Hello there. Grab a seat. Have a coffee or
whatever you have available. It’s April
Fools Day – how great if the whole staying
at home thing was just one big practical joke.
Mind you, I’ve been having thoughts like
that for the whole of the Trump presidency.
So April Fools – why? Well, Fool from the
Latin follis meaning ‘bellows’ or ‘windbag’
referring to an empty-headed person. April
is the time when the sharp spring winds, known
as the assinines, blow across Europe and it
was believed that the draft could get in anyone’s
head and empty of them of reason. As it could
happen to anyone, a day was set aside to celebrate
all foolishness. Believe me? You shouldn’t.
I totally made it up.
The truth is we don’t know exactly why April
1st is the big day for gagsters. And I don’t
think we should confine jokes to one day a
year. I don’t. I am going to confess that
in the past I did occasionally and for no
good reason, re-edit Wikipedia on a whim so
that anyone looking up, for example, George
Washington would have been surprised at the
detailed coverage of his gay years before
he became President. Why he and Ben Franklin
were quite the talk of the dance floor. These
entries of mine never stayed in for long but
I enjoyed making them. I stopped because it
is a terrible thing to do although maybe it
reminds everyone to double check facts.
Knowing what is a fact or even who is telling
the truth never seemed more important than
at the moment. Who can forget the then foreign
secretary Michael Gove in 2016 declaring “people
in this country have had enough of experts”?
Me? I’m desparate for anyone who has even
a veneer of knowing stuff.
Before the world became a suspicious place
abounding with fake news there used to be
a number of people on British television who
everyone believed no matter what they said.
One of these was the British astronomer Sir
Patrick Moore. If he said there was cheese
on the moon, we all asked ‘What kind?”
but even he was not averse to a light hearted
leg pull. On April 1, 1976 he gave a broadcast
on BBC Radio 2 about what he called “the
Jovian–Plutonian gravitational effect”.
He declared that the unique alignment on that
day of the two planets, Jupiter and Pluto,
would exert a stronger tidal force than usual.
This would momentarily counteract Earth's
own gravity and make people weigh less and
indeed pull them skywards. We all like precision
from science and he announced that this would
occur at exactly 9:47 am that day. Sir Patrick’s
advice was for anyone listening to jump in
the air at that time which would result in
them experiencing "a strange floating sensation".
At the appointed moment, Moore proclaimed,
“Jump now!”. The marvellous thing is it
worked. The BBC switchboard lit up with dozens
of listeners phoning in to say the experiment
was a triumph. One woman declared she and
a large of group of friends and the table
they were sitting at were wafted aloft and
orbited gently around the room." Of course
there is always a grumpy participant. One
man rang furious because he had risen upward
so rapidly that he had hit his head on the
ceiling
It was a marvellous joke which merely underlined
how little most of us know about science.
Pluto is what’s known as a dwarf planet.
It’s so small that it could align with Jupiter
till the cows come home and never have any
effect on that giant whatsoever.
It’s always been difficult to know who to
believe. Back in the seventeenth century there
was a printer called Ichabod Dawks. You don’t
get many Ichabods now do you? I’m going
to guess there are going to be a lot of babies
in nine months time. Maybe there’ll be an
Ichabod or two. Anyway, Ichabod Dawks nickname
was ‘Honest Icahbod’ which suggests a
man straight as an arrow. Amongst other things
he produced a newsletter three times a week
from 1696 to 1716. You’d think you could
depend on Honest Icabod but the April 2, 1698
edition of his News-Letter reported that “Yesterday
being the first of April, several persons
were sent to see the Lions washed” at the
Tower of London. Surely this was a jape? If
they did wash the lions I’m going to guess
it was only the one time.
Another excellent prank was when the fast
food chain Taco Bell announced that they had
purchased that iconic symbol of American independence,
the Liberty Bell. They declared it would be
rebranded as the Taco Liberty Bell.
Chambers in his Book of Days suggests some
April Fools which may have gone slightly out
of fashion – people being sent to the chemist's
for a pennyworth of pigeon's milk probably
doesn’t get the same laugh it used to. One
European tradition is the Poisson Avril or
"April fish" where you attempt to attach a
paper fish to the victim's back without being
noticed. My wife loves this idea. Ridiculous.
There’s only two of us in the house. Good
luck with that. Never going to happen.
Laughter is good for you. It brings stress
relief and reduces strain on the heart although
even I think there are some things too serious
to joke about such as the time in 2005 when
Radio 4’s Today Programme announced that
the station’s long running soap opera, The
Archers, were changing their theme tune to
an upbeat disco style. I mean that is not
ok.
I have inadvertantly spent a lifetime in the
laughter trade but I find myself wishing I
had paid more attention to both maths and
science. I am imagine proving something feels
good. Maybe it’s why I like history so much.
If it happened a long time ago then perhaps
we are more likely to be able to ascertain
the facts. So I can tell you for certain that
it was today in 1776 Marie-Sophie Germain
was born. She was a French mathematician,
physicist, and philosopher. She gained her
education, as I gained much of mine, through
the shelves of her father’s books. Because
she was a woman she couldn’t make a living
out of maths but her studies provided a foundation
of work which was used for hundreds of years
after.
She was confined to her house, as we are now,
but in her case it was the French Revolution
which suggested it wasn’t a good time to
lose your head and go out or indeed, go out
and lose your head.
She taught herself Latin and Greek, maths.
Her parents thought it was bad for her so
they tried to stop her by making it too cold
in her room for her to study but she just
wrapped herself in a quilt and carried on.
After a while her mum secretly helped her
crack on. No woman was allowed to attend the
local college but she got lecture notes by
writing and pretending to be Monsieur Antoine-Auguste
Le Blanc. Execellent prank.
I don’t understand much of her work which
included a great deal on something called
the theory of elasticity. To me that sounds
like something to do with the durability of
pants but apparently it is very important.
So important that it was used in the construction
of the Eiffel Tower. When the tower was completed
the architects inscribed the names of 72 great
French scientists under the first balcony.
Marie-Sophie’s name is not among them. I
mind but I’m not sure she would have. She
once said “It matters little who first arrives
at an idea, rather what is significant is
how far that idea can go.”
So here’s to all the scientists whatever
you may be doing. People mucking about in
petri dishes never seemed more relevant wherever
and whoever they are. Actually I have a whole
book on women scientists somewhere. I’ll
go look. Might be something in it for tomorrow.
Take care. Be Kind.
