The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Fri, 15 Mar 1996 18:25:08 +0000
Hiya again people... Obviously very little work going on out there today...:-) A special thanks to Dragon in Macclesfield for keeping the humour coming...today would have been cancelled without you...:-) Wishes & Dreams... - ANDREA xx -- ************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************ ******************<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>******************* *** *** *** THE LOONY BIN *** *** loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk *** *** *** ***************************************************** **********************ANDROMEDA********************** ------- Forwarded message follows ------- Ceci aussi vient de Martin SousArbre. This year marks the 200th anniversary of a major revolution in scientific thought, and it is difficult for us to understand how people thought before that revolution. For example, no-one needs to be told that traffic lights turn orange as you get to them, or that milk pans boil over the moment you take your eyes off them, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself why these things happen? Aristotle believed that such events were unpredictable, and could be attributed solely to what he termed 'hard cheddar'. Amazingly, this naive view of the Universe continued to be held until well into the eighteenth century, when the scientific world was suddenly stood on its head by the revolutionary discovery now known as Sod's Law. Hippolyte Malchance Sod was Physician-in-Adversity to Louis XVI, and one of Europe's foremost experimental providence tempters. Born at St Michel-sous-Pantalons in 1738, and again in 1739, Sod achieved international fame in 1784 with the publication of his major work De Perversitas Objectorum Inanimatorum, which set out the theorem now known as Sod's Specific Law of Butties. Sod had for a long time been puzzled by certain natural phenomena. Why was it always your egg that broke as it came out of the frying pan? Why were you more likely to spill coffee down a clean shirt than a dirty one? Why was the little blue packet of salt always at the bottom of the crisp packet? Experimenters had tried for centuries to find a law which united these apparently unrelated events. Sod's early experiments were non-quantitative. He spent ten years trying to discover why shirts in the Sale were always size 36 when he took a 44, and why toilet paper never tore across the perforations. The breakthrough came in May 1793 and, like all great discoveries, it was the result of a very simple piece of observation. At the Salon du Cheval Toque in Paris, Sod threw 3896 slices of bread and jam into the air and demonstrated that `la chance du butti tombant avec la confiture au-dessous varie selon la depense du tapis'. (The chance of the butty falling jam side downwards is proportional to the expense of the carpet.) This observation revolutionised French culinary thinking, and is said to have inspired Marie Antoinette to make her famous suggestion for solving the problem - `Qu'ils mangent de la brioche'. In 1786, the Royal Society invited Sod to London. While waiting for a District Line stage coach from South Kensington to Putney Bridge, Sod observed that the first three coaches went to Ealing Broadway, while the fourth terminated at Gloucester Road. In a flash, he realised the application of his Specific Butty Theorem to everyday life. Within the space of a week, he had completed his Theorie Generale du Fatalisme (1786), which contains the immortal line `C'est comme ca qu'emiette le biscuit', though the Law is now more generally expressed in the form `If a thing can go wrong, it will go wrong'. Theorie du Fatalisme was an instant bestseller, but within two years, Sod faced financial ruin. In a desperate gamble, he had invested all his money in a pumpkin farm, only to learn that the government had called off Halloween. Confined as a debtor, he would have been released at the Storming of the Bastille (1789), but his jailors had lost the key to his cell. After the outbreak of the Revolution, Sod was freed in a daring raid by the Scarlet Pansy. Before crossing to England, Sod disguised himself as a serving wench, not fully appreciating the Pansy's special weakness. The two men were arrested in a sailors' bar in Boulogne under the Public Decency Act, and Sod was sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Tribunal in May 1793. By chance, the executioner was an old student of Sod's - Karl Heinrik von Murphy. Murphy had three attempts to decapitate his ex-tutor then, while attempting to free the jammed guillotine blade, performed a bilateral above-knee amputation on himself and circumcised his assistant. Sod was immediately reprieved, but stumbled in his descent from the scaffold, fell from the ladder and broke his neck. His dying words were `See, I told you so!' Murphy, legless from the waist downwards, went on to found his own school of Gallic Pessimism, and is said to have used this experience as the basis for his own book `La Court Paille' (The Short Straw) (1799). His great thesis `Le Fromage Dur' (1806) reconsiders Sod's Law. After a review of 60000 cases, the book ends triumphantly with Murphy's Corollary: `Sod war unheilbarer Optimist' (Sod was an incurable optimist). This statement mark the divergence of Murphyism from Soddism, and defines the principle difference between present-day philosophers of the two schools. Soddism preaches the concept of good-luck potential building up after a string of bad luck. Murphyism denies the existence of any form of good fortune (`la confiture'), and teaches stoical acceptance of unremitting bad luck (`le fromage dur'). For example, a Soddist eating a meal might save the best bit till last; a Murphyist will eat the best bit first in the belief that he may otherwise die before he gets to it. Soddist philosophers are nowadays concerned with explaining the inexplicable. Why does acute appendicitis always turn out to be carcinoma of the caecum on the evening you've arranged to play golf? Why is it always the GP's wife who gets the allergic reaction? Why does your bleep always go off when you're in the lavatory? By contrast, Murphyism concerns itself with everyday practicalities. Why, no matter how many pairs of socks you take out of the drawer, is there always a hole in one of them? Why does your queue always move slowest in the supermarket? Why, when you empty the washing-up bowl, is there always a teaspoon left in the bottom? A leading Murphyist philosopher, Professor Jacques Amolroit, believes that his team may be on the verge of a major breakthrough. `With any luck,' he says, `we could have this problem licked within a year or so ... But then again, knowing our luck...' Dr Philip Keep, M.B., B.S., D.Obst., R.C.O.G., F.F.A.R.C.S. Consultant Anaesthetist, Norfolk and Norwich Hospital -- David Clarke