Mock History Channel special: Half Full or Half Empty?

So begins the consolidation.  Here’s some silliness I originally posted over on the UserFriendly comment board…

Narrator: Is the glass half empty or half full? Most people tend to think that a pessimist will answer one way:

Pessimist on the street: Definitely half empty.

Narrator: While an optimist will answer in a diametrically opposed way:

Optimist on the street: Definitely half full.

Narrator: But there are more than optimists and pessimists in the world.

Person on the street: What is that stuff? Is that water? Is it cold? Can I taste it?

Person on the street: This is a nice glass; my wife would love a set of these. Where did you get this?

Person on the street: Why isn’t it full? Has someone else been drinking out of it?

Realist on the street: I don’t fit neatly into either of the traditional categories. I tend to think that the glass has the potential to contain more liquid than it currently contains.

Conspiracy theorist on the street: It doesn’t matter how full or empty that glass is; I’m not going to drink it, or even smell it.  You won’t get your poisons or mind-controlling substances into me.  I’m not even touching the glass, even though I’m sure you’d love to get my fingerprints.

Narrator: Most of the responses we got to our random interviews were subjective in nature, and in some cases, philosophical, or even downright absurd.

Smart-a** on the street: It’s completely full; half of it is liquid, and the other half is air.

Narrator: While this question is indeed used as a measure of philosophical attitudes, we wanted to find out what would happen when we subject it to modern scientific scrutiny.

Expert 1: When the glass was created, it contained nothing but air. At some point in its history, someone added liquid. What we can’t determine is how much liquid was originally added, nor can we plot a complete record of its fluid content on a time-line.

Expert 2: It may have been filled to the top, after which (1) someone drank part of the liquid, (2) someone poured out some of the contents, (3) some of the liquid evaporated or (4) some combination of the above.

Expert 3: The only thing we can say with certainty is that this [x]-ounce glass now contains [x/2] ounces of liquid, and it’s currently evaporating at a rate of [y] ounces per hour; its rate of evaporation is, of course, subject to constantly changing ambient temperature, pressure, and humidity.

Expert 4: *holds up pottery* Here’s an example of a vessel that may have been used for drinking by the ancient tribes who lived in [prehistoric period]. This was found at [archaeological dig site]. How full was this vessel at the time its owner died? Perhaps we will never know, unless we develop time travel some time in the future.

Expert 5: This vessel, like most glass, is composed of a mixture of silicates, heated to the melting point and then cooled in such a way as to avoid crystallization. The slight [color] tint indicates trace amounts of [minerals], and the uniformity of the coloration suggests that these impurities may have been deliberately introduced, specifically for the purposes of coloring the glassware.

Expert 6: This particular glass was created mechanically, on a mass-production line at the [Manufacturer] plant in [City]. It’s designed to have a capacity of [x] ounces, and is clearly intended for [purpose]. It currently contains [x/2] ounces of what appears to be [liquid], which may indicate that the individual who filled it to that level may not have had convenient access to any glasses with a [x/2] ounce capacity.

Expert 7: The glass does appear to be roughly half filled with liquid, but that may be an optical illusion. Contributing to this illusion are the thickness of the glass and the curved shape of the meniscus on the liquid’s surface where it comes into contact with the glass material.

Expert 8: We could determine the exact content by weighing the glass as it is, then emptying the liquid from the glass to find out how much it weighs when empty. The difference would give you the weight of the liquid itself, and from that you could calculate how many molecules of liquid the glass contained. But at that point, the information is no longer relevant, since the information you have relates to the glass’s previous condition, not its current condition. To me, this seems akin to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle.

Narrator: The Uncertainty Principle was postulated by physicist Werner Heisenberg, born in 1901. In 1927, Heisenberg wrote a paper on quantum mechanics, wherein he discussed the difficulty in studying small particles like electrons:

Actor’s voiceover: “The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”

Narrator: In a similar vein, as someone more accurately tries to measure the contents of the glass, the less relevant that information will be. Perhaps, then, the application of scientific thought to this problem is ultimately fruitless. Perhaps this really is a question best contemplated by philosophers and smart-a**es.

Promo: Now you can own the program you just watched on VHS or DVD. Just call 1-800-SMART-A**, or go to www.UserFriendly.org, and have your LART ready…

(November 2004)