SCIENCE FRICTION!

Strange and Wonderful Science

Greetings, fellow science buffs...
     Funny how these things go...  When we last had science as a
topic, I started with a joke about some of the unknown questions
of science, specifically naming a little conundrum called the
Chandler Wobble, first proposed by Seth Chandler in 1891.  For
those of you who haven't heard of that obscure little bit of
astrophysics lore, it has to do with why the Earth continues to
wobble slightly on its axis in a 433 day period, even after all
of theses billions of years.  With no energy input, any such
irregular wobble should have damped out by now.
     By golly, you mention one of these strange unsolved problems
in Sunday Funnies and darned if someone didn't go out solve it. 
Answer: it's the oceans.  The Earth's wobble is simply like
driving down the road in a minivan with a swimming pool in the
back.  All that watery weight sloshing around would be apt to
make your lane changes a little unpredictable.  So it is on a
somewhat grander scale with Earth's oceans.  Not that this
changes your life, or anything.
     Knowing a little about science certainly makes the world
more interesting, though it can be a little disturbing as well. 
Like the understanding gained from entomological research that
honey is simply bee vomit.  Sorry if this makes your toast taste
a little off, but it is the truth.  Don't even ask about the
research on toilet flushing aerosols - trust me, you don't want
to know.
     Then there are some of the goofier things scientists study,
like the research published recently in England that short
schoolboys are more likely to be picked on than taller ones.  And
the study by the University of Alberta in Canada that proved that
female prison inmates in solitary confinement are lonely. Or the
study published by  Stephen Gray of Nottingham Trent University
in England showing that half of all British men wear their
trousers too tight, but only one in 10 men admit to doing so. 
Before you laugh, remember that these folks got paid for the
research.  And it's usually tax money.  We paid them.  Still
laughing?
     Folks we need to thank this week include our scientific
friends:  Caterina Sukup, Jerry Taff, R.J. Tully, Jan Michalski,
Wallace Adams, Joshua D Brink, Tim McChain, Bruce Gonzo, Charles
Beckman, Yasmin Leischer, as well as a well-deserved German
lesson from Howard Lesniak.  And remember: Heisenberg may have
been here.  I guess we'll never know with certainty.
     Have A Well-Researched Week,


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NEW SCIENTIST DICTIONARY -
------------------------

     Alopecia - Modern wonder drug to re-grow all the hair lost
          to male pattern baldness.  Rare side effects such as
          wild mood swings, an unsightly rash on most of the
          body, gnarly nose hair, and squeekyocia, (a dramatic
          raise in voice pitch) occur in only 99.9 percent of
          users.

     Aphrasia - Loss of speech in social scientists when asked
          during conversations at parties, "But what USE is your
          research?"

     Arithmetic - An obscure art no longer practiced in
          developed countries.

     Atom - The smallest part of matter which can still be
          infinitely divided.

     Behave - What subjects are expected to do in
          psychological experiments.

     Bohr Atom - A really dull particle.

     Chemicals - Noxious substances from which modern foods
          are made.

     Cold Fusion - Effect of sticking tongue on flag pole in
          winter.

     Computer - An amazingly versatile machine with barely
          imaginable potential and yet of such incredible
          complexity that making it do the most trivial of tasks
          can keep the country's finest minds busy for days, or
          weeks, or months.

     Genius - Person clever enough to be born in the right
          place at the right time of the right sex and to follow
          up this advantage by saying all the right things to all
          the right people.

     Illogical - Any data that doesn't fit your theory.

     Ju-Ju, Bad -  The only logical explanation of why your
          experiment failed.

     Laser - Failed attempt at a death-ray.

     Life - A whim of several billion cells to be you for a
          while.

     Mad - 1. Misunderstood;  2. Madman, an exceptionally free
          thinker.  3. Mad Scientist, one whose experiments have
          not been sanctioned by his institution's ethics
          committee.

     Meteorologist -  One who doubts the long-established fact
          that it is bound to rain the day you forget your
          umbrella.

     Microscope - A very small bottle of mouthwash. 

