BOHINEY
America’s Journal of Common Sense
Max Planck Dies, Takes Quantum Physics Secrets With Him Because Nobody Understood Them Anyway
German Physicist Who Discovered Atoms Don’t Follow Rules Leaves Scientists Still Arguing About What He Meant
Max Planck, the German physicist who discovered quantum theory and won the Nobel Prize in 1918 for proving that atoms behave in ways that make no sense to anyone, died yesterday at age 89. He leaves behind a legacy of scientific achievement and generations of physics students who will spend their careers pretending to understand what he discovered.
Planck’s great contribution was discovering that energy doesn’t flow smoothly like water from a tap—it comes in discrete packets called “quanta,” like coins rather than liquid. This seems reasonable until you realize he proved that light behaves as both a wave and a particle simultaneously, which violates everything we know about how reality works. But the mathematics checks out, experiments confirm it, and physicists have spent the past 47 years trying to explain how this makes any sense whatsoever.
Quantum mechanics—the field Planck founded—is famously incomprehensible. Even physicists who work with it daily admit they don’t really understand it; they just know how to use the equations. It’s like driving a car without understanding internal combustion: it works, you trust it works, but you couldn’t explain why it works without consulting several textbooks and possibly lying.
Planck reportedly said, “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness.” Which is either profound philosophical insight or the kind of thing elderly physicists say when they’ve spent too long thinking about quantum mechanics. Possibly both. When you spend decades proving that reality doesn’t work the way people think it does, you start questioning whether reality exists at all.
His personal life was tragically difficult. His first wife died in 1909. His eldest son died in World War I. Twin daughters died in childbirth years apart. And his second son, Erwin, was executed by the Nazis in 1945 for participating in the failed plot to assassinate Hitler. That Planck survived to 89 despite losing most of his family and watching his country destroy itself twice is testament to either remarkable resilience or the same stubbornness that made him spend decades insisting atoms don’t follow classical physics despite everyone telling him he was wrong.
Planck was conservative by nature—politically, personally, scientifically. He didn’t want to revolutionize physics; he stumbled into revolution while trying to solve a practical problem about blackbody radiation. This is how many great discoveries happen: someone tries to fix a small problem, discovers the entire field is wrong about fundamental assumptions, then spends rest of career dealing with consequences.
He stayed in Germany during the Nazi era, which complicated his legacy. He didn’t support the Nazis—his Jewish colleagues emigrated with his help, and his son’s execution for resisting Hitler proves the family’s opposition. But he remained in Germany, trying to preserve German science while regime destroyed everything he valued. Whether this was courage or collaboration remains debated, though this columnist suspects it was simply an elderly man watching his world collapse while trying to protect what little remained.
The quantum mechanics Planck founded has produced remarkable technology: transistors, lasers, nuclear power, computers. Future applications will likely include things we can’t currently imagine, built on principles we still don’t fully understand, using mathematics Planck developed to explain experiments that made no sense.
This is science at its best: discovering truths about reality whether or not those truths are comprehensible. Newton’s physics made intuitive sense—objects move, forces act, everything behaves predictably. Planck’s physics makes no intuitive sense whatsoever, yet it’s demonstrably more accurate. The universe, apparently, doesn’t care whether humans find its operating principles comprehensible.
Planck received his Nobel Prize in 1918, though his quantum theory dated to 1900. The delay wasn’t unusual—Nobel committees are cautious about revolutionary ideas, waiting to see if they’re actually correct or just interesting mistakes. By 1918, enough experiments had confirmed quantum theory that the Nobel committee conceded Planck was probably right, even if nobody understood what “right” meant in this context.
Future physicists will build on Planck’s work, developing quantum theory in directions he never imagined. Some will claim to understand it better than Planck did. They’ll be lying, but it will be productive lying that advances science while maintaining the fiction that quantum mechanics makes sense if you’re smart enough.
Planck’s legacy is secure: he discovered fundamental truths about reality, won appropriate recognition, and trained generations of physicists who continued his work. His personal legacy is more tragic: a life marked by profound loss, watching his country destroy itself, and dying in occupied Germany nine years before the country would reunite.
