Nulis tentang Kelvin kemaren, jadi inget tulisan Igor Novikov. Igor bekerja bersama Kip Thorne menyusun berbagai formulasi alternatif bagi mesin waktu. Tentu banyak yang jengah dengan formulasi aneh-aneh semacam ini. Salah satunya adalah Stephen Hawking sendiri.

Igor Novikov justru senang meneruskan pekerjaan yang dianggap muskil oleh Stephen Hawking, Profesor Lucasian dari Cambridge itu. Dia bilang, “Seratus tahun sebelumnya, Lord Kelvin, presiden Royal Society, juga menyatakan bahwa berdasarkan segala kalkulasi fisika yang dimilikinya, tidak mungkin membuat mesin — yang memiliki massa jenis jauh lebih tinggi dari udara — yang bisa terbang. Dan itu hanya beberapa tahun sebelum Wright bersaudara menerbangkan pesawat terbang mereka yang pertama.”

OK deh, kita bahas ini lain waktu.

Yang berikut ini adalah pemenang lomba “Kisah Nyata Mirip Dilbert”. Jangan dibaca di rumah! Nikmatilah, sambil pura2 kerja di kantor.

1. “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.” (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp. in Redmond, WA.)
2. “What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter.” (Lykes Lines Shipping)
3. “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.” (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)
4. “This project is so important, we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.” (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)
5. “Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.” (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)
6. “My Boss spent the entire weekend retyping a 25 page proposal that only needed corrections. She claims the disk I gave her was damaged and she couldn’t edit it. The disk I gave her was write protected.” (CIO of Dell Computers)
7. Quote from the Boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.” (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)
8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.” (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)
9. “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.” (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)
10. We recently received a memo from senior management saying: “This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the memo mentioned above.” (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)
11. One day my Boss asked me to submit a status report to him concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said, “If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!” (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)
12. As director of communications, I was asked to prepare a memo reviewing our company’s training programs and materials. In the body of the memo in one of the sentences I mentioned the “pedagogical approach” used by one of the training manuals. The day after I routed the memo to the executive committee, I was called into the HR director’s office, and told that the executive vice president wanted me out of the building by lunch. When I asked why, I was told that she wouldn’t stand for perverts (pedophiles?) working in her company. Finally, he showed me her copy of the memo, with her demand that I be fired and the word “pedagogical” circled in red. The HR manager was fairly reasonable, and once he looked the word up in his dictionary and made a copy of the definition to send back to her, he told me not to worry. He would take care of it. Two days later, a memo to the entire staff came out directing us that no words which could not be found in the local Sunday newspaper could be used in company memos. A month later, I resigned. In accordance with company policy, I created my resignation memo by pasting words together from the Sunday paper. (Taco Bell Corporation)

Versi Indonesia akan ditayangkan … segera …

Seorang rekan virtual :), memberikan komentar tentang matematika yang — akibat relativitas — jadi bersifat subyektif, kayak yang aku tulis di salah satu halaman di web ini (lupa yang mana): kalau nggak ada aku, 1+1=2, tapi kalau ada aku, 1+1=2.1 — semacam itu. Contoh yang lebih menarik, diberikan oleh Kip Thorne. Misalkan, katanya, ada sebuah lubang hitam (black hole, trou noir). Diketahui kelilingnya misalnya 30cm. Berapa diameternya? Dengan geometri Euklid, kita bisa menghitung dengan rumus sederhana d=k/?, jadi sedikit di bawah 10cm lah diameternya. Benar? Nggak juga, soalnya si lubang hitam yang kecil itu memiliki massa sangat besar, sehingga dimensi ruang-waktu di sekitarnya mengkerut luar biasa. Barangkali bisa berkeliling dalam 30 cm, tapi untuk melintasinya, kita akan menempuh sampai ratusan meter, atau ratusan kilometer, tergantung massa si luang hitam itu.