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SMALLEST 'GUITAR STRING' TO WEIGH ATOMS
Scientists hope that "playing" a tiny guitar string, the smallest ever created, will help unravel some of the secrets of the molecular world.
The string, developed at Cornell University, US, is only 10 atoms across, a million times smaller than a normal guitar string. It is made from a carbon nanotube, formed from a sheet of carbon one atom thick and rolled into a cylinder.
"As a scientist, the possibility that intrigues me the most is to be able to use it to, in essence, weigh things," explained Professor Paul McEwen, who helped pioneer the string.
"If you imagine that you had a guitar string and you glued a little weight on to it. It would lower the frequency at which the guitar string vibrated, because the extra mass slows it down," he said. "The same thing happens here, but our string only has a few tens of thousands of atoms in it. So, just a few extra atoms, maybe even one, might shift the tone of the vibration enough for us to detect it."
Little strings please little minds.
A million times thinner than a guitar string? I knew a guy called Ron who used to roll fags that thin. One would think you needed to have a boil on the back of your neck to draw on it, but no, Ron had cigarette construction down to the neatest art. He was always as tight as a fish's arse and used to squeak when he walked. A real useless arse taboot. He could peel an orange in his pocket. I begged him for a 'roley' once and all he said was ( in his lazy Canvey Island accent) "Awight, 'ang on 'til the end of the packet and you can 'ave one". In other words he used to smoke all his shag until the very last sweepings off the floor and I would fill a Rizla with the' finest' tobacco (as in powder form) 'dust'. When it was ignited , one suck , would take your eyebrows off.
Tiny guitar strings for weighing things?
This is pure bunkum. What if scientists break the infinitesimal wire with their big fat sweaty fingers?
Will they carry on playing, or go off stage to get another during the 'instrumental'. What is so small that needs weighing anyway? If it is supposed to be a weighing scale, then its practical use escapes me…. For weighing, what, exactly? What would you weigh so tiny that anybody gives a shit about anyway? We are talking a 'nano-tube' that's not just minute. It's totally insignificant! These boffins want to be able to detect a change of note or vibration. Why don't they just listen to David Gray?
Can you imagine Jimi Hendrix, God rest his legs and shoes, walking into his studio, and playing one of these buggers with his teeth?
Nasal hair as an equivalent, for example, that would compare to Johnny Vegas' neck. Would you expect to see a pygmy sized Eric (Clappedout) Clapton playing Glastonbury, using an empty houmous tub strung with dental floss, let alone a 'titchy' guitar with mini strings so small, a roadie would probably lose it on the truck anyway? Especially when played to an already disenchanted and muddy audience, dying for a crap, who only attend to 'detect the slightest vibration'.
A large funnel would be useless.
Which reminds me. My dog has eczema right now, and has to wear a large funnel around its neck to stop it biting at the weeping sores. Her bark is audibly louder with her 'all new surround sound'. Perhaps all the members of an audience, say, at Knebworth, would just about hear the tiny guitar string played by, for arguments sake, Dire Straights tone-deaf 'growler' Mark Knopfler, if they could put ducktape across the mouths of their children and not break wind? As by now, they (the bedraggled audience) will be quite impacted due to huge queues at the chemical toilets. Incidentally, I can never understand how thousands of people can stand together 'touching cloth' and in close proximity, yet, put healthy and safety issues second, when they use cigarette lighters, Statue of Liberty style, as a tribute to bands?? Just one united fart could start a forest fire seen from space. Who would need a firework display at the end?
Better still, get Joan Baez before she dies to play her old songs in an even quieter whisper on Armistice day during the 2 minute silence and do a sound check then. Perhaps the puny, corpuscular guitar string might just be heard.
No. I bet you can hear f*ck all. What a waste of a ticket?
If the guitar string is that dainty, how for instance would 'Karen Carpenter' if she wasn't already dead, play a guitar with it? She could play the guitar you know? Not just the drums. But if her guitar strings were that thin next to her already emaciated body, due to, Annawrecksya, who would be able to tell the difference? For instance towards the end of her career she was so skinny the drums looked like they were playing by themselves, anyway.
