BROWSING the weather forecast site , John Poyner was somewhat startled to be presented with an advertisement for supermarket Tesco offering a 鈥淭hunder and Lightning Strike鈥� 鈥� with free delivery. Had they been reading the article about artificial lightning from Tesla coils in this magazine on 24 June (p 36)?
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British newspapers are notorious for going bananas over a bit of weather. They are not alone. Ian Stewart forwards a bulletin from the Bulgarian news agency at : 鈥淭he heat wave, which started sizzling in Bulgaria last week, will continue on Friday, to be followed by spells of showers over the weekend鈥� Experts attribute the weird weather to a combination of unfavourable astrological and geological conditions, which have changed Bulgaria鈥檚 climate from moderately continental to subtropical.鈥�
Stewart is working with the British Council to 鈥渞aise awareness of climate change in Bulgaria鈥�. Clearly the task is not yet done. Unless the carbon dioxide emissions of would-be magicians who hammer rocks are more significant than we thought.
UNIVERSITY exams may traumatise students, but their answers give their professors much food for thought. Palaeontologists have lately been sharing their favourite examples. Some are technically accurate but nonetheless misleading understatements, like the student asked to give the age of a dinosaur who responded 鈥�Deinonychus lived more than one hundred years ago.鈥� There are wild guessers 鈥� like the student, asked to name groups that developed powered flight besides birds, bats and pterosaurs, who answered 鈥減enguins鈥�.
鈥淎 pack of 鈥渕ini Yum Yums鈥� declares 鈥渃ontains colour flavour鈥�, as spotted by Nic Plum at supermarket Sainsbury鈥檚 鈥� where synaesthetes shop鈥�
Then there are the terms that go beyond the student鈥檚 vocabulary. When a professor asked students to list 鈥渢wo vestigial structures in humans鈥�, one listed 鈥渉eart and lungs鈥� and a second listed 鈥渂rains鈥�. The temptation to answer 鈥渟peak for yourself鈥� must have been strong.
LORD Justice Sedley and Mr Justice Gray may know something that science doesn鈥檛. Martin Gorst alerts us to their June judgment in the high court in London that the monthly 鈥淐ritical Mass鈥� event was a 鈥渃ustomary procession鈥� and therefore not subject to the need for formal notification to the Metropolitan Police. But what is this critical mass, you may ask?
Let the august judges explain themselves: 鈥淪ince April 1994 in London, as in many other cities throughout the world, starting in San Francisco in 1992, cyclists have gathered at a set time early in the evening of the last Friday of each month for a mass ride through the streets鈥� It is, of course, their numbers that make the participants a critical mass in the scientific as well as the social sense.鈥�
Feedback has an urgent message to cyclists. As we understand the 鈥渟cientific sense鈥� of critical mass, this means you must not get too close together. We really do not want to find out at what density you will explode.
FOR reasons unknown to us, Sean Williams found himself looking up the word 鈥渕onolatry鈥�. Wikipedia defines it as the practice of worshipping only one deity, while acknowledging that there may be more than one: . However, Williams was intrigued to find a link to a yet-to-be-written page on 鈥渁latrism鈥�. At the time Williams wrote, 鈥渁latrism鈥� was a Googlewhackblatt, producing that single web page when you search for it. Mentions have multiplied since then 鈥� but of course we pay attention only to one.
We think we can help with that missing definition. 鈥淎latrism鈥� would be formed from the word 鈥渁latry鈥�, the practice of not bothering to worship any deities, regardless of how many there may be (recall 鈥渋dolatry鈥� and the prefix 鈥渁-鈥� for 鈥渘o鈥� or 鈥渘ot鈥�). This brings us to Feedback鈥檚 Statistical Proof of Alatry.
It goes like this. The only thing we know about deities with any certainty is that the number of them is a whole number, the idea of a fractional deity being frankly absurd. So the number of deities in our universe is an integer, in the range from minus infinity to plus infinity. (We leave the theologians to interpret a negative number of deities: this is number theory, and its conclusion should save them the trouble.)
For it is commonly accepted that we should expect our universe to be typical of possible universes. So the expected number of deities is in the middle of the range of possibilities. That is, zero. Quod erat demonstrandum.
FINALLY, the Summer 2006 catalogue from The Scholar鈥檚 Bookshelf offers what Wayne Newman reckons is a rather surprising video: 鈥�Augustus; First of the Emperors. Mixes rare footage with exclusive interviews and archival art. 50 min. Color and B. & W.鈥