Whaaaa?

Bunny has to take these online safety courses for work, with tests at the end. Whoever wrote the course/test didn't have a good grasp of what kinetic energy is. Here's an actual question from the test:

What is kinetic energy?
a) Any moving object
b) Possibility of movement
c) Potential energy
d) Stored energy

Bunny had a hard time figuring out what they wanted. (Notice I don't say "which answer is correct." None of them are correct.) It can't be lack of knowledge - she has a PhD in physics, for Dog's sake. If you want to take a stab at the answer, leave a comment and Bunny will send you an email to tell you if you're right.

String theory

Last week I saw the physicist Brian Greene on The Colbert Report. It reminded me of when Bunny and Mr. T were in grad school and I would sneak into Bunny's office at night and read her particle physics theory books. When are they going to find that Higgs particle? Anyway, Dr. Greene talked a lot about String Theory. I don't know about the 11 dimensions, but the idea of the universe being made up of strings seems eminently sensible to me. It would mean we're all woven together in one big binkie.

Brian Greene is an interesting human. There's actually an entry on him in Wikipedia. He's committed to popularizing science, particularly string theory, and has produced several episodes of NOVA based on his books. He's kind of a modern day Carl Sagan. Speaking of Sagan, Mr. T came home one day and said he felt very old at work that day, because he mentioned Carl Sagan in class and none of his students knew who that was.