     Occam's Razor - The principle that the preferred theory     is
          the one that employs the fewest assumptions.  But,
          since it is in itself an assumption that simpler is
          always better, scientists are quite right to ignore it.

     Paranoia -  A healthy understanding of the essential
          nature of the academic world.

     Perception -  Activity by which the mind senses events
          that may or may not have taken place.  If there is one
          thing which modern psychology has taught us, it is to
          mistrust our perceptions.  Actually, there may not be
          anything else that modern psychology has taught us.

     Physics -  1. The art of estimating errors.  
          2. Theoretical Physics, the art of letting other people
          estimate errors.

     Preposterous -  Findings contrary to your own research.

     Program -  A magic spell cast upon a computer to enable
          it to turn your input into error messages.

     Programming - A pastime similar to banging your head against
          a wall but with even fewer opportunities for reward.

     Protein - Overachieving 12 to 19-year-olds who are paid to
          participate in sports like tennis, figure skating and
          gymnastics.

     Psychiatry -  The science of keeping people's madness within
          socially acceptable limits.

     Rational -  Behaving arbitrarily, but in accordance with
          some arbitrary system you have devised.

     Retro Virus - Virus which distinguishes itself from other
          such virii by wearing bell bottoms, love beads, and
          large mutton-chop sideburns.

     Science -   A system developed by people of genius over
          thousands of years to keep themselves and other such
          social misfits gainfully employed.

     Serendipity -  The art of taking credit for something you
          discovered accidentally.

     Silicon -   Substance from which very small integrated
          circuits can be constructed.

     Silicone -  Substance from which very large bustlines can
          be constructed.

     University -  Institution where people making progress in
          science can be safely kept out of society's way.


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COMPLETELY WARN OUT...
-------------------
     From time to time, we see those weird, lawyer-inspired
labels warning against dangers that we would either:  1) not do - 
unless we have a truly moronic, brain fart moment, or, B) never
admit to if we were ever dopey enough to do them.
     Others obviously do not feel this way.  In the interests of
scientific accuracy, top researchers at the SUNFUN Newton
Institute of Entropic Research (SUNFUNNIER) have been looking
into incorporating greater scientific accuracy in product warning
labels.  Here are a few of the recommended changes in the name of
scientific accuracy:


     WARNING:  This product warps space and time in its vicinity.

     WARNING:  This product attracts every other piece of matter
          in the universe with a force proportional to the
          product of the masses and inversely proportional to the
          square of the distance between them.

     CAUTION:  According to Einstein's E=mc^2 formula, the mass of
          this product contains the energy equivalent of 85
          million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.

     HANDLE WITH EXTREME CARE:  This product contains minute
          electrically charged particles moving at velocities in
          excess of five hundred million miles per hour.

     READ THIS BEFORE OPENING PACKAGE:  According to certain
          versions of the Unified Field Theory, the primary
          particles making up this product may decay to
          nothingness within the next four hundred million years.

     THIS IS A 100% MATTER PRODUCT:  In the unlikely event that
          this merchandise should contact antimatter in any form,
          a catastrophic explosion will result.

     PUBLIC NOTICE:  Any use of this product, in any manner
          whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the
          universe.  Although no liability is implied, the
          consumer is warned that this process of Entropy will
          ultimately lead to the heat death of the universe.

     ATTENTION:  Despite any other listing of product contents
          found hereon, the consumer is advised that, in
          actuality, this product consists of 99.9999999999%
          empty space between atoms.

     RELATIVE VELOCITY WARNING:  Care should be taken when
          lifting this product, since its mass, and thus its
          weight, is dependent on its velocity relative to the
          user.

     BIG BANG WARNING:  The entire physical universe, including
          this product, may one day collapse back into an
          infinitesimally small space.  Should another universe
          subsequently re-emerge, the existence of this product
          in that universe cannot be guaranteed.


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THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY -- EXPLAINED
-------------------------------------

          "Put your hand on a stove for a minute, and it seems
     like an hour.
          Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a
     minute.
          That's relativity."


