[mini-AIR] mini-AIR: what matters / nothing matters? / nothing matters to physicists

Tue Apr 28 22:51:03 EDT 2020

mini-Annals of Improbable Research ("mini-AIR")
April 2020, issue number 2020-04. ISSN 1076-500X.
	<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/miniair/>
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  Research that makes people LAUGH, then THINK.
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01 TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Imminent Events
03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Big Animals
04 What Matters
05 Limerick Challenge: Nothing Matters
06 Cough Muffler Winner
07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Fingers, Spittle, Levitating Crimefighters
08 Nothing Really Matters to Physicists
09 IMPROBABLE EVENTS
20 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)
21 — How to start or stop receiving this little newsletter (*)
22 — Contact Info (*)
23 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

	Items marked (*) are reprinted in every issue.

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02 Imminent Events

THE 2020 IG NOBEL EURO (AND BREXITANNIA) TOUR 
has mostly been POSTPONED until next spring.
	This year's tour had been scheduled to span 
	most of March and April, with events in 
	the UK, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, 
	Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. 
	But… but…  but… the pandemic truncated the tour 
	immediately after the first show. 
	Here's video of that first-and-only show, at the 
	University of Manchester: <https://tinyurl.com/yc8a3hjo>

POCKET-SIZED PODCAST EPISODES: We've begun making lots of them.  <https://tinyurl.com/ybogl2or>

THE 30TH FIRST ANNUAL IG NOBEL PRIZE CEREMONY
will, YES indeed, YES, YES, YES, happen as scheduled on September 17, 2020. Yes. This year's ceremony will have a somewhat different format, because of the pandemic. Details about that coming soon, in next month's mini-AIR and on the web site <www.improbable.com>.

DETAILS AND FULL EVENTS SCHEDULE: <http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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03 IN THE MAGAZINE ITSELF: Big Animals

	WHAT YOU ARE READING AT THIS MOMENT
	is just our monthly newsletter, (mini-AIR).

	This newsletter is overflow detritus from the actual magazine:
	Annals of Improbable Research (AIR). 

The special BIG ANIMALS issue of the magazine went out to subscribers:
<https://www.improbable.com/airchives/paperair/volume26/v26i2/v26i2.php>
Featuring, among other things:

	A Woman Connected to a Sheep
	Onion-Induced Crocodile Tears
	Alligator Response to a French Horn

Tables of Contents: <http://www.improbable.com/magazine/>

SUBSCRIBE to the MAGAZINE, 
or get BACK ISSUES (there are more than 150 of them!):
	<https://gumroad.com/improbable>

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04 What Matters

This month's random research item:

Does Anything Really Matter?: Parfit on Objectivity, Peter Singer, editor, Oxford University Press, 2017. <https://tinyurl.com/ya349wy2>

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05 Limerick Challenge: Nothing Matters

This month's RESEARCH LIMERICK challenge — Devise a pleasing limerick that encapsulates this study:

"Nothing Really Matters," Giuseppe Dibitetto, Nicolò Petri, Marjorie Schillo, arXiv:2002.01764, 2020. <https://arxiv.org/abs/2002.01764> The authors, at the University of Oviedo, Spain, and the University of Uppsala, Sweden, explain:

"We study non-perturbative instabilities of AdS [Anti-de Sitter space] spacetime in General Relativity with a cosmological constant in arbitrary dimensions. In this simple setup we explicitly construct a class of gravitational instantons generalizing Witten's bubble of nothing. We calculate the corresponding Euclidean action and show that its change is finite... Moreover we discuss the existence of covariantly constant spinors as a possible topological obstruction for such decays to occur."

Submit your perfectly formed, delightfully enlightening limerick to:

	NOTHING MATTERS LIMERICK COMPETITION
	c/o <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>

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06 Cough Muffler Winner

The judges have chosen co-winners in last month's Competition, which asked for a limerick to explain this patent:

"Cough Muffler," US patent 6085864, issued to Derrick Copeland, Glen Copeland, and Lucian Copeland, July 11, 2000. <https://tinyurl.com/uldk9u3>:

INVESTIGATOR SALLY ROSOFF writes:

If you're an inveterate snuffler
Then you must get the Copeland Cough Muffler.
  When you're coughing and sneezing
  You're not being pleasing.
To someone, you might be a ruffler.

INVESTIGATOR DAVID SHAPIRO writes:

A hunter was nursing a beer
And came up with a stunning idea
  I won't let catarrgh
  Insup'rably bar
Bagging (cough cough), ahem, yes, my deer.

