A BUTCHER’s shop may be the last place where you would expect to come across nutty physics theories. Nevertheless, it was at his local butcher’s in East Sussex, south-east England, that Jeremy Drew and his son picked up a postcard flyer headed “Tachyon energy”. Yes, folks. Tachyons are back, together with their usual baffling claims.
The flyer explained that tachyon energy “differs from other forms of energy in that it is not of the electromagnetic realm”. Quite so. Nor is it of any other realm that we know of, since the particles named tachyons are, as we reminded readers when we first came across this particular form of fruitloopery (9 July 2005), entirely hypothetical and have never been shown to exist.
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Not that the people selling tachyon trinkets at – as advertised on the flyer from the butcher’s – seem too bothered about such minor details. Whether tachyons exist or not, “the effect of tachyon energy on matter and living systems is unambiguously measurable using appropriate methods”, they assure us. What’s more, “it has become possible to restructure certain materials at the subatomic level in such a way that they permanently attract tachyon energy… like an antenna, tachyon products teleport tachyons from hyperspace and emit them into the surrounding area.” It goes without saying that this energy “promotes harmony and balance in the body and the environment”.
There is lots more guff on the website about “zero-point energy” and “subtle organising energy fields” – those fantasy concepts so dear to tachyphiles – before it gets down to the nitty-gritty of marketing baubles like the Tachyon Chakra Set, which consists of seven coloured glass chips and costs £59.90.
“Visiting Baltimore City’s courthouse to obtain a marriage licence, Christoph Lehmann was confronted with a sign reading: “No food, drink, radio or clothing is allowed in this building.” He declined to undress”
Perhaps Drew should ask his butcher if he has been “tachyonising” the meat he sells before he considers buying any.
THIS column expressed surprise on 28 June at the claims by makers of pet foods that their products are not tested on animals. Fancy making pet foods “with no idea whether or not your target animals will like the taste”, we mused.
Helena Telkänranta proposes “a little addition” to that story. She notes that the manufacturers of Skinner’s dog food state that “We utterly condemn the practice of animal testing” and “no animals are used, or tested on, in any way by our company”. However, a quick trawl through the “Our products” section of the site reveals that, without exception, the dog foods on offer have among their ingredients chicken and/or “poultry” and/or duck and/or beef and/or salmon.
“One can only wonder,” says Telkänranta, “whether the company knows something about biology and classification of species that the rest of us don’t.”
RE-RELEASED to mark the centenary of its original publication in 1908, Scouting for Boys by Robert Baden-Powell is fascinating. Besides offering advice on how to milk a goat, how to cheer up someone threatening suicide and how not to fly the Union Jack, it’s packed with insights into the ills of society.
The author laments the toll alcohol has taken on Britons: “A priest in the East End of London has lately stated that out of 1000 cases of distress known to him, only two or three were not caused by drink.” Fast-forward to today’s outcries about binge drinking in the UK, and it seems things haven’t changed much.
Or perhaps they have. In another section entitled “How to help in a great national work”, Baden-Powell worries about puniness in the British army: “In 1900, 44 men in every 1000 recruits weighed under 7 stone, 12 pounds [50 kilograms]; in 1905 this deficiency had increased to 76 per 1000.” This made Baden-Powell fear the worst for the future of the British Empire: “One cause which contributed to the downfall of the Roman Empire was the fact that the soldiers fell away from the standard of their forefathers in bodily strength.”
One hundred years on, we haven’t lost our taste for looming catastrophe, but it’s not underweight soldiers we worry about now. Instead, the word we find “timebomb” linked to in today’s decline-of-society stories is “obesity”.
THANKS to Terence Dunmore for alerting us to a report in the 11 June issue of Professional Engineering about the UK’s new Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Regulations (WEEE regulations). It warns readers: “If you are a producer of WEEE, you must make sure it is disposed of in an environmentally sound manner, including the treatment, reuse, recovery and recycling of components where appropriate.”
Dunmore is puzzled. “Isn’t the local sewage department already doing just that?” he asks.
FINALLY, we all know that food production these days has become highly industrialised. Even so, Simon Birstingl was taken aback by a notice he saw in Sainsbury’s supermarket. It apologised that there were no shallots in stock “due to a lack of raw materials”.
