Random Reminder

Press, 20 November 1989, Page 39

Random Reminder

LET’S GET PHYSICIST On the principle that once you are over 16 it is all downhill and on the equally true principle that physics is the Queen of Science and that every other subject that is not physics can be left till last period Friday afternoon, a couple of classes of secondary school pupils, all aged 16 or thereabouts, were given the chance one Friday to save New Zealand and come up with ideas for our whitehot technological future. Here are the ideas that the kids thought were best:

@ Trolley bus wires underground, recharging vehicle batteries by induction. @ Drinking-straw sextant precise to 0.001 radian, allowing Port Hills lookouts with dressing-table mirrors to dazzle or melt any visiting ships. @ High-protein low-fat dried meat bar, to out-sell sweets and salami worldwide.

@ Dry (i.e. non-exploding in kilns) clay grains coated with glaze, in a volatile wax matrix for potting... @ ... or sintered in moulds to make diesel engine parts. @ Horizontally spinning kiln to make drainpipes, vertically spinning kiln to make paraboloids, inclined spinning kiln to make hollow spheres. © Irradiation of sheep ova to produce

viable mutant that breeds true, that tastes of beef, and that can be pressurecooked whole like salmon.

@ Spring-operated garage door sensitive to one’s own headlights. @ Bugs/moulds/lichens which concentrate mercury/gold/lead to be harvested from the Estuary/the West Coast/the dust of Riccarton Road.

@ Wristwatch alarm which gives a low-pitched BONG to alert those — over 16 years old, perhaps — whose ears are insensitive to a high “beep.” @ Handbag-sized amplifier to beam back at motor-cyclists their own racket exactly out-of-phase. Enveloped in uncanny silence, the motor-cyclist will assume that they have stopped. Dismounting to investigate, they will break their necks.

Shocked though they will be now to discover it, the young physicists were themselves, that hot Friday afternoon, the subjects of a scientific experiment. The youngsters were at rival schools. None of them could care less about the future of the country, it seemed. Both teachers then let it be understood that the Other School was doing well. The kids in each class sat up and got to work. Moral: Physics might be the Queen of Sciences, but sociology is the Ace.