I have a friend who’s a nuclear physicist.

Just the nicest guy.

But I sometimes come away from his place and think (as far as my cranial constraints allow, that is..) ….”Brainy people think differently”

Yesterday evening, for example.

Example 1
I read somewhere about the newest and heaviest element having been discovered at the institute from which he’s recently retired and quizzed him vis a vis his involvement.

“112?” he says “112? Can’t be new – mine’s 118. I think”

(Actually, it’s 108 and it really is named after him, but that’s evidently not a valid reason to memorise its details. Right?)

Example 2

We’re lighting the barbecue and I ask him if he’s ever seen the video of the Science Faculty of Purdue University lighting a barbecue with a bucket of liquid oxygen.

“Why on EARTH would anyone want to do that” he asks.

“Well” I venture “To get the barbecue going quickly, probably. I believe alcohol was involved”

“Alcohol? Alcohol? Given the energy in a bucket of liquid oxygen, alcohol wouldn’t have any measurable effect on the reaction” he says

”Rainer, they’d been drinking…..?”

”Aha!!!”

Like I say – brainy people think differently