A negative quarter appears to the eye to be the as a mirror image of an ordinary quarter, made out of some obsidian-like substance. It has a date (usually in the future) and sometimes a reversed mint-mark. It may have scratches and dents, although it never acquires new ones, and on rare occasion may lose the ones it has — the fact has been confirmed, but the process has never been observed directly. To the touch it feels much like an ordinary quarter, in both texture and heat-capacity.
When a negative quarter is allowed to come into contact with a positive quarter, the two quietly mutually annihilate. (Unlike the case of a matter-antimatter reaction, there is no release of radiation involved.) Similarly, negative quarters can be produced (along with a corresponding normal, "positive" quarter) out of nothing.
Spontaneous paired production/destruction events happen all the time: every monetary transaction involves the creation of a number of 'virtual currency pairs', although under normal circumstances these pairs are too short-lived to be observed directly. However, an existing negative quarter can easily be used to disrupt the destruction event, reifying the virtual pair.
(Note that, by symmetry, the mirror operation `(25¢) stackrel(-delta)(->) (-25¢) + 2(25¢)` is also possible; however, physical negative transactions are rather rarer, and usually of lower absolute value.)
Without an existing negative quarter it is more difficult to disrupt the virtual pair destruction event, but it is still possible. The usual process is to perform perform many thousands of long-distance, high-speed transactions near small objects of high value. The first negative coinage was produced by researchers in Switzerland, using Faberge eggs; since then negative quarters have also been independently produced using antimatter, common sense, and the kidnapped daughter of Bill Gates (later returned unharmed, with the demanded ransom unpaid).
In order to remove negative currency from their declared assets, banks have been known to surreptitiously hire construction companies to dispose of stacks of negative coins within the concrete of a building's foundation.
No comments:
Post a Comment