NOBODY KNOWS ANYTHING and just to prove it, Wired’s made a list of 40 big unanswered questions of the universe. This one’s my favorite because even if you answer it, it’s still bewildering and bad:

How do entangled particles communicate?

One of the zanier notions in the plenty zany world of quantum mechanics is that a pair of subatomic particles can sometimes become “entangled.” This means the fate of one instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. It’s such a bizarre phenomenon that Einstein dissed the idea in the 1930s as “spooky action at a distance,” saying it showed that the developing model of the atomic world needed rethinking.

But it turns out that the universe is spooky after all. In 1997, scientists separated a pair of entangled photons by shooting them through fiber-optic cables to two villages 6 miles apart. Tipping one into a particular quantum state forced the other into the opposite state less than five-trillionths of a second later, or nearly 7 million times faster than light could travel between the two. Of course, according to relativity, nothing travels faster than the speed of light – not even information between particles.

Even the best theories to explain how entanglement gets around this problem seem preposterous. One, for example, speculates that signals are shot back through time. Ultimately, the answer is bound to be unnerving: According to a famous doctrine called Bell’s Inequality, for entanglement to square with relativity, either we have no free will or reality is an illusion. Some choice.

The other fun and disturbing thing you realize as you read the other articles is how often scientists use giant particle smashing machines called super colliders to test their theories — and that smashing particles in giant machines could possibly result in creating a black hole that sucks us all up into oblivion. Crazy scientists.

DICE-K, THE MONSTER, GODZUKI or whatever ya call him is coming to America. The baby-faced, somewhat pampered $100 million man (plus perks) isn’t exactly Jesus, but he’ll be wearing #18, and he brings passion for the hometown team back from the dead as far as the faithful are concerned. Gordon Edes covers the drama in this play-by-play of hardball negotiations (essential reading), which at one point bordered on the absurd (police escort for a physical?).

But if the fear is that Japan’s national treasure won’t relocate so easily to his new nation (marketing ick-fest), especially amid the outsized expectations for a 26-year-old who’s never pitched in the Majors before, we have this tidbit to give us hope that this kid is ready for the madness that is the American League East, even if J.D. Drew is not:

Asked about his expectations for next season, according to Sankei Sport [Matsuzaka] said: “I think getting a good start on the season will be a key to succeed. At this time, I feel Boston fans are welcoming to me, but I heard their character.

“When I’m not playing well, I am sure to have a tough time in Boston. I am going to do my best in order to make Boston fans be more excited.”

Matsuzaka spoke with his new catcher, Jason Varitek, in a conference call the day after signing, Boras said.

When the agent visited in Japan this summer, Matsuzaka’s wife asked for a favor. “She wanted to know if I could get Daisuke the jersey of his favorite player,” Boras said. “I thought it might be Ichiro, or [Hideki] Matsui. No – it was Jason Varitek.”

Right on, my yellow brother. Right on.

TRADING MANNY TO BOSTON is the best idea ever. This exchange, buried in The Sports Guy’s mailbag:

Q: The Sox should just tell Manny he got traded to Boston. He won’t know the difference.
– Mike H, Noxen, N.H.

SG: I love this idea. They could go all out with this: Call him up, tell him he’s been traded to Boston, have him pack up all of his stuff, fly him in circles in the team jet for five hours, then drop him off in Cambridge and tell him he’s on the West Coast. He might fall for it. By the time the season starts, it will be too late for him to complain. I really think this could work.

I HATE THE VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM, the inevitable and interminable purgatory that is a condition of every Red Sox online ticket sale. Every December, the Red Sox make tickets available for a handful of next season’s games (ostensibly just in time for holiday gift giving). So every December, I spend a day sitting in front of the computer, living my life in-between 30-second automated browser refreshes that read:

Welcome to the Boston Red Sox Virtual Waiting Room!

PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT PATRONS ARE SELECTED FROM THIS VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM ON A RANDOM BASIS FOR THE OPPORTUNITY TO PURCHASE TICKETS.

