Sound of Style

A quip making the rounds plays on literary and physics language: a phrase that sounds like an oxymoron is instead described as a superposition, the quantum idea that something can hold two states at once, nodding to Schrödinger's famous cat. Readers are sharing it as light humour bridging Charles Dickens-style wordplay and quantum mechanics.

A compilation of Windows startup and shutdown sounds rendered in a new musical style is drawing attention, including some invented versions alongside the real ones. Listeners are reacting with nostalgia to the familiar Microsoft jingles and debating which of the included sounds are genuine and which are fabrications.