In January I revealed the discovery of “transmogrified physics”, a field of science consisting of surprising and hitherto unnoticed connections between the microscopic and the macroscopic worlds.

As an example I cited screwdriver oscillation, the phenomenon whereby you find only flathead screwdrivers in your toolbox when you urgently need one with a Phillips head, but when you need flatheads there are only Phillips heads. Like neutrinos, it appears that screwdrivers can oscillate from one state to another.

I received enough responses to confirm my suspicion that this is an exciting and fertile research territory

After inviting readers to send me reports of similar phenomena linking the micro- and macro-worlds, I received enough responses to confirm my suspicion that this is an exciting and fertile research territory. Many readers reported, for instance, that their Allen wrenches obey the uncertainty principle; when you aren’t looking, your tool chest is full of them, but when you need one there aren’t any – and if you need a specific one you only find the others in the set. Other correspondents said their tools could dematerialize, though they didn’t have enough data points to discover the law involved.

Real examples

Fredy Zypman, head of physics at Yeshiva University in New York, came across several interesting phenomena including the following.

• Bragg planes Special aircraft used only in special occasions to show off.
• Centre of mass An attractor of churchgoers.
• Raman (or Ramen) scattering The phenomenon of spreading of noodles out of a tilted bowl.
• Change of phase What happens, and is quickly repressed, when one gets a good hand in poker.
• Resolving power A desired ability of the dean to step in to avoid faculty conflagration.

Michael Hutchings of the Open University is another pioneer in the new field. His discoveries include:

• Hidden fault On starting up a well-used piece of apparatus there appears to be a serious fault. On inspection one finds an obvious reason, such as one unit not having been switched on. But when you switch it on, you find that a fault still exists.
• Entanglement When two or more lengths of connecting wire are near each other, particularly in a domestic environment and when roughly coiled, they will become hopelessly entangled. Careful separation of them will inevitably end in a knot in at least one length.

I have seen macro-world entanglement myself in earbuds and Christmas-tree lights. I put on earbuds, for instance, take them off, put them down – and then when I go to put them on again I have to unknot them. What’s going on? I don’t take them off, do gymnastics, and then put them down. Clearly, more than classical physics is involved here.

Another example of transmogrified physics is science reliteracy, which is what happens when people try to give a retrospective, less than credible explanation of their gaffe

Another example of transmogrified physics is science reliteracy, which is what happens when people try to give a retrospective, less than credible explanation of their gaffe. An example occurs in the Star Wars movies. In Episode IV (1977), when we first meet the captain of the starship Millennium Falcon Han Solo, he brags, in what for the scriptwriters was clearly a throwaway line, that he “made the Kessel Run in less than 12 parsecs”. The Kessel Run, as any Star Wars enthusiast knows, is a treacherous hyperspace route that smugglers use to convey spices (essentially the Star Wars euphemism for drugs) from Kessel to wealthy customers. But, as any half-scientifically literate person knows, a parsec is not a unit of time but of distance; it’s an abbreviation of “parallax arcsecond,” or 3.26 light-years.

It was clearly an embarrassing slip-up in an otherwise meticulously detailed series of movies – no matter how much franchise spokespeople and diehard Star Wars fans try to dance around this issue or claim that they knew all along that parsec was a unit of distance. So in the Star Wars spinoff Solo: a Star Wars Story (2018), the explanation is provided that of course the Kessel Run is a unit of distance; what Solo meant was that the run is normally 20 parsecs long but by taking shortcuts he managed to cut that distance down to under 12 parsecs. Sure.

Whether or not you are gullible enough to really believe the later explanation, it amounts to science reliteracy, which some textbooks also call reverse explaneering.

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Transmogrified physics: we want your examples of this new field of science

I also received several examples from a US accelerator physicist who witnesses in political affairs the equivalent of “beam-beam” effects. In a particle-collider context, this term refers to one beam breaking up, amplifying its own instabilities while exposing instabilities in the other. Similarly when the US and China direct criticisms at each other, each ends up illuminating problems in the other’s situation while also magnifying its own. My collider physicist contact has also found “coherent instability” – when attempts to control a disruption don’t reduce but only reinforce it – throughout politics. Take your pick from COVID-19 to America’s handling of international problems with almost any other nation.

Then there’s “Landau damping”, which in accelerator physics is what happens when you successfully counteract coherent instabilities by cleverly arranging elements internal to the beam to interact with it. The same phenomenon can occur in politics when many factions, parties and agencies create a nearly insoluble problem, but then some of them suddenly do something sensible and effective to stabilize the situation, thereby establishing a new peaceful norm.

The critical point

Some readers of my January column accused me of irony and sarcasm, and lack of seriousness. I disagree. Further study of transmogrified physics is bound to reveal much about our surrounding world. I’ll leave you with two of my favourites, both of which are also linked to politics. There’s the screw, a politician who can make followers perform political work by spinning in circles. Finally, I bring you the jerk, a politician who can move with a high rate of acceleration away from a troublesome issue.