Listics

Congratulations to my friend Jacqueline Houtman whose entry in the New Scientist Neologism Contest won her a bottle of pretty good booze and a copy of Climate: Into the 21st century, the overview of our weather edited by William Burroughs.

Coyotus Interruptus A momentary suspension of the law of gravity, usually accompanied by the sudden realisation of impending gravitational acceleration. The term is derived from the name of its discoverer, Wile E. Coyote (Carnivorous vulgaris), who often observed the phenomenon when, in pursuit of Road Runner (Accelerati incredibilis), he was propelled at high velocity from a precipice of sedimentary rock by an apparatus of his own contrivance or by a commercial product, such as Fleet-Foot Jet-Propelled Tennis Shoes (ACME, Inc).

Jacqueline Jaeger Houtman, Madison, Wisconsin, US

And no offense to Frank Wilczek, but I also enjoyed the - shall we say “off-colour” (hehehe!! I crack myself up) - definition of the Hogg’s Bison…

The Hogg’s Bison Undiscovered theoretical particle of matter requiring $800 billion in funding to find. If found, it really will enable pigs to fly.

David Lloyd, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK

Hell.. what really knocked me out was the solipsistic research that went into the proof of the existence of the demiverse…

Demiverse We only have eyes in the fronts of our heads, so the existence of a whole universe is an unwarranted assumption. The known fact that people turn round and walk into you after buying their ticket demonstrates that there is only a demiverse, and that there is a delay in the unobserved half re-establishing itself.

Clive Bashford, London, UK

The conceptual framework underlying the Demiverse dovetails nicely with Coyotus Interruptus, I think.