UNIVERSITY administrators are always keen to boost academics鈥� output. They will surely welcome a paper by Tom谩a Grim of the Department of Zoology at Palack媒 University in Olomouc, Czech Republic, which is due to appear in Oikos, the journal of the Nordic Ecological Society ().
鈥淒espite a plethora of papers on the issue of publication and citation biases,鈥� Grim writes in the abstract, 鈥渘o study has so far considered a possible effect of social activities on publication output.鈥�
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So he set about remedying this deficit. 鈥淚 predicted negative correlations between beer consumption and several measures of scientific performance.鈥� Uh-oh鈥� 鈥淯sing a survey from the Czech Republic,鈥� he goes on, 鈥渢hat has the highest per capita beer consumption rate in the world, I show that increasing per capita beer consumption is associated with lower numbers of papers, total citations, and citations per paper (a surrogate measure of paper quality).鈥�
You don鈥檛 say. Knock us down with a feather. What might the consequences be? Feedback glumly predicts the appearance before long of a paper entitled 鈥淭he possible role of university administrators鈥� attempts to interfere in social activity in accounting for differences in publication output among academics鈥�.
For now though, we鈥檙e off to the pub. In the interests of science, you understand, to test the counter-hypothesis that consumption of whisky improves output.
READER Gregor MacLennan wants to know whether anybody else would get as confused as he was about how to answer the question an airport official asked him at check-in: 鈥淗as anyone put anything into your luggage without your knowledge?鈥�
STUCK for a gift for a mathematically inclined friend? Feedback recommends the Myriorama () 鈥� a set of 24 cards cunningly designed so that, placed side-by-side in any order, they form one plausible picture. The Myriorama, which costs just 拢2.99, is in the style of slightly saucy beach postcards.
The website says there are 鈥渁n astonishing 1,686,553,615,927,922,354,187,744 possible pictures鈥� to be made.鈥� And here, of course, the mathematics comes in. John Woods鈥檚 first thought on seeing the page was that the number of ways of arranging 24 cards should be 24 factorial 鈥� which is written 24! and is 24 脳 23 脳 22鈥� 脳 2 脳 1.
But 24! is only 620,448,401,733,240,000,000,000. Then Woods realised you don鈥檛 have to use all the cards, so the number of arrangements you can make is larger. But what really surprised him was the realisation that the number the site reports is (to the nearest whole number) 24! multiplied by Euler鈥檚 constant e 鈥� which keeps popping up all over the place (New 杏吧原创, 21 July 2007, p 38). But why here on a set of seaside postcards?
ONE OF those inevitable questions on a slow day in the laser lab is: can you really zap flies with a laser beam? The answers flew around like flies when somebody asked on the alt.lasers internet newsgroup. Feedback鈥檚 favourite was posted by Steve Roberts, who replied with what is clearly the voice of experience: it takes 鈥�20 to 60 watts of scanning q-switched blue-green light, and don鈥檛 ask how I know鈥�. Roberts reported that he 鈥渉ated sweeping up piles of the dead things in front of the laser booth鈥�. The beam 鈥渇ries the wings, not the shell, so they crash down and wiggle around till they die, which is a long time鈥�.
鈥淔eedback has a spam email promising 鈥渂eating the competition 100-200 per cent on your printing job without sacrificing quality or service鈥�. We鈥檒l take a couple of billion leaflets at 200 per cent saving, please鈥�
Digging around, Feedback discovers that this is a perennial question. Back in 1999 one contributor to the newsgroup : 鈥淎 system capable of seeing and tracking a bug as it flies around would be quite astonishing. In fact, if you came up with one I鈥檓 sure the military would come along and take you and your work and make it disappear.鈥� That might explain the Dutch TV advert for the 鈥淪tarwars Musquito Defense System鈥� which you can see via . And that has nothing to do with where Roberts works, nor with the fact that we can鈥檛 find his message any more. Oh no.
IN THE course of her work, Katy Andrews came across , a Canadian website of mostly public-domain images which she thoroughly recommends.
She was, however, taken aback by this offer from the site鈥檚 owner:鈥� I am Liam at holoweb dot net; let me know if you鈥檇 like me to scan specific images, or higher resolution copies, or have any interesting uses for these images, or like them. Tell me what colour socks you are wearing. For faster service include a picture of your ankles.鈥�
FINALLY, Steve Laughlin鈥檚 computer came up with the message: 鈥淭o continue using Norton Internet Security, please activate within 4915287 days.鈥� This, Laughlin quickly worked out, would take him to AD 15465, a wait of 13,457 years. It鈥檚 nice to know there鈥檚 no hurry.