But his scientific legacy is eternal. Quantum mechanics isn’t going anywhere. It’s too useful, too confirmed by experiment, too fundamental to modern physics. Future generations will curse Planck’s name while using his equations, much as current students do.
Max Planck: 1858-1947. He discovered that atoms don’t follow rules, light behaves impossibly, and reality makes no sense. He was correct about all of it.
Truman Asks Americans to Skip Meat on Tuesdays, Poultry on Thursdays, Presumably So Europe Can Have Both
President’s First Televised White House Address Proves Government Will Use Any Technology to Tell You What to Eat
President Truman delivered the first-ever televised address from the White House yesterday, urging Americans to observe “meatless Tuesdays” and “poultry-less Thursdays” to make more food available for starving Europeans. This represents either compassionate response to humanitarian crisis or government deciding when you’re allowed to eat chicken—possibly both, depending on your perspective regarding federal dining recommendations.
The request is voluntary, Truman emphasized, which is politician-speak for “not mandatory yet, but we’ll see how compliance goes before deciding whether to make it mandatory later.” Americans are asked to voluntarily reduce consumption so excess food can be shipped to Europe, where post-war shortages and drought have created genuine hunger.
Europe’s food crisis is real. Harvests have failed, distribution systems remain war-damaged, and millions face inadequate nutrition. American food aid can genuinely help. The question isn’t whether Europeans need food—they do—but whether asking Americans to skip meat on arbitrary weekdays represents effective solution or symbolic gesture that makes policymakers feel helpful without accomplishing much.
Consider the arithmetic. If every American skips meat one day weekly, that theoretically frees up one-seventh of American meat production for export. Except Americans don’t consume meat evenly—some eat it daily, others rarely, some consume massive quantities while others eat modest amounts. And even if Americans comply perfectly, will reduced domestic consumption actually translate to increased exports, or will producers simply reduce production to match lower demand?
Then there’s the question of compliance. Voluntary programs depend on widespread participation. But Americans just finished years of mandatory food rationing during the war. We’ve been told what we can’t eat, how much we can buy, and when we’re allowed to consume butter, sugar, meat, and coffee. The war ended two years ago. Now government wants us to voluntarily resume rationing? Good luck with that.
The irony of using television for this request isn’t lost on this columnist. Television is expensive luxury owned by wealthy Americans—the same people least likely to struggle with skipping Tuesday meat. Poor Americans can’t afford television, can’t afford to watch presidential addresses, and probably can’t afford to skip any meals regardless of what day it is. So Truman is asking the wealthy (who own televisions) to voluntarily reduce consumption so more food can be sent to foreigners. This will surely go over well.
The speech’s content matters less than its delivery method. This was first time a president addressed the nation from the White House via television. Previous presidents used radio, and before that, they used newspapers, speeches, and hoping their messages eventually reached citizens through unreliable channels. Now the president can speak directly into American living rooms, assuming Americans own televisions and are watching at the right time.
This represents either technological progress or dangerous expansion of executive power to influence citizens directly. Radio required imagination—you heard the president but didn’t see him. Television shows his face, his expression, his sincerity or lack thereof. It’s harder to ignore a president looking directly at you through a screen than a disembodied voice on radio. Future presidents will use this power extensively, probably too extensively.
The meatless Tuesday / poultry-less Thursday formula is pure political calculation. Skip one day and you seem insufficiently committed to helping Europe. Skip three days and you’re asking too much sacrifice from Americans who just finished sacrificing through four years of war. Two days seems like compromise between adequate response and acceptable burden.
But why Tuesday and Thursday specifically? Why not Monday and Wednesday? Or Tuesday and Friday? The days are arbitrary, chosen because they sound reasonable and alliterate nicely: Meatless Tuesday, Poultryless Thursday. It’s marketing, not nutrition science. If Truman had asked for Meatless Monday and Chickenless Wednesday, Americans would comply (or not comply) identically, but it wouldn’t sound as catchy.
