FINALLY! age old question answered "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center."

[The Straight Story]

By Samantha Weaver

¥ Do you remember those commercials that asked, "How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop?" When I was a kid, I could never find out -- I always bit the candy first. Well, some engineering students at Purdue University in Indiana decided to find out in a more scientific manner: They invented a licking machine. As it turns out, it takes an average of 364 licks to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop.


¥ It was Sir Arthur C. Clarke, British inventor, futurist and science-fiction author of such novels as "2001: A Space Odyssey," who made the following observation: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

¥ The first U.S. president to ride in an automobile was William McKinley, and the ride was in an ambulance after he was shot in 1901. Another interesting McKinley tidbit: He was the last Civil War veteran to be elected to the presidency.

¥ Think you're a movie lover? Consider the man who was desperate to be one of the first people to see the film "Star Wars: Episode III." He actually camped out in front of the box office for 139 days in order to get tickets. He didn't slack off work, though: He used his laptop computer and cell phone to stay in touch with the office.

http://www.lincolntribune.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9663

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Clarke was wrong on this one.

Magic is a specific "technology" (quotes optional) that has a specific set of underlying principles. A magic practitioner would not mistake an advanced technology for magic.

[SheilaT]

4. If by magic practitioner

you mean people who earn their living doing "magic" (like David Copperfield, for instance) you probably are right. However, I've always understood that comment as meaning "real" magic, the truly impossible that actually and really does (appear to) violate the laws of physics. The kind of thing that Harry Potter is all about. In that respect, sufficiently advanced technology can seem like that kind of magic. And, somewhat more to the point, the less technologically sophisticated you are, the more technology looks like magic.

[Jackpine Radical]

5. I'm talking about what Frazer or Malinowski would have called magic.

I.e. sympathetic magic.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. Yes, but what about Turgan of Miir, or Chun the Unavoidable?

I think they'd disagree.

[SheilaT]

7. Hmmm. Interesting point. Then what would someone like

that think of "any sufficiently advanced technology"?

If the only magic someone recognizes by that word is sympathetic magic, then what name would they give to "magicians" like David Copperfield, or the kind of advanced technology Clarke is talking about?

[Jackpine Radical]

8. Magic practitioners would no doubt be bewildered by the advanced technology.

They just wouldn't assume it to be magic in the sense that they recognize. As to prestidigitation, they would recognize it for what it is. In fact, "primitive" shamans, healers, etc. are often skilled at prestidigitation, and use sleight-of-hand to maintain their image, as it were, among the non-initiates.

[SheilaT]

13. Okay, I got you now.

But sympathetic magic is clearly not what Clarke is referring to.

If anything, the magic practitioners you're talking about are more sophisticated in their view of the world, especially if, as you say, they'd recognize prestidigitation. It's other groups of people, including modern ones, steeped in what we like to call superstition, that view unexplainable things as "magic". The kind of understanding that leads to sympathetic magic is a very different way of viewing the world, and, more importantly, controlling it.

Many of us are easily bamboozled. I personally very much enjoy sleight-of-hand because I'm always fooled. I'm the perfect audience. And I do know perfectly well that there's no "magic", just clever manipulation. I'd like to think I'm smart enough that I would not find a "sufficiently advanced technology" to be "magic", but that I'd realize it is just advanced beyond my understanding of it.

[Webster Green]

2. They should have licked the things themselves.

I'm not buying the results the machine licking the Tootsie Roll Pops! :mad:

[trof]

11. DOWN WITH ROBOT LICKERS!

[madinmaryland]

3. In Before The Lick!

:hi:

[ColbertWatcher]

9. Is the answer: "John McCain was a POW"? n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

10. No, my friend

for 5 years I was in a POW camp, and did not have access to Tootsie Roll Pops :)

[ColbertWatcher]

12. I stand (in a stress position) corrected. n/t

[SalmonChantedEvening]

14. Can one rent this machine you speak of?

I have several *ahem* research projects it would useful in.

TSS, The Lady Mist :hi: :hug: :loveya:

[Webster Green]

15. LOL!

DUzy nomination! (If I can do that) :P