I still maintain that very thin strings are useless for anything apart from when Virgil gets in a tight-spot and has that light pistol grip spray of perspiration on his face, BUT…. you can see his strings sometimes. The same applies to Captain Scarlet. He would be able to look more real if he had thinner strings. I don't know about you but it smashes the myth for me, when I see black strings working his head. I start to wonder…Is he so bloody indestructible with cotton hanging from his wrists? Come on. You can't say it hasn't crossed your mind too? If he used the 'nano string' it would just look so much more authentic. Although, I still think his head wobbles too much and his puppeteer has Parkinson's, or something.
Question: What would you use a microscopic piece of string for, for cripes sake?
For public hangings of aphids?
So fleas can floss?
So pubic lice can practice bondage?
So ants can tight rope walk?
So cowboy insects can lasso each other?
Thongs for thunderflies?
But wait..at least..Female thunderflies could weigh themselves?
I bet those little black 'thunderflies' that get caught behind your favourite framed picture could use a length of it to rescue each other.
Here is a scenario that could work.
"'ere Harry, cop hold of this mate, I'll soon have you out. I've heard of being put in the picture but you take the piss, you silly bastard."
You see only female thunderflies would need the scanty string to weigh themselves. Listen to what they say when stuck behind the double glazing and what is heard of what they say to their husbands.
"Does my bum look big in this French window."
Her spouse replies,
"Come on love, we will be late for our Jehovah's Witness meeting in the humans ear, if you don't hurry."
She will answer,
"Oh, but does this gown-less evening strap, look better off the shoulder?"
He will say,
"Oh, get a move on, for f*cks sake, you've been stuck behind this glass window all day and we are going to be late for the opening prayer, you daft bitch."
She weeps and wails,
"My bum does look big … doesn't it?" She slumps inconsolably onto a cobweb stage left.
He explodes,
"Right ,see this imperceptible piece of string to humans that I can only just see, if I half close my eyes, myself? You silly bint, I'm going to throttle you with it, if you don't get your fat hairy arse out from behind this Everest slide door and down that Kingdom Hall for some insect worship."
Sulking, she snatches a very large box of Kleenex she found in a human child's dolls house. The tissues are much bigger that her, bigger than bedsheets, or parachutes even, well, that is, almost the size of a house, in relation to her own small size, that is. Except for her arse. Even by thunderflies standards she sported a rather large gable end.
She begins to sob again and squeals in frustration. (They do that)
"See, I told you I was a porker, no wonder you don't fancy me anymore or buy me any nice clothes." She takes one more glance in the window at her ample form.
"Don't buy you things??....Don't bloody buy you things???...No wonder, you fat cow, look in the mirror and turn sideways! The last time we went to Size Up, down at the mall in the corner of the window sill, I tried to get you a nice outfit in the sale for outsized lady thunderflies……………and what happened……..."
"But…." She simpers, falling to her knees.
Listen to me and don't interrupt…you dimpled old slag." Another bark from her seething husband who snaps on his wristwatch defiantly.
He continues his scathing but moderately Christian chastisement of his fatty wife.
"Everything was 'reduced' the sign said….but it still didn't fit you,did it , DID IT??? By thunder. You great thundering, thunderfly lardyarse trout! "
"But…."
"What did I just say?" (He snaps)
"Gasp! Stutter! "Don't interrupt. I'm sorry, must stop doing that"…..(She whispers)
He continues to shout at her.
"Don't interrupt…. WHAT…?" (He blasts. Leans over her shoulder from rear)
"Sir….don't interrupt…..SIR" (She whispers in between floods of tears and blows into her tissue)
He towers over her and leans triumphantly onto the window latch that is the size of Wales compared to him.
"That's more like it. Tell you what, it looks like a storm is brewing, lets stay in. I'm not in the mood for studying the Watchtower, all of a sudden. I get squashed in the centrefold sometimes. Why don't you make me a cup of tea before I have to slap ya?"
(The male of the species lights a cigarette which in relation to his size is the length of the M6 and stares out of the rain spattered window with a twist to his mouth and his jaw set.)
The end
The curtain
Too many strings attached
See how miniature pieces of string can damage relationships between infestations? If scientists knew how their research can cripple what was once a united bond, among, once happily married parasites and pests, they might be able to stop, say, dung beetles, conducting such filthy habits.
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