Republicans will criticize this request as government overreach—telling Americans what to eat, even voluntarily, exceeds federal authority. Democrats will defend it as compassionate internationalism—helping starving Europeans is moral obligation. Both are partially right, which means political argument will be loud, extended, and ultimately pointless because the program is voluntary and unenforceable anyway.
The deeper issue is America’s emerging role as world feeder. We defeated Germany and Italy in war, and now we’re feeding them while Americans skip Tuesday pot roast. This is either enlightened post-war policy (help former enemies recover so they don’t start another war) or questionable priorities (why help people who tried to kill us while Americans make sacrifices?).
The answer is that European stability serves American interests. Hungry people become desperate people, desperate people become radical people, and radical people create problems that eventually require American intervention. Better to ship food now than troops later. This is cold strategic calculation disguised as humanitarian concern—which doesn’t make it wrong, just honest about motivations.
Will Americans comply? Some will, motivated by compassion or patriotism. Others won’t, believing they’ve sacrificed enough and Europeans should solve their own problems. Most will vaguely intend to comply, occasionally remember on Tuesdays to eat fish instead of beef, then forget entirely by next Tuesday.
The real impact will be symbolic: America cares enough about European hunger to ask its citizens for voluntary sacrifice. Whether citizens actually sacrifice matters less than the asking, which demonstrates American concern while costing nothing if compliance is poor.
Meanwhile, Europe will receive American food aid regardless of whether Americans skip Tuesday meat. The Marshall Plan provides billions in assistance. Government purchases will continue. Whether individual Americans voluntarily reduce consumption makes negligible difference to overall aid levels.
But presidential requests must be made, televised addresses must be delivered, and Americans must be asked to participate in solving problems they didn’t create. It’s diplomacy, it’s politics, and it’s the beginning of television’s role in American governance.
Skip meat on Tuesday if you like. Europe appreciates it. Or don’t, and Europe probably won’t notice. Either way, you’ve been asked personally by the President of the United States, speaking directly to you from a glowing box in your living room.
Welcome to the future of presidential communication.
The Inexplicable Ritual of Spring Cleaning
Why Perfectly Clean Houses Must Be Cleaned Again Because Calendar Says March
Every spring, millions of American women engage in ritual spring cleaning—thoroughly cleaning homes that were already clean, washing windows that were washed last month, and reorganizing closets that were organized in January. This tradition dates back generations, persisting despite making no practical sense in an era of central heating, regular cleaning, and indoor plumbing.
Spring cleaning originated when homes were genuinely filthy after winter. Before central heating, houses relied on coal or wood stoves that produced soot coating everything. Windows stayed closed for months, trapping smoke and dirt. Come spring, homes genuinely needed deep cleaning to remove winter’s accumulated grime.
Modern homes don’t have this problem. We clean regularly, heat with cleaner fuels, and open windows year-round. Yet spring cleaning persists, transformed from necessary maintenance into pointless tradition we follow because mothers did it, grandmothers did it, and stopping would somehow indicate moral failing.
The spring cleaning mandate is exhausting. Everything must be cleaned: windows washed inside and outside, curtains laundered, carpets beaten, furniture moved and cleaned behind, closets emptied and reorganized, attics sorted, basements tidied. This takes days or weeks of intensive labor, disrupting normal household routines while accomplishing minimal improvement over regular cleaning.
Women’s magazines promote spring cleaning enthusiastically, providing detailed checklists ensuring no surface escapes scrubbing. These lists transform reasonable maintenance into Olympic events testing stamina and dedication. “Clean behind radiators!” they command. “Wash baseboards! Organize cupboards! Polish silver!” As if radiators visible to nobody need cleaning, or slightly disorganized cupboards constitute household failure.
The worst aspect is the judgment. Women who spring clean thoroughly are virtuous, maintaining proper homes. Women who skip spring cleaning or half-heartedly participate are lazy, letting standards slip. This social pressure ensures spring cleaning continues despite being largely unnecessary in modern homes with regular maintenance.
Men are conspicuously absent from spring cleaning traditions. This isn’t coincidence—spring cleaning is women’s work, like regular cleaning, laundry, and all other household maintenance. Men might help move furniture or clean gutters, but the organizing, washing, and scrubbing falls to women who already clean regularly and are now cleaning again for no practical reason.
