Asher's Stuffed Journal Article
Abstract
It is commonly understood in the literature that birthdays occur once a year. Yet there is an intriguing observation [Kurtis, et al.] that the plush crocodylus acutus (a native of Illinois but recently observed in a certain Western Pennsylvanian habitat) has a birthday that is observable on two distinct days of the calendar year. A quick survey of the literature failed to yield a similar observed phenomenon, and thus little is known about this birthday. We present evidence that, in fact, said birthday is a superevent (like a superposition, but in time) in fact simultaneously occupying a large number of days. We also present several possible directions for future research.Hypothesis
Directly observing said birthday is impossible given the linear nature with which we must (at least currently) observe the passing of time. Thankfully, one logical definition of said birthday exists - within the mind of Asher Silas McCathern. Dr. Sharon McCathern suggested that perhaps the definition of said event might be tied to the entire season [Sharon, et al. - unpublished discussion.]Take the set of all days W that belong to the season winter. (Such a definition is obviously problematic, as we will discuss in our closing remarks.) We decided to pick an element f from this set and ask the subject whether or not f was also a day on which said birthday might be observed.
Results
We decided on February 5th.The subject responded affirmatively: Crockies birthday is on February 5th. When asking the subject about the previous two days from [Kurtis, et al.] he responded that they, each, were also Crockies birthday. When asked if Crockies had two or more birthdays, the response was negative.
The conclusion remaining is that Crockies has a single birthday that is observable on any day during winter, existing simultaneously in all those days, collapsing to an affirmative upon examination of any individual day.
Remarks and Future Directions
Many question are unanswered by our research: are there other such events? What, exactly, is the definition of the set W? Is it only days belonging to the legally recognized season of winter, or does it include any day that might have certain winter-like qualities (i.e. snow)? Would Crockies prefer to live in a climate with more such days or a southern clime where an observation of his birthday would be easier to schedule?Additionally, many other answers to our questions lead to troubling inaccuracies. Is it possible that by trying to measure Crockies's birthday we are actually changing it? Asher mentioned that Crockies doesn't have "one birthday" but "one whole birthday" during our investigation. Does this mean other birthdays are not whole, missing some critical structure that prevents their superevent behavior?
Many of these questions may be answerable by direct observation of said birthday, which intend to undertake in a future paper.
