Agnostica

Agnostica: For anyone who has ever calculated Santa's airspeed.

Agnostica is a holiday that was created by a character, King Luca, in Darren Bleuel's comic Nukees. The origins of Agnostica as told by King Luca himself can be read here.

When is Agnostica?

On December 14, 1900, Max Planck presented experimental results in front of the German Physical Society and announced that they could best be explained if energy exists in discrete packets, which he called "quanta." Thus, the field of Quantum Physics was born. December 14 is the start of the Agnostica Holiday. --Agnostica.com

How is it celebrated?

Traditionally a party is thrown where the attendees dress up as their favorite scientist of yore and have a good time. Other items necessary for an authentic Agnostica party include:

• Glögi (see mulled wine or glogg)
• A Schrödinger Box (a large box that no one is allowed to open, representative of the famous experiment Schrödinger's cat)
• Mobius Chains (see Möbius strips)
• Mystery Punch
• A Random Bag of Fun

Random Bag of Fun

The random bag of fun is a bag of simple, inexpensive, gifts. Everyone participating in the gift exchange gets to reach into the bag and blindly pick out a gift.

General guidlines for gifts:

• inexpensive, about $10-$20
• non-perishable (no food, drinks, pets, etc.)
• something you might like yourself
• simple
• educational (preferably)

In 2004, Darren Bleuel (author of the webcomic Nukees and creator of Agnostica) hosted a worldwide Random Bag of Fun, encouraging readers to mail in either gifts (meeting the above criteria) or else a donation of twenty dollars, so that they could then be mailed a random gift back. About twenty-five people participated.