The hero of Esprit de L’Escallier’s novel “I see something strange…” made his great physical discovery… In a brothel! And, according to the author, the description of this event is based on a real incident!

So I also wanted to discover something, not even great, but still.

…………..There is no money for such visits…

I am sure that I would have been able to discover something mysterious, unknown to modern science.

…………..There’s no money, that’s the trouble!

I went to the kitchen to wash the dishes out of frustration. It’s a shame! Because of some “despicable metal”, humanity is being deprived of discoveries and inventions that could turn our whole lives towards a better world, the best, the bestiest!!!

……………..There’s no money!

I started washing the plates and glasses, suddenly the phone. This is Zoya Pavlova, an old and good friend of mine, an associate professor at the Department of Physics at the Moscow Institute of Electronics and Mathematics.

“Listen, Ernesto,” she says, “I just came across something unusual…”

She, too, was washing dishes right now and accidentally discovered a strange physical phenomenon!!!

When she was done with the plates, she decided to wash the light aluminum pan as well. It was an old one, with an uneven bottom, and it was full of bumps, no one knew why. But she loved this pot, and nostalgic childhood memories are probably connected with it. Maybe they cooked her porridge in this saucepan, maybe they baked eggplants, that’s why it has bulges.

So, she washed this saucepan with paste and began to wash it with hot water. Straight from the faucet, and there’s a rubber tube on the faucet to make it easier to direct the water stream.

So, she began to wash off the foam from the sides of the pan, running a stream from the tube clockwise, and suddenly she saw the pan begin to turn, rotate!

You say, “What’s amazing is that the jet pushes the pan, so it turns!”

Galileo also said, “But it’s still spinning!”

That’s where you’re wrong! The pan spun in the OPPOSITE direction of the jet. Zoya rotates the tube, from which the jet shoots, CLOCKWISE, AND THE PAN TURNS IN THE OPPOSITE direction!

Of course, Zoya, she is a PHYSICIST, immediately realized that it was necessary to change the direction of rotation of the tube. She began to turn it in the opposite clockwise direction. She thinks, “Well, now we’ll see that the pan will turn in the same direction, counterclockwise.”

Isn’t that right?

Did you think so too?

And the pan began to rotate again in a different, CLOCKWISE direction! It’s kind of mystical! Kind of out of SPITE!

Zoya turned the jet clockwise again.

And the pot? Well, what do you say now? Where it will rotate?

NOWHERE!!!

It stands there and doesn’t go anywhere!

When Zoya got to this point in the story, I fell into a mental stupor.

Is she, the pan, alive? Does she do what she wants?

But my old friend, she’s not only an associate professor, she’s also a doctor of physical sciences! She looked into the pot and immediately realized everything, the pot was full of water, it became heavy, it began to press against the bottom of the kitchen sink and other bulges in the bottom, so it became motionless!!

She poured out the accumulated water and again began to substitute this vessel under multidirectional streams, periodically pouring water out of it. And the pan ALWAYS rotated in the opposite direction!!!

So another physical effect was discovered IN THE KITCHEN:

THE PAN EFFECT!

I suddenly lost contact with Zoya, and I can’t call her because I don’t have any money (Remember, I mentioned this fact once at the beginning of the story).

An inquisitive reader, of course, will ask: “How can this strange effect be explained?”

I don’t know!

Maybe the pan was trained at the factory yet…. I remember someone, also by the way, by the name of Pavlov, who developed some reflexes among the staff. The light bulb lights up and the employees’ saliva flows… (they were not given buns in the dark at first, but as soon as the light bulb flashed, it immediately “served!”)

And I also read in the almanac “I want to know everything” about metals with memory! They say that metal remembers what it was taught earlier and reacts somehow, remembers …

So, to call Zoya – there is no money!

I’m standing in the kitchen, washing plates, knives, forks, pots, and pans, and I’m waiting!

It’s still a shame! Why do discoveries come naturally to some people, even in brothels, but not to others, even if you work as a janitor at a research institute?!

Maybe she’ll call me again and explain…?

Or, citizen readers, would any of you guess?

If she calls and explains, I promise to inform everyone on a “parity” basis!

And why is a brothel called a “brothel”? After all, any respectable institution where the public goes can be called “A PUBLIC HOUSE”. And the Academy of Sciences – I’ve seen how many intellectual workers rush there in the morning…

And the Reception Room of the Presidium of the Supreme Council.

There are all kinds of museums and canteens. And baths… And even the Kremlin?! Doesn’t the PUBLIC go there?

Or another “House of tolerance”. It’s good when people are TOLERANT of each other…

And this ancient sage La Roche – Foucault (well, and the name is tricky) also said: “As long as people love, they forgive…” Maybe that’s why they called it “tolerance…”

What a pity — there’s no money… otherwise….

22 IV 2010