As reported in Australia's Herald Sun yesterday, Brendan, who apparently is at the University of Sydney, found a novel way to propose to his scientist girlfriend - one that Sheldon, of Big Bang Theory fame, would be frustrated that he hadn't thought of first.
Brendan wrote a scientific paper, whose title was inspired by the physics of gravitational attraction, and submitted it to his girlfriend for consideration. Clearly it reached the standard required for publishing:
Elsewhere on this blog site Slicer has considered the interactions of particles (as well as of staff) at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. Slicer commented that love can't be measured using the units/language of science. It seems that the interactions studied in Sydney may force him to reassess that view in the light of this new data. Slicer has also quoted Coldplay sympathetically before: "Questions of science, science and progress, do not speak as loud as my heart." Both Coldplay and Slicer may be forced to acknowledge that the two areas are not mutually exclusive (i.e. they may correspond to "overlapping magisteria" in philosophical terms).
In his paper, Brendan describes the setting of the first interactions between a couple of bodies (tho' the nature of interaction is not made explicit), how they reached a state of excitement (shared love of hydrometeors) and how a 'semi-bound' state resulted (Phase I). Thereafter after the strength of bonding was tested in the presence of other particles/bodies (Phase II). The author proposes a third phase of the study which would continue indefinitely, but in the meantime extrapolates (Fig 1) the measured rise in the dependent variable (happiness) into the future with confidence. Now some might say this is all very anecdotal, and not scientifically validated; that further work is required; that the experiment must be repeatable; that the love must be falsifiable if it is to be regarded as true. However Slicer has found (in his limited experience, before he settled into a bound state) that all bodies are not the same, and that just because other bodies don't have the same experience/interaction, the interaction between this reported pair can still be real.
The paper finishes with the results of a survey (100% return rate), as to whether or not the proposal is acceptable. It's not clear to Slicer how long the author had to wait to hear if his paper was accepted, but from the date on the paper, it seems that it took almost a year to get published. Hopefully he'll not be waiting too long at the altar.
"...I see the burning of the page,
Curtain risin' on a new age,
See the groom still waitin' at the altar."
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