Children complicate spring cleaning. They must be supervised, kept away from cleaning supplies, and prevented from undoing freshly cleaned areas. Smart parents send children outside or to relatives’ homes. Others attempt supervising while cleaning, resulting in neither task being done well. Spring cleaning with young children is exercises in futility—you clean one room while they mess up another, maintaining perfect equilibrium between order and chaos.
The timing is supposedly important. Spring cleaning happens in spring, obviously, taking advantage of warmer weather for activities like window washing and carpet beating. But modern homes have climate control, making spring weather irrelevant. You could spring clean in January with identical results. But tradition demands spring cleaning in spring, so we wait for arbitrary calendar date before engaging in unnecessary labor.
Some women enjoy spring cleaning, finding satisfaction in deep organizing and thorough cleaning. These women are either lying or mentally unwell. Nobody genuinely enjoys scrubbing behind radiators or washing walls that were washed three months ago. If they claim otherwise, they’re either self-deceiving or performing virtue signaling through domestic labor.
The economic impact is substantial. Spring cleaning requires supplies: soaps, polishes, cleaning tools, organizational systems. Stores promote spring cleaning products starting in February, capitalizing on tradition that creates annual purchasing cycle. You don’t need new scrub brushes or specialized window cleaners, but advertisements suggest spring cleaning requires new everything, and tradition-bound consumers comply.
European countries have similar traditions, suggesting spring cleaning is international madness rather than uniquely American foolishness. The British spring clean, the Germans frühjahrsputz, the French grand nettoyage de printemps—everyone wastes spring cleaning houses that don’t need it, united by shared tradition of unnecessary labor.
The alternative—regular cleaning throughout the year without special spring ritual—makes too much sense to be adopted. Regular cleaning prevents dirt accumulation, making deep cleaning unnecessary. But admitting this would undermine entire spring cleaning tradition, causing mothers and grandmothers to roll in graves. So we continue, cleaning houses that don’t need cleaning, because tradition matters more than sense.
This columnist proposes radical solution: clean when things are dirty, organize when things are disorganized, and ignore arbitrary calendar mandates about when thorough cleaning must occur. Your house doesn’t know it’s spring. Your furniture doesn’t require seasonal maintenance. Your windows don’t need special spring washing if you wash them regularly.
But this won’t happen. Spring cleaning is too embedded in domestic culture. Women’s magazines will continue promoting it. Mothers will continue doing it. Daughters will continue learning it, perpetuating tradition into future generations who will someday question why they’re washing perfectly clean baseboards in March.
Meanwhile, houses will be cleaned that were already clean, time will be wasted that could have been spent doing anything else, and everyone will pretend this makes sense because calling it tradition somehow justifies the madness.
Spring cleaning: proof that humans will do absolutely anything if convinced it’s traditional, necessary, or both.
The Peculiar Mathematics of Splitting Restaurant Checks
Why Dinner With Friends Requires Advanced Accounting and Tests Friendship More Than Any Argument
Dinner with friends is pleasant until the check arrives, transforming friendly meal into mathematical nightmare requiring negotiation skills rivaling international diplomacy. The simple question “how should we split this?” reveals surprising complexity about fairness, friendship, and whether ordering expensive entrée when everyone else ordered salad constitutes betrayal.
The theoretical options seem straightforward: split evenly, or pay individually for what each person ordered. In practice, both methods create problems making everyone vaguely uncomfortable while pretending everything’s fine.
Split evenly and someone who ordered salad subsidizes someone who ordered steak. This seems unfair—why should the frugal diner pay for others’ expensive choices? But pointing this out seems petty, so the salad person pays extra while silently resenting friends’ appetites.
Pay individually and you spend twenty minutes calculating who ordered what, determining accurate per-person costs, and figuring out how to split appetizers three ways when four people shared them. This is neither fun nor efficient, and someone inevitably miscalculates, resulting in total that doesn’t match actual check, requiring recalculation and growing frustration.
