Blame Brexit
A wise old dog, a bit arthritic 鈥� not Feedback鈥檚 Tinder bio, but Peter Holness鈥檚 description of his companion Arby, who is getting a bit long in the canines. To lessen the pains of age, a 鈥渓ess sceptical鈥� member of Peter鈥檚 family bought Arby a collar that incorporates a 鈥減owerful bipolar magnet鈥�.
Enquiring with members of the customer services department of the company concerned about the possibility of a monopolar version, Peter was informed that one wasn鈥檛 available. They weren鈥檛 sure why, but it was possibly due to 鈥淏rexit-related supply issues鈥�.
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Feedback has been following the search for a magnetic north without a south, or vice versa, with interest for some years. Physicists hunting the elusive magnetic monopole within the Large Hadron Collider or inside exotic solids, take note: your quarry may be languishing in a warehouse in Felixstowe, or caught in a snarl-up on the approach to the port of Dover.
Two鈥檚 company鈥�
Due diligence on the preceding leads us to a breakthrough in our own quest for eternal youth, as we land on the website of Bioflow magnetic collars. Bioflow鈥檚 products, , work via a 鈥淐entral Reverse Polarity field 鈥� a strong, multi-directional force of magnetism. Unlike standard and competitor鈥檚 magnets, Bioflow鈥檚 Central Reverse Polarity magnet has three poles.鈥�
Strong stuff. We don鈥檛 wonder that 鈥渨hen blood passes under this multi-directional field, cells experience an agitating effect鈥�. If readers should detect a certain jumpiness in our prose this week, for once it isn鈥檛 the office coffee 鈥� we can鈥檛 get this darn thing off.
Flame-grilling
Social media site for the short of attention Twitter was lightly smouldering last week as US thin-sliced frozen steaks manufacturer The Steak-Umm Company reignited a long-standing beef, of uncertain provenance, it has with pronouncements made by the astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson.
Responding to Tyson鈥檚 tweet (鈥淭he good thing about Science is that it鈥檚 true, whether or not you believe in it鈥�), the company鈥檚 official account with a succinct 鈥渓og off bro鈥�, followed 5 minutes later by a : 鈥渘ope. science itself isn鈥檛 鈥渢rue鈥� it鈥檚 a constantly refining process used to uncover truths based in material reality and that process is still full of misteaks. neil just posts ridiculous sound bites like this for clout and he has no respect for epistemology鈥�.
Which, as far as the meat of the matter goes, isn鈥檛 wrong. As Twitter user put it: 鈥淲e have reached the point in our collective human evolution at which I nod in agreement with a sandwich meat company as they take a swipe at a celebrated astrophysicist.鈥�
Many strings
To this day, Feedback much treasures an enraged letter sent by a reader following our publication of an article by University of Warwick mathematics professor Ian Stewart, on the mathematics of electoral systems, in the run-up to the 2010 UK general election (1 May 2010, p 28). How dare we, it asked, be giving a party-political platform to the Conservative candidate for the constituency of Milton Keynes South?
That turned out to be the subtly variant . Since then, however, we have taken it as a vaguely amusing axiom that all instances of the same name map to the same person. Thus physicist Brian Cox, for instance, has led a busy life not just as a for the band D:Ream, but also as the to play Hannibal Lecter on film, while .
So we were tickled to see, while rummaging around in the arXiv preprint server for something we had mislaid, the publication list attributed to David Politzer, co-winner of the for his work on the theory of quantum chromodynamics 鈥� .
Except, chuckling self-satisfiedly, we then discovered a webpage hosted by the California Insititute of Technology . So, as far as our theorem goes, QED. Or perhaps in Politzer鈥檚 case, QCD. That鈥檚 a physics joke.
Human measures
Last week, The Sun newspaper invented a newly perplexing way of measuring things (Feedbacks passim), Adrian Bell notes: the exactly equivalent explicatory unit. It reported the birth of a very large baby boy, 鈥渁lmost 24 inches long, that鈥檚 two footlong Subway sandwiches for perspective鈥�.
That said, Feedback remembers Subway once by asserting that the name was 鈥渘ot intended to be a measurement of length鈥�. Suffice it to say: it was a big baby.
Mayday, mayday
Many thanks to the readers who responded retrocausally to our item mentioning language not being about rules, but efficient communication (17 April) by pointing out our solecism in ending an item with 鈥淥ver and out鈥� (3 April). In radio comms, 鈥淥ver鈥� invites a response, while 鈥渙ut鈥� is a contradictory indication that communication has ended. We apologise for any confusion. Out and over.
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