Astroboffin gets magnets stuck up his schnozz trying and failing to invent anti-face-touching coronavirus gizmo
- Reference: 1585571353
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/03/30/astrophysicist_magnets_stuck_up_nose_australia/
- Source link:
Unfortunately for 27-year-old Dr Daniel Reardon, the items that became wedged up his schnozz were neodymium magnets.
The Guardian's Australia office [1]reports that the Melbourne-based research fellow was admitted to hospital when he couldn't remove them. Here in the UK, if you haven't been struck by severe novel coronavirus symptoms, it's tough luck, you are to give our treasured National Health Service a wide berth.
Reardon, however, was taking a break from his regular jam of pulsars and gravitational waves "trying to liven up the boredom of self-isolation" by attempting to build a necklace that sounds an alarm when the wearer touches their face – handy while everyone should be trying to reduce the spread of COVID-19 – so maybe we can give him a free pass for this extreme silliness.
He told the paper: "I have some electronic equipment but really no experience or expertise in building circuits or things.
I decided to Google the problem and found an article about an 11-year-old boy who had the same problem.
"I had a part that detects magnetic fields. I thought that if I built a circuit that could detect the magnetic field, and we wore magnets on our wrists, then it could set off an alarm if you brought it too close to your face. A bit of boredom in isolation made me think of that."
Great! Except that the component he had "would only complete a circuit when there was no magnetic field present."
Thus he had "accidentally invented a necklace that buzzes continuously unless you move your hand close to your face".
At this point, Reardon should have probably dug into a box set or video game to alleviate the tedium of self-isolation and put this idea to rest. Instead, he put two magnets inside his nostrils and two outside. When he removed the ones on the exterior, the two inside... well, to quote the Insane Clown Posse: "Fuckin' magnets, how do they work?"
[2]Youtube Video
Of course they snapped together with his septum in the middle.
"I was trying to pull them out but there is a ridge at the bottom of my nose you can't get past," said Reardon.
"After struggling for 20 minutes, I decided to Google the problem and found an article about an 11-year-old boy who had the same problem." The solution? More magnets.
"As I was pulling downwards to try and remove the magnets, they clipped on to each other and I lost my grip. And those two magnets ended up in my left nostril while the other one was in my right. At this point I ran out of magnets."
The academic then tried to shift them with pliers – which became magnetised in the effort. "Every time I brought the pliers close to my nose, my entire nose would shift towards the pliers and then the pliers would stick to the magnet."
His partner took him to the hospital – her workplace – where amused doctors were able to remove the magnets manually with the help of an anaesthetic spray.
We're assuming that the astrophysicist will cease to dabble in fields away from his area of expertise. Meanwhile, perhaps Reg -reading shed boffins can discuss how they could improve Reardon's design in the comments below. ®
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/30/astrophysicist-gets-magnets-stuck-up-nose-while-inventing-coronavirus-device?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-agl0pOQfs
Re: What a hoot(er)!
'S not funny, McGee!
Re: What a hoot(er)!
Beg to differ boss!
Re: What a hoot(er)!
My take on it was that he has a nose for interesting, new problems.
"this is what 'magnetic personality' on those dating sites really means"
Please - I have amazing sexual magnetism. That's why I'm stuck to the sexual fridge.
A fool and his magnets are seldom parted
I've some neodymium magnets at home and they are powerful things.
Re: A fool and his magnets are seldom parted
I've some neodymium magnets at home and they are powerful things.
Agreed. Neodymium magnets are small (mine are 8mm diameter, 1mm thick), with nicely polished surfaces. So, If you're doing anything with more than one of these magnets at a time they are surprisingly difficult to put precisely where you want them. This is a problem when working on a table-top or workbench, let alone anywhere near your nose and, presumably, while looking in a mirror to see what you're doing.
"...At this point I ran out of magnets."
Dare we imagine the consequences if that hadn't been the case?
Re: "...At this point I ran out of magnets."
Involuntary rhinoplasty I imagine, if the magnets he was using are anything like the neodymium hard drive magnets I've got stuck to my fridge door. And I do really mean stuck, the only way to get them off is to slide them sideways...
Re: "...At this point I ran out of magnets."
" the only way to get them off is to slide them sideways"
I really did know a girl like that once
Dabbling in fields
“We're assuming that the astrophysicist will cease to dabble in fields away from his area of expertise.”
Specifically, magnetic fields
Re: Dabbling in fields
Think what it could do with a couple of pulsars magnetic fields.... probably the particle jets in and out his nostrils could have been "spectacular"....
Fixble in code
Although not mentioned sounds much like the usual experiments you get in arduino starter set with some hall effect sensors. As he had it working other than the inverse of what he wanted a simple inversion of equality in his code would have fixed it, if it was all descrete electronics a transistor or not gate would have done the trick too.
Still made me chuckle
Re: Fixble in code
This. And the "more magnets" idea. Has the bar been lowered for the term "astroboffin" recently?
Re: Fixble in code
To be fair, bigger magnets seem to be the solution for lots of problems in high energy physics.
More appropriate technology?
