Strange Thoughts about the Traffic Lights

I was stuck at the traffic junction. Being stuck, I was impatient to wait. Being me, I kept hitting the pedestrian button at the traffic light. It was a magical button. I really believe that the pedestrian traffic lights will change to green magically, if I hit the button a lot of times. Its kind of a psychological therapy, knowing that I am doing something to lessen my waiting time.

Yet, a friend of mine postulate that hitting the button once is enough. Repeated hitting will reset the machine, thus elongating the waiting time. However, the issue is that if I hit the button once. Then another fellow, who did not realise that I have hit it, go over and press the button. Then another guy comes over and not realising that the button has been pressed, and go over to hit the button. And so on. Thus, the traffic light will be resetting again and again. Thus the waiting time will be as of the pre-designated one, rendering the system useless.

Of course, the system can be just a phony. Placed there to placate the fuming individuals, since the waiting time is relatively short, pressing the button will result in an immaterial decrease in waiting time (if indeed the system works). Hence, the best alternative will be putting a button there for show, so that waiting individuals will have something to do and a shimmering hope that the waiting time can be significantly decreased.

Although, the friend of mine has demostrated once and again that repeated hitting of button will not render a significant decrease in waiting time and that one hit of the button in fact seem to generate a more positive result, none-the-less, I firmly take my stand that Einstein is correct. The theory of relativity.

By repeatedly hitting the button, our brain is pre-occupied with the action of hitting and the generation of feel-good hormones that the wait time has decreased, thus taking our attention away from feeling the pain of waiting. Thus, "reducing" the wait-time in total relativity. On the other hand, hitting the button once will lengthen the waiting time in total relativity, because, our brain will be pre-occupied with the fact that the light is still red. Thus causing the brain to generate negative feelings and invertably, increasing the wait time.

Thank you. This thesis will be submited to the annual Nobel Prize.