This month's take from our LIMERICK LAUREATE, MARTIN EIGER:

When I sniff, when I itch, when I sneeze,
When I whiff, when I twitch, when I wheeze,
  When I grunt, snort or cough,
  Nearby creatures take off.
But humans nearby tend to freeze.

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07 MORE IMPROBABLE: Fingers, Spittle, Levitating Crimefighters

Recent improbable research bits you may have missed...

BLOG: <http://www.improbable.com/>:
* Towards a "Wrinkly Fingers" Explanation
* Masked and Un-Masked Spittle Produced When One Says "Stay Healthy"
* A Look Back at Some High-Flying Crime Fighters
*…and much more

LUXURIANT FLOWING HAIR CLUB FOR SCIENTISTS (LFHCfS) 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/lfhcfs-hair-club/>

PODCAST: 
<https://www.improbable.com/category/the-weekly-improbable-research-podcast/>:
* Episode #205: "Color Preferences in the Insane"
* Pocket-Sized Episode #1001: "Cocker's Arithmetick"
* Episode #206: "Flatulence in Dogs"
* Pocket-Sized Episode #1002: "Food Allergies and Kissing"
* Episode #207: "The Psychoanalysts's Nose"
* Pocket Sized Episode #1003: "Dogs' Favorite Garbage"
* Episode #208: "Repetitive Physics of 'OM'"

FACEBOOK: <http://www.facebook.com/improbableresearch>

TWITTER: @ImprobResearch, @MarcAbrahams, #IgNobel

PATREON: <www.patreon.com/ImprobableResearch>

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08 Nothing Really Matters to Physicists

"Why Nothing Really Matters to Physicists," Joao Magueijo, Physics World, vol. 14, no. 3, 2001, 44.
<https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2058-7058/14/3/31>

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	THAT WAS JUST A TASTE.

	DEVOUR MORE, MUCH MORE
	IMPROBABLE STUFF.

	SUBCRIBE TO THE MAGAZINE ITSELF!
	<www.improbable.com/magazine/>

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09 SOME IMPROBABLE EVENTS

Ig Nobel Euro (and Brexitannia) Tour— POSTPONED (pandemic)
Harvard Club of Merrimac Valley	— POSTPONED (pandemic)
Several other things			— POSTPONED (pandemic)
Ig Nobel ceremony TICKETS go on sale	—Jul, 2020
30th First Annual Ig Nobel ceremony		—Sep 17, 2020
Ig Informal Lectures			—Dates TBA
Gothenburg, Sweden			—Oct 2020 [pandemic willing]
Japan						—Fall, 2020 [pandemic willing]
Harvard Club of Cape Cod		—Nov 19, 2020

For details and additional events, see
<http://www.improbable.com/improbable-research-shows/complete-schedule/>

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20 — Subscribe to the Actual Magazine! (*)

The Annals of Improbable Research is a 6-issues-per-year magazine, 
in PDF form. 
It's packed with research that makes people laugh, then think.

	<www.improbable.com/magazine/>
	SUBSCRIPTIONS	($25, for six issues) 
	BACK ISSUES 	($5 each)

(mini-AIR, the thing you are reading at this moment, is but a tiny, free-floating appendix to the actual magazine.)

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21 — How to start or stop receiving this newsletter (*)

This newsletter, Mini-AIR, is just a (free!) tiny monthly *supplement* to the big, bold six-times-a-year magazine Annals of Improbable Research.

   To SUBSCRIBE or UNSUBSCRIBE to mini-AIR:
   <http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/mini-air>

   ARCHIVES: <http://improbable.com/airchives/miniair>

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22 — CONTACT INFO (*)

Annals of Improbable Research (AIR)
<www.improbable.com>
EDITORIAL: <MARC aaattt IMPROBABLE dddooottt COM>
SUBSCRIPTION QUESTIONS: <subscriptions AT improbable.com>
Cambridge, MA, USA
Twitter: @ImprobResearch

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23 — Standard Gobbledegook (*)

EDITOR: Marc Abrahams
CO-CONSPIRATORS: Kees Moeliker, Alice Shirrell Kaswell, Gary Dryfoos, Nan Swift, Stephen Drew
PROOFREADER: Ambient Happenstance
AUTHORITY FIGURES: Nobel Laureates Dudley Herschbach, Sheldon Glashow, Richard Roberts

Key words: improbable research, science humor, Ig Nobel, AIR, the
(c) copyright 2020, Annals of Improbable Research

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