The seemingly improbable physics of the whole caper

NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the University of Maryland’s main campus, the Institute for Defense Analysis’s center for computing sciences, and Physics Today‘s editorial offices are all in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Last week FBI agents arrested the county’s chief executive, Jack Johnson, and his wife, Leslie Johnson, on corruption charges.

The Washington Post‘s news story about the arrest opened with a memorable scene, which Post reporters Paul Schwartzman, Ruben Castaneda, and Cheryl Thompson recreated from FBI wiretaps:

Two FBI agents were at the front door of their two-story brick colonial in Mitchellville.

“Don’t answer it,” the county executive said, unaware that more agents were listening in.

Johnson ordered his wife to find and destroy a $100,000 check from a real estate developer that was hidden in a box of liquor.

“Do you want me to put it down the toilet?” Leslie Johnson asked.

“Yes, flush that,” the county executive said.

But what about the cash? she asked - $79,600.

Put it in your underwear, the county executive told his wife.

She replied, “I have it in my bra” - which is where agents discovered the money after she answered the door.

The main topic of this blog post isn’t Prince George’s County, but the metaphorical use of the word “physics” by Petula Dvorak, the Post’s metro columnist. The second paragraph of her column about the Johnsons’ arrest ran: “That bra. The cash. And the seemingly improbable physics of the whole caper.”

At first I thought Dvorak used “physics” to suggest something difficult and puzzling, but my wife, Jan, had a better answer. “Eighty thousand dollars. How would you hide that in a bra?,” she wondered. To Jan, “physics” suggested a physical, concrete challenge.

But it turns out that $79,600 in cash, if denominated in $100 bills, isn’t especially bulky. Given that a bill is 100 μm thick, Leslie Johnson would have had to conceal two wads each about 4 cm thick. If she wore a loose-fitting dressing down (the raid took place in the morning), the illicit cache of cash might not be conspicuous.

So maybe Dvorak really did mean “physics” to convey something difficult and puzzling. Out of curiosity, I asked her by e-mail. I’ll let you know if she replies.