Then there’s tip calculation. Americans must add 15-20% gratuity, which seems straightforward until you realize not everyone agrees on appropriate percentage. One person insists on 15%, another prefers 20%, a third believes bad service justifies 10%, and suddenly you’re debating service quality and tipping ethics instead of just leaving money and departing.
The person who ordered drinks complicates everything. Alcohol costs substantially more than food. If you ordered three cocktails while friends drank water, splitting evenly means they’re subsidizing your drinking. But calculating drink costs separately seems awkward—”I had the salmon and two martinis, so my share is…”—reducing pleasant meal to itemized expense report.
Appetizers and desserts shared by the table create additional complexity. Four people sharing three appetizers—how do you fairly allocate cost? Everyone pays equally? What if someone ate most of the calamari while barely touching the bruschetta? Do you track consumption and calculate accordingly, or accept imperfect splitting as cost of social dining?
Someone always says “just put it on my card, everyone pay me back later.” This seems efficient until you realize you’re now indebted to friend who paid, creating awkward social obligation. When should you repay? How? Cash? Check? Buying next dinner? The simplicity of one-card payment creates complexity of repayment logistics.
The overly generous friend creates different problems. “I’ll cover it!” they announce, refusing contribution. This seems kind until you realize they’ve created gift obligation—you now owe them dinner, or equivalent gesture, or at minimum effusive gratitude exceeding the meal’s actual value. Free dinner isn’t free; it’s social transaction requiring eventual reciprocation.
Restaurant checks also reveal friendship dynamics. Who orders expensive items? Who orders conservatively? Who drinks heavily? Who suggests splitting evenly despite ordering twice as much as everyone else? These patterns expose personality traits normally hidden beneath polite conversation.
The frugal friend orders cheapest menu items, drinks water, skips dessert, then watches others order freely while mentally calculating increasing per-person cost if splitting evenly. They’re having terrible time, worried about money while pretending to enjoy themselves. Their economy ruins their meal more effectively than any bad cooking could.
The extravagant friend orders freely—appetizers, expensive entrées, drinks, dessert—assuming everyone will split evenly. They’re either genuinely unaware that their choices cost others money, or they’re aware but don’t care. Either way, they’re enjoying dinner while others are quietly calculating unfair subsidy they’re providing.
Some restaurants simplify this by providing separate checks, allowing everyone to pay individually without calculation. These restaurants understand human nature and deserve patronage from anyone who values friendship over mathematical torture. Unfortunately, many restaurants refuse separate checks, forcing groups to navigate splitting nightmare themselves.
Credit cards complicate payment further. Most restaurants accept only one or two cards per check, meaning someone must charge everything then collect from others. This creates immediate debt relationships, awkward money exchanges, and potential for miscalculation when everyone pays back their share.
The mathematically challenged friend makes everything worse. They can’t calculate their share, don’t understand tip percentages, and inevitably underpay while insisting they’ve paid correctly. Everyone else must decide whether to correct them (causing embarrassment) or absorb their underpayment (subsidizing their mathematical inability). Most choose the latter, quietly resenting the friend’s arithmetic failures.
Restaurant checks transform friends into amateur mathematicians, all terrible at math and too polite to admit it. Everyone calculates privately, arrives at different totals, then negotiates toward compromise nobody trusts but everyone accepts because prolonging discussion is more painful than overpaying slightly.
The solution should be simple: if dining with friends who ordered similarly, split evenly. If someone ordered substantially more or less, calculate individually. Agree on tip percentage before calculating. Use separate checks if available. Be honest about preferences rather than pretending everything’s fair when it isn’t.
But we won’t do this because admitting money matters seems petty in context of friendship. So we’ll continue our awkward check-splitting rituals, pretending math is simple when it’s actually complicated, claiming we don’t mind paying extra when we actually do, and silently judging friends’ ordering choices while maintaining polite facades.
It’s exhausting, it’s complicated, and it’s why some people prefer eating alone.
In Defense of Being Terrible at Sports
Why Athletic Incompetence Is Perfectly Acceptable and Should Be Celebrated
American culture worships athletic ability, treating physical coordination as fundamental virtue and athletic incompetence as shameful secret requiring hiding or improvement. This is nonsense that makes perfectly content unathletic people feel inadequate about abilities they neither possess nor want.