He could have just tethered his wrists to his belt with pieces of string short enough to keep his hands from his chin. It would be irritating, I grant you, but no more so than any other device which prevents a frequent and unconscious action.
Might have made it difficult to get his jacket on, though. Perhaps a magnetic quick-release?
Re: More appropriate technology?
TBH, I did think it wouldn't be too hard to build a video-app which monitors your face and watches for any movements which bring your hands up towards your face, and beeps furiously when such happens.
Admittedly, this does mean leaving your laptop/phone camera on and pointed at your face all the time, but...
Re: More appropriate technology?
This would be a perfect task for a Personal Trunk Monkey!
Tell your PTM to prevent you from touching your own face or anyone else from touching it without your explicit consent, & do it's thing (howling, biting, & flinging feces) should it detect any such attempts.
We could use a smaller PTM (Chimp?) for clinging to the back of your head with the corset-style stays in its paws keeping your face mask on tight.
If you're not wearing your PTM equipped backpack then everyone else's PTM gets to attack you for being a splitter. It's a self correcting problem!
Personal Trunk Monkies for everyone! =-D
*Happily gobbles dried frog pills like candy while making Cookie Monster noises*
Stay in your lane
I was particularly amused by the pliers.
Just because you're an expert in one thing doesn't mean that you're an expert in all things. Sometimes not experimenting, especially on yourself, is the better part of valor. At least he didn't have a radiation sensor and tried to stick some uranium up his nose.
Re: Stay in your lane
Just a note. El Reg' RSS feed beat the Beeb's news feed by an hour. Cheers.
New Keyboard needed
And my wife is getting annoyed as she has some tickly thing to do with setting an exam paper on Moodle at the moment!
I shouldn't laugh really...
But I've worked with many highly intelligent scientists who shouldn't be trusted with pliers, let alone powerful Neodymium magnets.
Flux
The flux is strong with this one.....
Maybe he should have used a flux capacitor.
At least he tried to DO something meaningful ...
Contrary to people writing sarcastic comments here ...
Re: At least he tried to DO something meaningful ...
Meaningful is in the of the beholder. In this case perhaps he deserves an honorable mention in the Darwin Awards for his effort.
Did he get
Bi-polar disorder?
Ah magnetism...
It's been 30-odd years and I still remember the mnemonic someone came up with for working out the correct order to calculate values:
F B H mmf phi (looks like an I) S and the genius came up with Frank Broughton has made millions fucking innocent sheep
Plot for Big Bang Theory
This sounds like a plot for Big Bang Theory where Sheldon has to get one of the girls to help him.
Sheldon is stuck to the refrigerator like an art project.
Gotta love his partner
From the original article...
“My partner took me to the hospital that she works in because she wanted all her colleagues to laugh at me. The doctors thought it was quite funny, making comments like ‘This is an injury due to self-isolation and boredom.’”
He should have tried to iron out the problem.
OR, he could have tried boxing gloves. (also useful for discouraging other unwanted habits)
The bit about getting taken to the hospital by his GF reminded me of the hilarious Big Bang episode with the robot arm.
Downvoted just for the missuse of the word hilarious within in the context of Big Bang Theory.
Yet to see anything which makes me laugh in that shite fest, much like stephen fry, its what dumb people think smart people are like.
smart people
Let me guess, you class yourself as one of the "Smart People".
Yet not smart enough to realise it's a sitcom and not a documentary.
Re: smart people
not a documentary.
I don't know, I've had conversations that were so close I went looking around the office for recording devices.
Been there, done that, got the teaspoon.
This is quite easily done. I did it after trying to entertain my kids by sticking two neodymium magnets either side of my nose and then making some stupid noises. They didn't find that funny at all, however when I tried to slide the magnets down, off my nose, and they flipped up either side of my septum, causing me to jump around and swear a lot, they found that hilarious. Didn't need A+E though, prised them out with a teaspoon with hardly any blood but a renewed respect for rare earth elements.
Saucepan
He should have stuck to the age old custom of putting a saucepan over the head - no risk of accidental face touching
Re: Saucepan
What's wrong with well tested and simple solutions?
https://www.gettyimages.it/detail/foto/serious-man-wearing-dog-cone-immagine-royalty-free/108270473
There's a reason why astronomer study things....
.... they can't touch!
(Note: I wanted to become an astronomer before I changed my mind while at the university...)
Hackathon
Once he's recovered from all the excitement, perhaps he can come up with a proposal or two...
"Hackathon also have offered several themes that developers can rely on when coming up with and submitting their proposals. The health themes includes a broad range of areas, including preventative and hygiene behaviors ..."
[1]https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/03/30/a-hackathon-to-battle-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
[1] https://www.nextplatform.com/2020/03/30/a-hackathon-to-battle-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
ran out of magnets
Reminds me of a scene from the movie I.Q. Albert Einstein and his buddies lost a shuttlecock in a tree, and they resorted to throwing various objects into the tree to try and retrieve it.
"Kurt Godel: I threw Podolsky's golf club up there to get even with him!"
What a hoot(er)!
He obviously nose his stuff, but remember girls - this is what 'magnetic personality' on those dating sites really means.