Who is Harve' Glowne?
The answer to this intriguing
question may never be completely understood.
With the discovery of the top quark, the last of the 12
subatomic building blocks thought to constitute all of the material world, came the belief
that Science had finally "figured it all out." In the euphoria of victory,
scientists gathering at various sites around the world joined in a week-long celebration
frenzy fueled, not only by the sheer significance of the discovery but also, by the
unleashing in the scientific community of a long-suppressed desire to get down and boogy.
However, when the music was over the only research most
scientists found themselves engaged in was a now urgent attempt to cure the oldest plague
known to man: the hangover. Having found the missing piece in the theory that defines what
is known of the atom and its structure (central to understanding time, matter and the
universe) the big buck funders have begun saying "bye-bye" and
"toodle-loo" to the big brains, and the fields usually considered "pure
research" are now considered "kerplunk."
Many scientists, after a period of soul-searching, are saying
privately that maybe they were too smart for their own good. "A little dumbing-down
could have gone a long way," said Professor Harve' Glowne speaking off the record.
"But what can you do? We are just inherently and irrepressibly intelligent in the
extreme."
The failure of the Golden Oldies Theories Channel to get off
the ground brings with it reports of a rise in the phenomena of out-of-work scientists
being arrested on the streets for badgering passersby with ideas nobody understands.
However, not all stories concerning contemporary scientists
are tales of woe.
For every thousand complaining, negativistic and piteous cries
emanating from the brain dung heap comes the powerful voice of a scientist who not only
has a head on his (or her) shoulders, but coins in his (or her) pockets. One such voice
belongs to Alfred Knurdelphon.