Some people are naturally athletic—they catch balls, run without tripping, coordinate limbs effectively, and generally inhabit their bodies with ease other people envy. Good for them. Other people—this columnist included—are profoundly, spectacularly, almost artistically terrible at sports. This is equally acceptable and requires no apology or improvement efforts.
Being bad at sports doesn’t indicate laziness, lack of discipline, or moral failing. It indicates lack of athletic ability, which is trait like height, hair color, or tendency toward baldness. You’re either coordinated or you’re not. Practice might improve performance marginally, but fundamentally uncoordinated people don’t become athletes through effort any more than short people become tall through wishing.
Yet American culture insists everyone should play sports, enjoy sports, and continuously work toward athletic improvement. Children are forced into organized sports despite interest or ability. Adults are expected to golf, play tennis, or at minimum maintain exercise routines. Admitting athletic disinterest is social failing requiring explanation.
The counterargument is that sports provide health benefits. True. Exercise is healthy. But exercise doesn’t require sports. Walking is exercise. Gardening is exercise. Climbing stairs is exercise. The conflation of “healthy activity” with “organized athletics” serves athletic equipment manufacturers and people who enjoy sports, not public health.
Sports also supposedly build character, teaching teamwork, discipline, and perseverance. Perhaps. Or perhaps sports teach that some people are naturally good at arbitrary physical tasks while others aren’t, and forcing everyone to participate regardless of ability mostly teaches that mandatory activities you’re terrible at are miserable experiences to be endured rather than enjoyed.
The unathletic person’s experience of sports is markedly different from athletic person’s experience. Athletic people find sports fun—they’re good at them, they receive praise, they experience success. Unathletic people find sports embarrassing—they’re bad at them, they receive criticism, they experience failure. Insisting everyone should enjoy sports is like insisting everyone should enjoy activities they consistently fail at. It’s absurd.
Team sports are particularly torturous for the unathletic. You’re not just bad; you’re letting down teammates who depend on your performance. You’re the reason your team loses. You’re the player everyone avoids passing to, hoping game ends quickly so everyone can forget your participation. This builds character the way public humiliation builds character: through suffering that could be avoided if we stopped forcing uninterested, unable people to participate.
The truly athletic don’t understand this. To them, sports are enjoyable activities everyone should appreciate. They can’t comprehend that what’s fun for them is torture for others. It’s like excellent dancers insisting everyone should dance, or talented singers believing everyone should enjoy singing. What comes easily to them requires enormous effort from others, and the results still disappoint.
Athletic incompetence also affects social life. Golf is business networking. Tennis is social activity. Hunting and fishing are male bonding. Not participating means missing social opportunities, but participating while terrible creates embarrassment. You’re trapped between social exclusion through abstention or social humiliation through incompetent participation.
Some argue that everyone can improve with practice. This is technically true—practicing anything makes you better at it. But “better” for the truly unathletic means “less spectacularly terrible,” not “actually good.” Spending hundreds of hours practicing to achieve mediocrity at activities you don’t enjoy seems questionable use of limited lifetime.
The solution is accepting that athletic ability varies, and lack of athletic ability is acceptable. Let athletic people play sports. Let unathletic people do other things. Stop forcing everyone into one-size-fits-all athletic participation that benefits athletic people while torturing everyone else.
This won’t happen because athletic culture is too entrenched. Sports will continue being treated as fundamental American activity. Children will continue being forced into organized athletics. Adults will continue pretending golf is fun despite hating every minute. And unathletic people will continue feeling inadequate about lacking abilities they neither want nor need.
Athletic ability isn’t moral virtue—it’s physical trait distributed randomly among population, useful for some activities, irrelevant for others. Being terrible at sports deserves no more shame than being terrible at singing opera or solving differential equations. It’s simply absence of specific ability that most people don’t actually need.
So this columnist declares: I am spectacularly terrible at sports. I cannot catch, throw, run with coordination, or participate in athletic activities without embarrassment. I accept this fully and completely, without shame or intention to improve.
Other unathletic Americans should join me in this declaration. Accept your limitations