Necessity may be the mother of invention, but bored genius is the mother of awesome. Those who complained about "science being boring" in school are now adjusting claims if they're lucky, learning the relative storage abilities of different kinds of bags (paper or plastic) if they're not. The nerds are examining antimatter, lighting up lasers, and just for fun some have mastered prankology. Here are the Top 3 Super-Science Pranks:
1. The Anti-Gravity Alignment
Sir Patrick Moore is an accomplished astronomer, beloved public figure, and prankster par excellence from that one time he convinced a significant fraction of the British population that they could float. In 1976 he used his Radio 2 astronomy show to tell listeners that at precisely 9:47 am, April 1st 1976, an alignment between Pluto and Jupiter would cancel gravity and enable anyone who jumped to hover for a moment.
Distinguished crazy bastard Sir Patrick Moore.
During his show, hundreds of people called in to confirm the anti-gravity effect, as well as the fact that people don't check the date, and basically disproving all alternative medicine while they were at it. These people believed they could FLY because a voice on the radio told them they could. Patrick Moore's Prank: 1, Evolution: 0.
2. An Artificial Doctor Of Prankology
Three cyber-scientists didn't just pull a prank, they punk'd the World Multiconference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI). If that sounds like a random smashing together of sciencey-sounding words you've already anticipating their hoax strategy. The MIT students took a stand against spam received from the conference planners, coding a computer program to randomly generate a paper with gobbledegook graphs and buzzword phrases.
Just one of the meaningless graphs from the prank paper.
The paper was accepted to the conference, and if you feel like researching solid insanity (or have a Star Trek episode to write) you can read the technobabble here. (And you can even generate your own prank paper here.)
3. Building A Nuclear Reactor As A Joke
If you want to know how Doctor Doom happened, this is it: University of Chicago physics students built a weapons-grade breeder reactor in a single day, out of scrap, in a shed -- for fun. It's the ultimate double-prank (and we do mean ultimate, if the "nuke reactions as a joke" trend catches on): the University has a tradition of impossible scavenger hunts, challenging students to search for such things as cigarettes signed by the Professor of Philosophy, a Lasagna Throne, or a silly-string bazooka (read the full list here).
Like this, but slightly smaller.
One challenge was to build a breeder reactor in a shed, and the awesome Justin Kasper and Fred Niell did exactly that. Please enjoy the use of their given names before we're forced to call them "LORD SCIENCEMEISTERS!" They built a thorium-reacting uranium producer out of old vacuum tubes, verified by independent -- and alarmed -- nuclear physicist, and still only came in second place. So the next time someone says something you do for fun is dangerous, slap them.
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