illuminating science

So I’ve been a bit snowed under this week - I have a couple of papers in the pipeline that are well overdue, and I’m giving a talk at a conference next week. But I did want to finish my story about moving into my new place. So, after successfully navigating the housing game, it was time to move in our furniture. First snag - I have a queen sized bed, and the bedrooms are upstairs. Second snag - whoever designed this house wanted to make a place that was pretty, fasionable and pleasant. Nothing wrong with that, but they weren’t thinking about making it functional for moving furniture around. The staircase is narrow, and straight except for a sharp bend at the bottom which back onto the hallway. There’s a high-ish railing, with a fancy carved bit at the base of the stairs which is even higher, and the ceiling is sloped in what one presumes must be the latest fasion for architects. The upshot is that while I could bend my mattress around and up the stairs, it was nigh on impossible to fit the base part up.

We had two physicists and a very practical aunty with us, and we spent a good quarter of an hour trying desperately to work out a way that we could fit it through. Perhaps if we push it through a little this way, then rotate, er, or maybe not. It really was like one of those high school maths assignments, or one of those wooden puzzles that seems almost possible if you could just figure out the trick! In the end, we decided though that it was impossible to do it smoothly, and just went with the caveman approach - put it in the best position, and push. It worked, but only with grievous losses to both sides (of the hall, that is…)

But you could forget about getting a couple of heavy wardrobes up - they weren’t going to shift no matter what. We thought about using the upstairs windows, but some brilliant designer put awnings under them, so it would have been an absolute pain to try and lift them up, out and over. Instead, we’re going to go and buy some of those Ikea wardrobes that come in a hundred pieces, and can be simply assembled by inserting sprocket A into socket D using rings R1, P5 and S7 and washers A1-10, keeping the polarities inverted on every prime number piece. You can probably expect some complaints about that when the time comes…

So, my message to all designers out there, whether it be cars, houses, fasion, buildings, chairs, computers or ping-pong tables, before you release your masterpiece, your beautiful design, run it past a couple of physicists, a few average users, and a 5 year child. Chances are, they’ll be able to tell you why pretty doesn’t necessarily mean practical.