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WILD & CRAZY SCIENCE...
--------------------
     A surprising number of people think that scientists are
obsessive nerds with no social life and the personality of a desk
stapler.
     Wrong-O, Biotech Breath...
     As proof, I give you the Ig Nobel Awards, a slightly bent
outing for all of those scientists who labor in the bowels of the
scientific process, held in October.   These science grunts work
year in and year out, all the while knowing that their odds of
winning a real Nobel Prize are about the same as their odds of
winning the Publishers Clearinghouse drawing.  The Iggys give
them all the recognition their research demands.
     Think these folks aren't a little goofy?  An ongoing door
prize at the yearly Ig Nobels is the "Win-a-Date-With-a-Nobel-
Laureate Contest" contest, where the winner is set up with the
winner of an actual Nobel Prize.  (This year's prize was dinner
at a ribs joint with Dudley Herschbach, 1986 Nobel Laureate in
Chemistry.)
     The award show also featured the 60-second wedding ceremony
of Will and Lisa, two geologists from Arizona State University.
     With deference to newlyweds rock stars Will and Lisa, the
highlight of the evening is always the actual award ceremony,
where various scientific achievements of the year are properly
noted.  It is important to remember that these are actual
scientific studies, so the actual reference is listed in case you
have some perverse urge to look them up.
     Without further delay, here are the 2001 Ig Nobel prize
winners...


     TECHNOLOGY:
          Awarded jointly to John Keogh of Hawthorn, Victoria,
          Australia, for patenting the wheel in the year 2001,
          and to the Australian Patent Office for granting him
          Innovation Patent #2001100012.

     MEDICINE:
          Peter Barss of McGill University, for his impactful
          medical report "Injuries Due to Falling Coconuts."
          [PUBLISHED IN: The Journal of Trauma, vol. 21, no. 11,
          1984, pp. 990-1.] 

     PHYSICS:
          David Schmidt of the University of Massachusetts for
          his partial solution to the question of why shower
          curtains billow inwards. 

     BIOLOGY:
          Buck Weimer of Pueblo, Colorado for inventing Under-
          Ease, airtight underwear with a replaceable charcoal
          filter that removes bad-smelling gases before they
          escape.

     ECONOMICS 
          Joel Slemrod, of the University of Michigan Business
          School, and Wojciech Kopczuk, of University of British
          Columbia, for their conclusion that people find a way
          to postpone their deaths if that would qualify them for
          a lower rate on the inheritance tax.  [REFERENCE:"Dying
          to Save Taxes: Evidence from Estate Tax Returns on the
          Death Elasticity," National Bureau of Economic Research
          Working Paper No. W8158, March 2001.] 

     LITERATURE 
          John Richards of Boston, England, founder of The
          Apostrophe Protection Society, for his efforts to
          protect, promote, and defend the differences between
          plural and possessive.

     PSYCHOLOGY 
          Lawrence W. Sherman of Miami University, Ohio, for his
          influential research report "An Ecological Study of
          Glee in Small Groups of Preschool Children." [PUBLISHED
          IN: Child Development, vol. 46, no. 1, March 1975, pp.
          53-61.]

     ASTROPHYSICS 
          Dr. Jack and Rexella Van Impe of Jack Van Impe
          Ministries, Rochester Hills, Michigan, for their
          discovery that black holes fulfill all the technical
          requirements to be the location of Hell. [REFERENCE:
          The March 31, 2001 television and Internet broadcast of
          the "Jack Van Impe Presents" program. (at about the 12
          minute mark).]

     PUBLIC HEALTH 
          Chittaranjan Andrade and B.S. Srihari of the National
          Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences,
          Bangalore, India, for their probing medical discovery
          that nose picking is a common activity among
          adolescents. [REFERENCE: "A Preliminary Survey of
          Rhinotillexomania in an Adolescent Sample," Journal of
          Clinical Psychiatry, vol. 62, no. 6, June 2001, pp.
          426-31.]


 And, finally, the Ig Nobel Prize for...
     PEACE 
          Viliumas Malinauskus of Grutas, Lithuania, for creating
          the amusement park known as "Stalin World."


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