JOSH%YKTVMH.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA (07/13/85)
From: Josh Knight <JOSH%YKTVMH.BITNET@WISCVM.ARPA> The recent discussion of the reality (or lack thereof) of the wave function, reminded me of this ditty, attributed to Erich Huckel (the u in Huckel has an umlaut over it) circa 1926: "Gar Manches rechnet Erwin schon Mit seiner Wellenfunktion Nur wissen moecht man gerne wohl Was man sich dabei vorstellen soll" and its translation into English by Felix Bloch, circa 1976: "Erwin with his Psi can do calculations quite a few But one thing has not been seen Just what does Psi really mean." Taken from a commerative photograph that hung in the Stanford Physics Library, from some function honoring Bloch, I don't remember the occasion for the function. (NOTE: the "oe" in "moecht" should be an umlauted "o" but that's hard to type :-) Hey don't ask me, if they didn't know I sure don't. Josh Knight IBM T.J. Watson Research Center josh@yktvmh.BITNET, josh.yktvmh.ibm-sj@csnet-relay.ARPA