[extropy-chat] jolly good theory

[Spike]

Extropians, Eliezer assures us that there is an infinite 
amount of fun.  This is fortunate indeed, for I stumbled 
upon a most remarkable fun insight this day.  

At lunch one of the guys introduced a game where 
the group must agree upon a single adjective 
for a person.  When it came to me, someone suggested 
"jolly."  Another objected that the term jolly simply 
cannot apply to someone who is skinnier than a 
coathanger.  When I asked why, no one could offer a 
good reason, only examples.   Saint Nick was jolly.  
Examples of skinny in the movies and television: 
Barney Fife, Gilligan, Olive Oyl, Karen Carpenter, 
Montgomery Burns.  Clearly none of these could properly 
be considered jolly, Q.E.D. 

I suggested we consider the theoretical case where
a jolly, portly BMI=35 person gets a caloric restriction
epiphany, manages to Adkins himself down to a spindly 17.
He would presumably still have the same sense of humor
as before; in fact might be still more cheerful, for 
he feels great having lost all that flab.  Would he not 
still be jolly?

They argued the neo-slim jolly one would become some other 
adjective: snarky, silly, goofy, giggly, smirky, etc, all of which 
have a less favorable connotation than jolly.  Jolly old Saint 
Nick *always* goes ho ho ho, but small children never do, 
but rather utter a faster high-pitched silly giggly hehehehehe.

Then came the blinding flash of insight, why it is that 
jolly and portly go together:

Recall the classic spring mass system, the resonant 
frequency being square root of the spring constant divided 
by the mass, or (k/m)^.5 (remember that from physics 101?)
Now, the analog to the spring constant k in the laughing 
human body is the diaphragm muscle, which presumably would 
remain mostly unaffected by the loss of half the body mass 
in the formerly-jolly formerly-flabby CR-er.  k stays constant, 
mass in the denominator goes in half, the slow jolly ho ho ho is 
multiplied by approximately square root of two.  (ho)^3 becomes 
a shallower and faster (heh)^4 or even a still faster high-
pitched, even chipmonk-ey (hee)^5, still certainly mirthful 
and cheerful but no longer truly "jolly."

Now you understand why.

spike