Snap, Crackle and Pop...

Why hello there! In case you didn't know me, my name is Professor Christopher Tonks, GalaGroup Overseer to the Multi-Galactic Governmental House of San Beta, Minister for Science & Technology and h2g2 Ambassador to San Beta. Quite a long list. And all this in addition to my now bi-weekly Q & A column, Ask Prof. Thusly I welcome any newcomers to this feature in the Post.

To all my regular visitors, I must explain my reasoning behind the bi-weekly deal. I mentioned last issue that I was terribly busy with some very special projects of mine up on the Space Station Big C, and those must sadly take priority over my community obligations. For this reason, I will require two weeks to complete an issue of Ask Prof, but this will, of course, give me more time to collect letters and other correspondence. In addition to this, I have recently gained access to a dimension very close to RL itself, and for some reason it refuses to close - something about a Universal constant or other - the side effects being that even more of my time is taken up with college work, which my RL counterpart has previously been forced to deal with on his own, poor soul.

Anyway, enough of the bad news, and on with the good! I have realised that, although I have indeed filled you in, as I believe the term goes, with scientific fact upon scientific fact, I have not yet demonstrated to you a proper experiment. I have one ready here, one that you can even try out for yourselves at home! Exciting, don't you think?

I like to call it the 'Blow Up the 2p Tail', or 'BUTT', as some of you out there may be amused to work out. To perform this experiment you'll need to gather together the following items, which can all be found in either your home or your local DIY store.

• A 2p coin, or foreign equivalent
• About 3 metres of copper wire, preferably 32swg
• A glass box, like a fish-tank
• Some cling-film
• Some kitchen foil
• A plasma mini-conduit and charger
• A friend (or enemy for that matter) to help you
• A pair of goggles and labcoat with the San Beta emblem on the chest pocket (though a 'Kiss the Cook' apron will also do the job).

Set up the glass box, making sure that the top side is open, of course, and fill it with water (tap water will do nicely). Wrap the copper wire around the 2p coin, allowing for two lengths of cable to extend from it. Drop the coin into the tank, and pull the ends of the wires down to the floor (if your three metres isn't long enough, you can simply tie some more onto the ends). Now, bend the ends so that they drape across the floor for a few centimetres, and cover them with a length of cling film, covering the floor for an area of 20 square centimetres. That's your Earth, which should conduct away most of the excess gluon residue.

Take the mini-conduit and dip one end into the tank (you did get one of the flexible conduits, right?). Connect it to the plasma charger, which you should have set up level with the tank, on a table for instance. Do NOT use mains power, as it simply isn't strong enough, and the subatomics really hate this experiment. Finally, take the sheet of kitchen foil and place it over the top of the tank, allowing it to touch the copper cables slightly.

The experiment is carried out by simply turning on the plasma conductor once everything's set up. Stand well back. A surge of energy should flow down the conduit and into the tank, adding new plasmic energy to the water and causing it to glow a very bright magenta! The foil above will try to conduct the same energy, so if you look at it level to the top of the tank you should see arcing effects between it and the water. Please note that the copper cables will be shining green during the course of this experiment, as the gluons are carried away into the ground, so do not touch them!

After a few minutes the water will turn an intense blue, and the 2p coin will float to the top, mass levels being inversed by the plasma flow. Once it reaches the water's surface - BANG! Instant mass-gain and explosion! If you're lucky and you found a nice clean coin, you should see an entire spectrum of colours radiate from it!

In case you were wondering, the extra person mentioned in the list was there to simply watch you, and help you gain a more distinct social standing. If he was your friends, he will be really impressed, and think you're dashed clever. If he was your enemy, he should be a little more wary of your powers! In either case, obviously don't tell them about where you read about the experiment!

Now, wasn't that fun? I should have more experiments for you in the future. Isn't it amazing the wonderful scientific facts you can unearth using simple household objects?

But now, as the cleaning bots get busy in the lab I tried this little trick out mere minutes ago, I shall get round to today's letters!

Ack, fiddlesticks! I'm afraid I must apologise hastily for yet another complete foul-up of mine. I received an adequate total of three letters this week, but only two are printed here. This is not due to a limitation in time, but because of software problems. I use an Earth-PC emulator to do this work, and haven't bothered to create a more bug-free version of it yet. The consequence being that when I opened the e-mail from DoctorMO and went to paste it into my word processor, the console I was working on completely locked up, and I have been unable to access my e-mail client since. I should have the problem sorted out in a few minutes, but sadly that will leave me with no time to write an answer, so the letter will have to wait until next issue. Sorry about that!

Greetings, Ming! Ah, fruit - where would the human race be without fruit? Imagine the culinary depression we must be going through now if we didn't have fruit! Those rich pickings we find on trees, meant to continue the plant species nut instead used to satisfy our taste buds. Oh, the sweetness! My favourite Earth-fruit is, perhaps somewhat appropriately, starfruit, in case you were wondering.

The definition of fruit in the Universe is a little difficult to describe. The problem lies in the fact that every race has grown accustomed to different planet-like edibles, but usually there are sweet and sour varieties. As far as the sweet ones (fruit) go, they're pretty much the same as ours. The definition does, however, state that any tomato-like plants are in fact vegetables, not fruit, contrary to the Earth-fact. Otherwise there aren't many differences.

The strangest shaped fruit, eh? Hmm, that's a tricky one. Well, the most intricately 'sculpted' fruit I've ever seen was something in this very galaxy. It looked a lot like those funny patterns you sometimes spray on your windowpanes at Christmas, a sort of star shape with various rings around the outside, looping around each other and generally confusing the eye. The strangest shape though simply has to be the Loon fruit of Doof Beta, which, believe it or not, looks exactly like the GalaGroup Overseer bust in the entrance hall of Governmental house on G-Planet.

There is always a great trade in importing and exporting any food on any civilised planet. Though fruit doesn't take top spot (that being reserved by herbs and spices, or things like them), it's still a very profitable trade (except in San Beta, where there is no currency. Please remind me to talk to you about that some time!). Perhaps my San Betian Embassy could help you with any other queries on that topic.

Thank you for writing!

Hello there, MaW, and thank you for your letter! I am also very thankful for your offer to help me track down the Question Marauder of GC2, and I gratefully accept. I shall pop round to your Ministry some time in the near future to formulate a plan, and I shall report our possible success in this very column.

On your second topic, I can completely assure you that the speed of light is no Universal speed limit as far as technology goes. Magic (as far as I know - note that I haven't studied it in too much detail) seems to conform to a separate set of laws, some being identical to physical laws, others differing. There appears to be some sort of maximum movement velocity for magic that just happens to match the speed of light. Maybe. As I said, I'm not too sure about this.

All I do know is that going faster than light is certainly possible, and I would be more than happy to let your penguins have a look at one of my ships, though I'll have to insist on strict security measures!

Incidentally, I am currently working on a technological solution to instantaneous travel, though I doubt you can think of the method by which I'm going to do it! A method that no other scientist or entity could emulate without my assistance! Bwuahahahahah!! *cough*

Anyway, yes, thank you again for your communication.

The end is nigh for this column, but only for another two weeks. I shall return again with more things to tell you of the Universe, and of course the missing e-mail from DoctorMO. Until then, keep the letters pouring into my mailbox (assuming I get it to work - if you can read this column it obviously works again, as I've managed to send it through Earth protocols). Plinkerty-plonk!

Yours glowing eerily magenta,

- Professor Christopher Tonks

Minister for Science & Technology for the Alabaster House

GalaGroup Overseer to San Beta
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