Flash fiction

I’m trying to keep these newsletters as short as possible while I power through NaNoWriMo, but this edition is still packed with cheese and mad hair (above), mad science in the main feature, and mad ads, dolls and music in the roundup at the end.

Killer List: 10 Times “Mad” Science Almost Got It Right

1. We all know that, according to chaos theory, if a butterfly flaps its wings in Brazil, it can cause a tornado in Texas, right?
Not quite. It turns out it was Bolsonaro chopping down the Amazon which was destroying weather around the world.

2. Time travel favourite: is it even possible to travel back in time without sleeping with your mother, and accidentally becoming your own father?

It turns out it is! Everything was better in those days, including the men.
You don’t stand a chance with your mom, snowflake!

3. Travelling to distant galaxies sounds great. Hibernating (sleeping!) until you arrive sounds brilliant. But robots still haven’t learned how to pour coffee between the lips of a sleeping human, so how are you going to wake up?

4. So how about zipping down a handy wormhole to go straight where you need to be?
You could do that, but it turns out wormholes will also send you back in time. This means you are now irresistibly attracted to your mother and therefore unable to concentrate on the important task the government selected you to do.
You pine away on a distance star and humanity goes extinct.

5. Bringing the dead back to life with a jolt of electricity?
Yes, you absolutely can do this.
The only problem is that the electricity will also fry you, meaning you’ll smell like bacon for as long as you continue to “live.”
In real life, Frankenstein’s monster would have been eaten by the villagers. Everyone loves bacon!

6. Live forever!
Sure, just listen to Aubrey de Grey on the subject.
Science fiction authors—a gloomy bunch—will try to convince you that you will get bored after the first few hundred years.
Empirical research, however, suggests this is simply not true: the 100th time you eat a bucket of KFC fried chicken is just as delicious as the first time.
Assuming, of course, that you are not eating only KFC fried chicken. If you are, even mad science cannot help you live forever.

7. Going forward in time?
Yes, but take another look at number 2 on this list.
That boy who finds you inexplicably irresistible?
Yep, that’s your son/grandson/ great grandson. Don’t do it!

8. The quantum Zeno effect says that measuring the state of a system (for example, whether a particle has a charge) frequently enough can prevent the system from changing state.
Almost! What’s actually happening here is a function of Zeno’s arrow paradox.
Let us examine this paradox by substituting a thirsty author for the arrow, and a cup of tea as the arrow’s destination.
In order for the author to get from their computer to the kettle where their tea is waiting (bag in), the author must first cross a distance equal to half the distance between the computer to the kettle.
After this, they cross the other half. So much so obvious.
But wait!
Before the author can reach the point halfway to the kettle, they must logically cross a distance equal to half the distance to the halfway point (a quarter of the way to the kettle), but first they need to cross a distance equal to half the distance of the halfway point of the first half of the (increasingly tedious) journey to the kettle, and so on.
Logically, every distance comprises two “half-distances”, and that includes each “half-distance”, so there are an infinite number of them.
Obviously, it takes a certain amount of time for the author to cross each and every distance, so it must therefore take the author an infinite amount of time to get to the kettle.
By which time the tea will have gone cold.

Bearing this in mind, it’s now obvious what is happening when quantum physicists attempt to “freeze” states through constant measurement.
All they’ve really done is foolishly lock themselves into a cycle of observing “halfway” measurement points.
The system will change… as soon as the last of the infinite measurements has been completed.

Don’t wait up!

*Quantum physicists like to call particles “systems”, and charges “states” because it sounds more impressive.

9. Nothing can go faster than the speed of light… except for light!
Think about it. Light is the fastest thing in the universe. But it still takes light from the sun a certain amount of time to reach the Earth, for example (roughly 8 minutes and 19 seconds). That’s how long it took last year and the year before that, too.
Yet the universe keeps expanding. Therefore, this year’s light must be moving faster than last year’s light.
Take that, fundamental law of physics!

10. Evil clones.
No. You use up finite resources with every breath. You burp, fart, and your armpits smell.
Plus, remember that time you said something that you knew would hurt people’s feelings?
So, if you’re now thinking “this world needs more of me!” then don’t blame the clone.
You’re the evil one.

What I Discovered This Week

Watch!
Jim Henson made ads in the 1950s. There’s almost 15 minutes of them collected here. I guarantee you will not want to try Wilkins Coffee after watching these! Weirdly brutal.

Read!
About the girl who adopted a terrifying creepy doll! This will make you go “aww!” and then wonder if she’s going to be okay…

Listen!
Leeds noise terrorists, Thank, have just brought out a live album! If you thought they made a shocking amount of irritating noise when they went into the studio, check out the live version here!

(Excerpted from my newsletter dated 19th November, 2022. Sign up for the full, up-to-date experience!)