Sunday 6 June 2010

The Man, The Myth, The Legend

Long-term readers will know how much I enjoy the letters written in to The Sloppy Star by Oswestry's finest, Mr Alwyn Cox. Before we marvel at his latest effort, let's take a moment to enjoy his previous musings:





But this.....this, my friends, outstrips all of those. After initially being slightly annoyed by Alwyn, I now love him, as I recognise him for what he is - a first class wind-up merchant. Here's his latest effort - and I for one love it:

I have just been watching a bit of Genius of Britain on Channel Four.

I was going to watch that series actually, but I chose not to in the end. Instead I discussed with Dan on MSN who the fittest S Club 7 member was. I think we all know it was Bradley.

And then that "I am a genius in a wheelchair" Steven (sic) Hawking came on and it was time to turn off.

This is bad of me, as a university student, but I'm just going to consult the online encyclopaedia wikipedia for a brief Stephen Hawking biography. Here are the main aspects to his life:

  • Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
  • Lifetime member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences
  • Awarded CBE
  • Awarded Presidential Medal of Freedom
  • Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University
  • Distinguished Research Chair at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
  • Best-selling author (book was on the Best Sellers List for 237 weeks)
  • Eddington Medal winner
  • Hughes Medal winner
  • Albert Einstein Medal winner
  • Franklin Medal winner
  • Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society winner
  • Awarded Wolf Prize in Physics
  • Awarded Companion of Honour
  • Awarded Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize
  • Earned a Ph.D.
  • Professional Fellow at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge
  • Awarded Copley Medal of the Royal Society
  • Prince of Asturias Award winner
Throughout his career he has studied, amongst other things:

  • Quantum cosmology
  • Cosmic inflation
  • The density matrix of the universe
  • Topology and structure of the universe
  • Quantum entanglement
  • String theory
  • Supergravity
  • Euclidean quantum gravity
  • Gravitational radiation
  • Wormholes
  • Theoretical cosmology
With all this very firmly in mind, let's carry on with Alwyn's letter...

He was the "genius" of science who said one day time travel may be possible. That sentence alone was enough to show what an idiot the man is.

This is bad of me, as a university student, but I'm just going to consult the encyclopaedia of Alwyn Cox, Alwynpedia, for a brief Stephen Hawking biography. Here's what it says:

  • Idiot in a wheelchair

If time travel is or was ever to be possible where are the time travellers. It makes no difference in time when time travel is invented, if it was ever to be possible the time travellers would have been around since the beginning of time, we would not be studying fossils of dinosaurs, we would be looking at films of them, or walking around in the past with them.

Look, I've got no bloody clue about any of this stuff, but I can't help thinking that Hawking would have perhaps pondered this dilemma at some point before. Perhaps you should ask him this stuff, not me. Would take a few minutes for him to reply, mind.

So Alwyn has just thrown Hawking under the bus (not literally, that would be hideous to watch). Who else can he shit on in this letter? Are you excited? I am!

So in my opinion he is just as daft as Einstein, because he talked a lot of rubbish also.

BOOM! HEADSHOT!

First Hawking, now Einstein. Alwyn is ballin' right now!

His biggest load of rubbish was his theory of relativity.

Rubbish. Crap. Bollocks. Fucking shit Albert!

And what was that about bees?

Apocryphal, that's what it was: http://www.snopes.com/quotes/einstein/bees.asp

They are dying out all over the world, but is not the human race?

Sentence. No. Sense. Makes.

Do not forget the world is an orb, not flat like a dinner plate.

No idea, but then neither do you, so hey-ho.

End of letter! End of letter! End of the letter!


Outstanding. In recognition of Alwyn's wind-up nature, I've decided to add him to my list of deserving people who will receive an award on my birthday. The list now stands at:

  1. Jeremy Clarkson (services to common sense)
  2. Kriss Akabusi (services to the word "Awooga")
  3. Jeremy Spake (services to air travel)
  4. Maureen Rees (services to the car industry)
  5. Alwyn Cox from Oswestry (services to WUMmery)
Keep on writing in Alwyn. We all need a laugh under this government.

3 comments:

  1. He can't be real. Is it you, writing them, getting them printed, then laughing at them?
    Still, nice to know that Alwyn's sorted out quantum physics. It was Einstein who discovered that time travel was theoretically possible. Actually, we're travelling in time now, we just can't change direction or take short cuts. As far as I know, the only problem is that the amount of energy required is immense.

    The general theory of relativity states that, travelling at the speed of light, your subjective time would be 'normal' while that of others would be slow. So you'd travel for, say, a year, and return to find that centuries have passed for the people at home. Cue cultural dislocation. (I note that Star Trek ignores this problem).

    Let's ask Brian Cox:
    Brian Cox, a Cern researcher at the University of Manchester, points out that even if the laws of physics do not prohibit time travel, that doesn't mean to say it's going to happen, certainly in terms of travelling back in time.

    "Saying that the laws of physics as we know them permit travel into the past is the same as saying that, to paraphrase Bertrand Russell, they permit a teapot to be in orbit around Venus," Dr Cox says. It's possible, but not likely.

    "Time travel into the future is absolutely possible, in fact time passes at a different rate in orbit than it does on the ground, and this has to be taken into consideration in order for satellite navigation systems to work. But time travel into the past, although technically allowed in Einstein's theory, will in the opinion of most physicists be ruled out when, and if, we develop a better understanding of the fundamental laws of physics – and that's what the LHC is all about."

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  2. I can’t help wondering who this A. Cox of Shropshire is.
    Whoever he/she/it is, the letters are clearly the work of a bigoted weirdo.
    Your comments are great, however, and you should get the SS to print your responses to A. Cox – it would liven up the paper no end, and might make A. Cox’s letters even more bizarre and outrageous!

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  3. Professor Brian Cox there. Or, as I like to call him, that bloke from D:Ream.

    Voley, I swear on Ana Ivanovic's life that it's not me. I absolutely, 100% promise you. I have considered sending in wind-up letters but a) I've never got round to it and b) I wouldnt type them up like this if I did.

    From his letters, Sue, I've deduced that Alwyn is an elderly gentleman. He's also clearly mad.

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