h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

How did Fermi's Fish help to cure a persistent case of indigestion in Manchester?

Google and Wikipedia and forbidden.

There are klaxons - naturally - so be bold, preferably interesting but never obvious.

Good luck.

I am thinking Manchester University and the physics lab ?

Fermi is said to have said "Where are they?" in regard to alien civilisations. Getting himself an eponymous "paradox".


I suspect that's about as interesting and as accurate as I'll get on this one.

he thought they might be off, so he left them in a box with shrodingers catjust in case

Water's used in nuclear reactors, so that it turns to steam to drive turbines; was there one involving a fishtank?

O-or: water's also used because it slows neutrons, which mediates the rate a reaction goes at. Did that involve a shark-infested swimming pool?

God knows about indigestion though..

the chap in manchester was certain where he was but had an upset stomache because he wasn't sure on how fast he was traveling

Is it Manchester, England, or is there a Manchester in the US?



GT

>I am thinking Manchester University and the physics lab<

Related thereto, yes. DGI +1

> Water's used in nuclear reactors, so that it turns to steam to drive turbines; was there one involving a fishtank? <

Nice idea - I don't think so...


> or: water's also used because it slows neutrons, which mediates the rate a reaction goes at. <

Correct DGI +1

>a shark-infested swimming pool?<

Only in Bond films.

Manchester, England..

He did Jack, but it's unrelated to this....

"eaten by Schrödinger's cat."

Okay so I didn't quiet predict the context, but you loose 5 for mentioning the cat.

Didn't Ernest Rutherford fire alpha rays at gold particles in Manchester Uni? And this showed that most of the mass of atoms is in the nuclei?

Is 'Fermi's Fish' the name given to some type of mediator in one of the early Nuclear Piles??



GT

Rutherford did, in fact Manchester had quite a lot going for it in the hot and heady days of the early 20th century when it came to ground breaking work in nuclear physics.

Which is why the other end of this QI is living there and having a most frightful case of the runs.

But what I'm interested in is how Fermi's fish all the way over in Italy gave succour to this poor soul and his tortured intestines.

Pedro's has the most relevant insight so far....

Nope.

insight so far... in post #5

>>He did Jack, but it's unrelated to this....

OK, don't give me points for being interesting. See if I care.

radiation was seen as a miricle cure like all discoveries before it, was radioactive potions given as cures for indigestion and end up liquifying the inards which then ran out of the bum of the patien...victim???

Was he given slightly radioactive water to drink??

(Hides from klaxon)


GT