Editor's note: Stay tuned for special events on November 5 and 11. More information will be released at the appropriate time(s).
New Jersey is a land of contrasts, a land where most things are simply awful, but, if you can navigate the crazy road layouts, the chemical factories, the swamps, and Atlantic City you will find a few places that are, for lack of better words, simply very classy. Take, for example, Chickies. Or, if you prefer, the Original Round Table.
Another such place would be the Institute for Advanced Classiness, in Princeton. While most of New Jersey is wallowing in filth, the Institute stands as a beacon of classiness for the entire world.
But that might be changing.
A new experiment is underway in Princeton, and it may very well change every aspect of classiness. And therin lies the danger.
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The Large Classiness Supercollector, as this experiment is called, is based on a very simple, but very disputed, assumption, namely, that classiness can be measured, and, more importantly calculated.
"A central point of the Scientific Revolution was that mathematics can be used to describe every aspect of this world," says the Institute's director, Doctor Sir Klassman von Leibniz, Ph.D. "Yet somehow, mathematics never got around to describing classiness."
For better or for worse, Dr. von Leibniz changed that. His first groundbreaking paper, Methods For Derivation and Integration of Classiness, published in 1984, was hailed as a masterpeice by many Scholars of Classiness. But many others said it was the exact opposite. "It became evident, soon after the publication of von Leibniz's paper, that his attempts were backfiring incredibly," says one of von Leibniz's earliest foes, Cornell University Professor Neville Isaacson.
Von Leibniz admits that much of what is now known as Classimatics is flawed, perhaps even to the fundamental level. "In particular, the equation to predict just when something very classy becomes too classy is very problematic - perhaps even not completely possible."
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Before we let these wonderfully classy scientists blabber on about who's right and who isn't, perhaps we should examine just what the LCS is supposed to do.
The basic theory is simple. Large amounts of classiness in a relatively small area make that area classier. That was, of course, the entire premise behind Fancy Friday, and is relatively well-accepted by virtually all of the classy community.
The real question is just how far this effect can be extended - and, more importantly, at what point does it stop becoming safe and classy?
Many scholars believe in the Law of Diminishingly Classy Returns, namely, that the more classy stuff you collect, the less each individual item increases classiness by - until a point where adding more classy items does not increase classiness at all. This point is expected to be somewhere in the middle of the 'very classy' range.
Others still believe that the classiness increase never stops - but that after a certain point the collection crosses the line and simply becomes too classy.
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Dr. von Leibniz and his associates believe in this second view, yet are sure that they can collect just the right amount of classy objects to make the area just below the 'too classy' line - in other words, as classy as anywhere can get without becoming too classy. The surrounding areas will become classier because they are near the Large Classiness Supercollector, as their collection is called, and will in turn spread an affect that will make the entire world far classier. And since the effect is in New Jersey, the 'Great Classification' (as it is called) will make New Jersey from wasteland into class-land.
Not everyone is convinced. Those who believe in the Law of Diminishing Returns think that the Collector will never work, and is simply a waste of classy items that can be better used by donating them to schoolchildren in unclassy countries (the U.S. State Department spends millions of dollars on such projects each year, but every bit of classiness helps).
Those who agree that the classiness increase does not stop no matter who much classy material is supplied, but, on the other hand, disagree with the classiness or ability of math to predict this and other reactions see a far greater threat.
"There's nothing to stop it from going supercritical - nothing to stop it from just becoming classier and classier until it's so far beyond too classy that nothing can bring it back," says Archibald MacLeish Jr., son of former ICC president Archibald MacLeish (1900-1982). "And once that happens, it will take the rest of the world with it."
MacLeish says that if the LCS is ever completed, the world will, almost instantly, become far too classy. He envisions a day when "people dress like Kanye West except with bowties, when they watch Antiques Roadshow for fun, when they ride mammoths to work and Pterodactyls to school, when every man, woman, and child will own 3.14 elvish servants, when everyone drinks tea, and when Boro Boro by Arash is played so often that it actually starts to sound annoying." MacLeish thinks that this must not happen.
He is not alone. Recently, Random Canadian Guy Johhny Schmidtt sued the Institute for Advanced Classiness for "endangering my classiness." The Institute responded by saying that no one from Canada is classy anyway. The case is still in the Canadian Supreme Court. A few of the minor buildings in the Institute were burned down by Canadian mobs who were
- very angry in general
- very angry in particular because of the long car ride they had to travel to get to the Institute, and
- very bored since the hockey season had just ended and the curling season hadn't yet begun.
Classy people have also challenged the institute. But we'll talk about that later, won't we.