We are experiencing very high demand. As a result, all requests for seats cannot be served simultaneously. Please be patient, and your browser will be refreshed in: [30 . . . 29 . . . 28 . . . 27 . . . 26 . . . seconds]

When we refresh your browser, we will determine your status in the waiting room and, if appropriate, give you an opportunity to request seats. DO NOT REFRESH THIS WINDOW. We appreciate your patience.

Tremendous interest for Boston Red Sox tickets may produce lengthy wait times. While waiting, please be sure to read the following important information and check for general availability status below. . . .

Which is what I’m doing right now. And what I’ve been doing since 10:00am this morning. Waiting. And then, every 30 seconds, checking to see if my wait’s over. And then I go back to waiting. And checking. And waiting. Every 30 seconds the message in the browser window refreshes, revealing the same message that was displayed during the previous 30 seconds.

But at the end of one of these half-minute nuggets, the Virtual Waiting Room will suddenly disappear, and I’ll immediately find myself staring at a seating chart, plunged into an intense state of panic as I try to assess which seats are left to which games against which teams and on which days. The system allows you mere minutes to secure all your tickets before your time’s up, and you can practically feel the good seats disappearing right in front of your eyes. It’s the same feeling I imagined as a kid winning one of those 60-second shopping sprees at Toys ‘R’ Us — except now there’s a $4 processing fee for each toy I grab and there are a hundred thousand other kids competing for the best toys right alongside me.

Keep in mind, we’re talking about games in April and May, so it’s already an act of faith to commit in advance the hundreds of dollars that the eight ticket per person limit represents. Yet the worst part isn’t that all of this investment is based on a system that feels so fragile — linger too long or click the wrong button in haste and risk banishment back into the Virtual Waiting Room. And the worst part isn’t that a lot of the weird purchasing restrictions and protocols are designed to discourage scalpers — and in fact do absolutely nothing to discourage scalpers — but instead make the process extra tricky for the rest of us. The worst part isn’t even that you get to do this twice a year, once today and then some other day when the tickets for the rest of the season become available. The worst part is that, all things considered, this is probably as good a system for online ticket buying as we can expect. Go Sox.

IF MATSUI IS GODZILLA, then shouldn’t Daisuke be Godzuki? According to the Wikipedia entry on Hanna-Barbera’s “The Godzilla Power Hour”:

Also included in the series was a cute diminutive Godzilla counterpart, Godzooky, who could summon the monster himself if necessary.

Makes sense to me, allowing that the monster Daisuke summons is the powerful and possibly mythical gyroball (not his pinstriped brethren, Matsui-san).

Anyway, regardless of whether it’s necessary to call Daisuke Matsuzaka anything but Daisuke Matsuzaka, or whether we should be wary of reinforcing cartoonish cultural stereotypes, I say Godzuki as a nickname is still way better than “Dice-K”. Where did the Globe come up with that? It’s not remotely fun to say, nor does it convey the awesome might of a strange radioactive monster from a foreign land, which if nothing else, is at least intimidating. Dice K sounds like a second rate hip-hop artist, if you ask me.

UPDATE: Apparently, Daisuke is pronounced “Dice-K,” so, uh, that’s where the Globe came up with the nickname – it’s his actual name (sorta). But it’s still kinda lame. I much prefer the one he threw out there during his press conference:

His Translator: His nickname is the Monster in Japan. Now he’ll become the Red Monster. . . . [he’s] very happy and excited to be on the Boston Red Sox.

17TH-CENTURY REALISM MEETS 20TH-CENTURY TELEVISION in “Joseph’s Bloody Coat Brought to Jacob” (1630) by Diego Velázquez, now appearing in a really good exhibit at The National Gallery in London. The painting depicts Joseph’s jealous brothers cleverly (and guiltily) offering their father false evidence of his favored son’s death. Only Jacob’s canine companion, straight out of a scene from Lassie, seems to know what the real deal is. One can almost hear the spaniel yapping, “Ruff! Something smells suspicious! Ruff! Ruff!” Apparently, even the masters will indulge in melodramatic plot devices from time to time.

