Why do scientists have to stick their noses into everything? Instead of doing useful stuff like curing diseases and expanding mankind’s knowledge these people are now looking for scientific solutions to things that are none of their business.
Pizza
Dr Eugenia Cheng is a mathematician at the University of Sheffield. If you think that makes her a boring academic then you are wrong. This is one smart lady but she also has a hankering for the perfect pizza, just like you and I do. Thankfully, she put her brains to good use and worked out the formula for the ideal pizza. She even worked out things like the perfect proportions and the ratio of topping to base before the world even realised that it needed this done.
Buttered Toast
Isn’t toasted bread one of the wonders of modern civilization? However, have you ever had that sinking feeling that comes with a badly buttered piece of toast? Sure you have; you’re only human. Scientists at the University of Leeds spent 3 months and £10,000 searching for the perfect mathematical equation taking in account the temperature of the butter and of the bread. Perhaps the most useful fact of all is that the butter should be 1/17th the thickness of the bread. Good luck working that out when you’re hung over on a Sunday morning and just want to stuff a piece of freaking toast in your mouth as quickly as possible.
Happiness
Did you know that there is a scientific formula to measure when you are likely to be happy? This was worked out by the smart dudes as University College London and they got people to use a mobile app to help with the research. It seems that the key lies in the difference between what you hope for and what you receive. This is probably why I’m so unhappy when eating my soggy Sunday morning toasts and pizzas with poorly proportioned toppings.
The Toilet Seat Position
If you ever wondered what people with too much time on their hands do then let me introduce you to Jay Pil Choi. This tenacious researcher decided that the question of whether to raise or lower the toilet seat was worth thinking about. The answer comes in the form of a baffling equation. My undergarments would be soaking wet if I had to try and work this formula out before going for a leak.
The Catchiest Songs
Did you ever stop to think that one day a curious scientist could work out a formula to see why certain songs make you sing along more than others? It seems impossible to work out why some songs are successful and some aren’t. Yet, that didn’t stop researchers in the UK from working out the importance that vocal pitch, the number of words and other factors play in how catchy a song is. In their research, We Are the Champions by Queen was the winner. Altogether now, “We…”err, how does it go again?
Coolness
Wouldn’t it be fantastic if we could all be cool just by asking a geeky scientist for some pointers? Hey, you need to talk to Ian Hansen and Ilan Dar-Nimrod. These crazy guys wrote a paper entitled Coolness: An Empirical Investigation. Personally, I was going to read it but I’m too cool to read so I went out to shoot some hoops, hang with some hoods and look for some well proportioned pizza. I’m still trying to work out whether putting on some Freddy Mercury and singing along would make me lose some coolness or not.
