The Quantum Mechanic

According to this article from E&P, the Globe’s daily subscriber count has dropped to under 400,000 in an 8.5% decline from the same six-month period a year ago.

This might be a first — the appearance of (which is clearly supposed to be) Thevenin and Norton equivalents in a mainstream comic strip.

Take a look.

He’s even right. A circuit of sources and resistors with only two external terminals can be collapsed down down to two forms, all three of which will yield identical results when you take measurements from those terminals.

The key measurements are the open-circuit voltage (V_oc) across the terminals and the short-circuit current (I_sc) through the terminals. From those you calculate the Thevenin resistance R_T = V_oc/I_sc.

The Thevenin form is an ideal voltage source of V_oc in series with R_T with the external terminals being connected to the “free” end of R_T and the “free” end of the voltage source. The Norton form is an ideal current source of I_sc in parallel with R_T and the external terminals being connected across R_T.

So indeed, even when nothing is connected to the terminals, the Norton form will be pumping current through the resistor while the Thevenin form will be quiescent. So Alex is quite right that the Norton form will be warmer.

From Jurkowitz’s media log at the Phoenix:

The roster of those leaving the newsroom include Travel editor Wendy Fox, pop culture writer Renee Graham, feature writer Jack Thomas, op-ed page editor Nick King, editorial writer Susan Trausch, classical music critic Richard Dyer, New York bureau chief Tatsha Robertson, obit writer Tom Long, theater critic Ed Siegel, business writer Charlie Stein, music writer Steve Morse, sports media writer Bill Griffith, arts writer Maureen Dezell, and op-ed columnist Tom Oliphant.

While no tears at seeing Oliphant leave, how the heck can you have some of those others leave (like Graham, Stein, or Griffith) and still keep employing a bigot like Derrick Jackson?

This has been around forever, but I’ve not heard it for a while:

The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country, the Washington Post is read by the people who think they run the county, the New York Times is read by the people who think they should run the country and the Boston Globe is read by the people who used to run the country!

Though I’d say that way overstates the importance of the readers of the Globe. And speaking of the Globe, is there any paper in the country with such an inflated sense of self-importance?