HY=EY to you too, buddy

November 17, 2009 8:00 AM

I'm being outsmarted by a personalized license plate (I think)!

I was driving through Durham, NC last Saturday when I saw a truck with a personalized license plate reading HY=EY. The truck also had some math bumper stickers on it. What, if anything does HY=EY mean?

posted by ailouros08 to Grab Bag (14 answers total)

Dunno about the y, unless it's the total quantity, but when H=E, you've converted all enthalpy to energy. "She's givin' ahll she ken giive, Cap'n!"
posted by notsnot at 8:04 AM on November 17, 2009

Best answer: Maybe it's the Schrodinger equation, with the Y representing psi? See here.
posted by swordfishtrombones at 8:05 AM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

H = Hamiltonian Operator
E = Allowed Energy Levels of a System
Y = Eigenkets of H
posted by Loto at 8:05 AM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

And I did some assuming since you can't really use bra-ket on a license plate... sadly.
posted by Loto at 8:06 AM on November 17, 2009

That is the awesomest truck in all of Durham.
posted by beepbeepboopboop at 8:33 AM on November 17, 2009 [2 favorites]

Cool license plate, but the really fascinating thing to me is that the equals sign is allowed on license plates(?)! (Not really adding any answers because I'm pretty sure swordfishtrombones nailed it.)
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 8:46 AM on November 17, 2009

The equal sign could have just been a sticker.
posted by nitsuj at 9:17 AM on November 17, 2009

That is the awesomest truck in all of Durham.

ISTR that there used to be cruising around the Triangle vehicles with the tags

/DEV/CAR

and

/DEV/TRK
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:21 AM on November 17, 2009

Another vote for Schrodinger equation. Especially when combined with math bumper stickers :)
posted by sararah at 9:32 AM on November 17, 2009

Living in NC, and having a personalized license plate (GO LINUX), I can attest to the fact that they allow a surprising amount of special characters. When I got my previous plate, it said DOINK! At the time, I experimented to find out that many characters were allowed.

As to what this equation means, I have no idea, but thought I'd throw in this info since people were discussing it.
posted by willc at 9:32 AM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

willc is correct: NC allows tons of special characters. I wish more states did that!
posted by dcjd at 12:39 PM on November 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

that's awesome!
posted by howgenerica at 2:23 PM on November 17, 2009

Response by poster: Alright, so I'm going to go with the Schrodinger equation, despite the glaring omission of a kitty cat bumpersticker. And indeed, it is the awesomest car in Durham. Thanks guys!
posted by ailouros08 at 2:50 PM on November 17, 2009

Special characters? Wow, could you get Z̡AL҉G̢O?
posted by Joe in Australia at 2:45 AM on November 18, 2009