Crown jewels
WE鈥橰E quite taken by the underpants thrown into our inbox by Barry Cash, the ZK Magnetotherapy Breathable U-Shape Underwear Antibacterial Healthcare Modal Boxer For Men.
It could be the frontispiece, studded with 500 tourmaline stones. Or the promise that these rocks will 鈥渋ncrease the nerve conduction velocity鈥� and 鈥渆liminate the accumulation of body fatigue鈥�. Or perhaps it鈥檚 the illustration, where a dozen superimposed red circles glow like a demon spider鈥檚 eyes, signifying the fearsome virility offered by these gemstone-powered pants.
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Sizing may confuse some: the boxers are labelled L, XL, 2XL and 3XL, which the website handily translates as meaning S, M, L and XL. With masculinity this fragile, no wonder some men need .
Desperately seeking a Susan
OUR search for scientific units named after women, and related eponyms, has not proven very successful. We even stooped to considering devices that were named after non-existent women, such as the Lazy Susan and Spinning Jenny (22 July). Alan Robinson writes to note we could add Thomas Edison鈥檚 Long Legged Mary Ann to this list, a dynamo featuring a pair of six-foot-high towers of coiled wire.
And even those who secure an eponymous invention may end up regretting it. Many of you wrote to relay the misfortune of Tilly Shilling, whose clever design solved a fault in Spitfire engines that was causing them to stall when going into a dive. For her efforts, this lifesaving valve was christened with an unprintable anatomical moniker by the pilots.
It鈥檚 the bomb
WHILE he agrees that the claims for the energy drink found in a Maine service station are surprising to say the least (22 July), Guy Cox says 鈥渢here is no reason we can鈥檛 measure energy in grams鈥�. The 2000 milligram reported on the can is 2 grams, 鈥渟o using e = mc2, that is 1.8 脳 1014 joules, or 180 terajoules.鈥�
Guy says this is three times the energy released by the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and more than enough to put a serious scorch mark on the state of Maine. Just how tired are these poor truck drivers?
One Joule for some and a jowl for others
ALSO thinking about joules is Alan Davies, who says our continuing pub crawl awoke a long-dormant question. 鈥淚 learned about the equivalence of heat and work about 60 years ago from a Mancunian teacher who insisted that the name of the unit of energy should be pronounced to rhyme with 鈥榡owl鈥�, as that was, he said, how they pronounced it in Manchester鈥�, where the scientist after whom the unit is named came from.
Alan says he has since asked Mancunian acquaintances how they would pronounce it, and most either didn鈥檛 know or opted for the more usual 鈥渏ewel鈥�.
He asks: 鈥淐an any of your readers confirm how James Prescott Joule would have pronounced his name?鈥�
Heavy hopper
PREVIOUSLY Feedback wondered what prompted Gloucestershire Live to express, in kangaroos, the weight of road material needed for a local resurfacing project (22 July).
Incredibly, a much bigger puzzle hopped straight over our heads. 鈥淚f 770 tonnes of resurfacing material weigh as much as 855 adult kangaroos,鈥� writes Anthea Maybury, 鈥渢hen the average weight of an adult kangaroo is just over 900 kg.鈥� No wonder the animals are implicated in so many traffic accidents 鈥� though most of these occur in Australia rather than Gloucestershire.
Non-scents
A SOLUTION to our perfume problem has wafted in. 鈥淵ou pondered how to tell pour homme and pour femme scentless perfumes apart (29 July),鈥� writes Alan Henness. 鈥淚f they are homeopathic, you need ponder no more.鈥�
Alan says that Kate Chatfield, a senior lecturer in homeopathy at the University of Central Lancashire and representative of the Society of Homeopaths, answered this very question before the .
Quizzed by Lord Broers on whether it was possible to distinguish between homeopathic drugs after they have been diluted, : 鈥淥nly by the label.鈥�
Serve well chilled
CALLING last orders on our pub crawl, Guy Dawson directs us to the Herschel Arms in Slough, which, 鈥渓ike quite a lot of things in the area鈥�, is named after the local astronomer William Herschel.
Meanwhile, Rob Carpenter writes: 鈥淵our thread on scientific hostelries prompted me to google my own hero Michael Faraday, and I was surprised to find several.鈥� There is The Faraday in Epsom, he says, 鈥渁nd then there is Faradays in Nottingham with no apostrophe, clearly named after multiple Faradays, so one of them must be Michael鈥�.
Lastly, if you prefer your pint served extra cold, there鈥檚 also a Faraday Bar at the Vernadsky Ukrainian Research Station in Antarctica, says Rob. One for the bucket list?
We bid farewell to David Jones, who died in July. A chemist by profession, his entertained a generation of New 杏吧原创 readers with its proposals for ridiculous-sounding but ultimately logical inventions. Some of them, such as 3D printing and buckyballs, turned out to be real in the end. Endlessly irreverent and curious, he will be much missed.