RIP JC

Great Ceasar dead and turned to clay
could stop a hole to keep the wind away

Julius Caesar was stabbed to death today, 2050 years ago, and it seems that Chem Profs all over (according to the MIT Chem Prof on NPR this morning) like to tell their students that right now, each of them and each of us has about one molecule of Caesar's last breath (et tu, Brute) in our lungs. I'm not convinced.

Molecules get recycled. They get broken down, combined into other compounds, and regenerated - except for Argon and a tiny bit of Helium. Besides, it's not clear that an individual molecule really has a long term identity. Indistinguishable quantum systems inevitably lose their separate identities over time.

The clay is complex and individual enough to have a longer term quantum identity though.

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