THE MYSTERIES OF THE GYROBALL are illuminated by the Slate’s Explainer, including the pitch’s shared traits with the equally enigmatic googly:

Whether it has a sharp break or a big dip, some major leaguers and pitching coaches have dismissed the gyro as merely a variation on the cut fastball. The gyro has also been compared to a cricket pitch called the googly, which is also thrown with sidespin.

It’s unclear whether Matsuzaka actually throws a gyroball. He’s been evasive in interviews, saying that he might have thrown the pitch “sometimes accidentally.” Carroll believes he saw Matsuzaka throw a few gyroballs during this year’s World Baseball Classic. According to Himeno, at least two other Japanese pitchers use the pitch.

Hope the pitcher – and the pitch – are worth it.

LIFE’S ROUGH WHEN YOU’RE DEAD, especially if you’ve made a few enemies here and there – like, family. Hopefully, when I’m happy and buried, I won’t leave a legacy of bitter, wounded people who post comments like these to my online memorial:

Some of the snubs are blunt. “Everyone gets their due,” a former client writes of an embezzling accountant. Or, “I sincerely hope the Lord has more mercy on him than he had on me during my years reporting to him at the Welfare Department.”

Others are subtler: “She never took the time to meet me, but I understand she was a wonderful grandmother to her other grandchildren.”

“Reading the obit, he sounds like he was a great father,” says another, which is signed, “His son Peter.”

Hayes Ferguson, the company’s chief operating officer, said, “Most often it’s cases of Sue posting that he was the love of my life and then we check and the wife’s name is Mary.”

No rest for the wicked, I suppose.

IT’S NOT YET WINTER, but ticket prices are frozen and it’s chillier than normal at Fenway. Limping out of last season and looking ahead to the third season since that happy day, it’s clear that little of the magic lingers. Along with having to endure a parade of turncoat idiots, missed aces, front office shenanigans, oppressive media regimes, squandered promise, and unfulfilled potential, we’ve also had to witness the St. Louis Cardinals win a World Series, which managed to stir up some kind of vague, deeply repressed disappointment – an unsettling flashback from a twisted, parallel dimension.

So when the Sox announce that an unprecedented number of ticket prices will remain unchanged for 2007, it’s not just a team acknowledging that a day at the ballpark shouldn’t require a second mortgage. It’s also a franchise beginning to recognize the limits of the goodwill they earned from a grateful fan base. (Note: I refuse to refer to the fans as “Red Sox Nation” since the organization has managed to mutate that once noble term into a marketing ick-fest, as well.)

But then again, whenever ownership needs to bolster fan sympathies – and open fan wallets – there’s always plan B. Or more accurately, plan NY. In the Boston Globe article, Larry Lucchino says, “Our challenge is to protect those lower prices for fans and families on a tight budget while still improving revenue. We still must compete with those with much deeper pockets, and we still must continue to make improvements to Fenway Park.” He simultaneously acknowledges the financial limits of “regular” fans while also invoking our hatred for the Yankees as if it was a money-making incantation: “Abacadabra! If you still want to beat the Yankees, then sit your butt in those seats, stuff another Fenway Frank in your mouth and don’t complain about how much it all costs.”

In the end, the decision to freeze a majority of the ticket prices is a small gesture. (After all, the “lower prices” Lucchino says he wants to “protect” still help make Fenway the most expensive ballpark in all of Major League Baseball.) And clearly, the overall vibe on Yawkey Way is still one of desperation. This upcoming season could be the first in this ownership’s reign where interest in the hometown team actually drops off. No more victory tours for The Trophy. Even fewer familiar faces to remind us of past glories.

Is this the last shot for the once infallible management to bring back the magic? Is this the year when the fans who were swept up by the euphoria of 2004 finally begin to stray? (Of course, the lingering anxiety for me is the possibility of discovering that my own interest could wane, as well. No one likes to feel passion fade away. . . . )

Sure, leaves are still falling, football’s in full swing, and Mirabelli’s on his sofa testing free agency in preparation for his next emergency police escort. But the stove is stoked with coals and you can already smell the grass at Fort Myers — it’s just that the odor is a little different this time around. And all we can do is save our pennies for a seat at the park and see what fortunes the spring brings.