by a quantum effect, just by observing it you change the outcome. This phenomena is also seen in macroscopic objects as we all know that a watched pot never boils (probably something to do with observation effecting the motion of fast moving atoms due to heat).

[ydoaPs]

All this science talk is giving me a hadron.

[swansont]

I think my socks are feral, there's two places I keep them, I've no idea about the starting population, the population in the wash or 'lost' at any given time...

 

Breeding socks would be evidence of this, along with sock attacks from the lack of domestication. Do they ever jump on your feet of their own accord?

[iNow]

Only if you use too much starch...

No, that only applies to "firmions" not "fermions." Geesh, get it right, man.

 

 

I haven't lost a sock since I started living in my own house without roomates. I suggest this might be a clue as to why they used to disappear.

[swansont]

I haven't lost a sock since I started living in my own house without roomates. I suggest this might be a clue as to why they used to disappear.

 

Yes, the dangers of unprotected socks are quite real.

[Moontanman]

I think the underwear gnomes use socks as fuel to allow them to steal underwear and transport them to he gnome home dimension.

[swansont]

A fuller treatment of my hypothesis is up

http://blogs.scienceforums.net/swansont/archives/3411

[Edtharan]

or there may be a sock one-half particle (the socktrino) that is ejected while the rest of the sock is carried off as Lintons, some of which may be captured in the lint tray. High energy Lintons would escape and disintegrate into Dustyons in the surrounding region. Clearly there is some more theoretical and experimental work to be done here to confirm the existence of the socktrino; some holes in the theory must be darned and most facilities are not up to the task of detecting this signal amidst the large background lint and dust signals.

There is definitely an increase in dust bunnies, which can be measured by count and weight of said dust bunnies. This increase in mass and number must be accounted for (as according to thermodynamics matter can't simply be created). This Socktrino to Dustions would explain this dust bunny phenomena.

 

The Socktrinos might decay, when the collide with an existing dust bunny, into dustions and integrated into the dust bunnies. A sufficiently high energy collision could conceivably break the weak binding of the dustions within the dust bunny splitting it into two.

 

So the Sockion -> Dustion conversion explains not only the loss of socks, but the accumulation of dust bunnies as well.

 

I propose an experiment whereby we generate dustions from paired socks in a dryer to see is we can directly detect the increase in Dust bunny activity to confirm this hypothesis.