Volume 15 Number 1, Spring 2002

Rhyme and Reason

Steve Donnelly

I decided to make a New Year’s resolution this year: to stop being weird. It all began in the fruit and vegetable section of the supermarket where I was closely examining the parsnips as I always do at this time of the year, just before my final lecture to first-year Physics undergraduates on classical mechanics. As the final topic on my lecture course, I talk about Newton’s conic sections as these link the mundane with the cosmic and serve beautifully to illustrate the simplicity that often underpins the apparent complexity of the universe. What are conic sections? Well, if you take a solid cone and slice it in four different ways the edges of the different cuts form a circle, an ellipse, a parabola and a hyperbola respectively and these curves are precisely the orbits of celestial bodies — planets, comets and others — as they move through the heavens. Parsnips are the most conical vegetable in my supermarket and are easily sliced and so I have been using them for several years to illustrate conic sections in my lectures. All very logical and reasonable, you might say; however, that view didn’t appear to be shared by the young woman in a Tesco uniform who noticed me perusing the parsnips. “Can I help you”, she kindly enquired. “No it’s OK”, I replied. “I’m just trying to find the most conical parsnips”.

The look on her face as she slowly backed away and said “Yes, OK . . .” in a sort of placatory way was one with which I am very familiar. For instance, on my very first flight across the equator, the fact that I spent 30 minutes locked in the toilet trying to determine which way the water went down the plughole (i) just north of the equator, (ii) exactly on the equator and (iii) just south of the equator seemed entirely reasonable to me. Unfortunately, the reply that followed my explanation of my temporary absence (“You what?!”) was accompanied by exactly the same kind of facial expression as that of my Tesco fruit and vegetable assistant. And there is the nub of the problem; a problem, by the way, that I imagine is experienced by all scientists whose nearest and dearest do not share their profession: the walk around the reservoir interrupted by the physicist trying to work out why the light reflected off the water is making that complex pattern on the dam wall or by the entomologist trying to understand why the crane fly is behaving in such an odd manner. Or perhaps, the afternoon on the beach with the meteorologist preoccupied with the odd movement of the clouds or with the chemist trying to understand the origins of the foam that flecks the water’s edge. All of these seem like entirely legitimate concerns to me (as do water in plugholes and conical parsnips) but unfortunately to most of the rest of the world they just come over as, well . . . weird. Thus my New Year resolution.

But then I got to thinking about it. Trying to figure out how little tiny little bits of the universe work is what my training and my profession is all about. But it also the underlying reason for my interest in all things paranormal. I am confronted with an apparently strange phenomenon and want to find the real explanation for it. The fact that many people interpret it as a UFO, a ghost, an angel, a perpetual motion machine or the direct intervention of God is really of no consequence to me and doesn’t much enter into my attempts to determine the true explanation. And that attitude is weird. I mean, if millions of people all over the globe believe that the virgin Mary is manifesting herself in Medjugorje or Lourdes how could I possibly fail to agree with them? Everyone knows that, although sun-sign/newspaper astrology can’t really work very well, when you go to a REAL astrologer and get a SERIOUS reading that you will really learn things about yourself that you didn’t know before and you may even get some genuine information about your future. I may be a physicist but what right does that give me to disagree with so many people? The royal family use homeopathic medicines so how can a mere commoner possibly query the clear beneficial action of a complete absence of molecules dissolved in water (nothing acts faster than Anadin!)? Anyone who disagrees with so many people, including royalty and Nancy Regan, must be foolish, arrogant and, well . . . weird!

So I had a good think about it and decided that I am going to withdraw my New Year resolution and continue asking odd questions and engaging in strange activities with parsnips and plugholes. In fact, although it is too late for a new, New Year resolution for this year, next year I am going to resolve to continue to be weird and perhaps to launch a campaign to promote my particular kind of weirdness. I’d write more about this, but I have just noticed that a little tiny drop of water on my computer monitor is producing a strange coloured pattern and I just want to figure out what’s going on . . .

Steve Donnelly is a former editor of the The Skeptic magazine and Professor of Experimental Physics at the University of Salford.