Prof. R. L. Handy asks, "What if Galileo had been smoking pot?"

AMES, Iowa, March 6, 2014 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- What if Galileo had said, "Hi, there, High Holiness; do you want to hear a good one?  The earth really is going around the sun!  Isn't that a hoot?"  Then Galileo fell over laughing.  He also forgot to kiss the ring. 

Maybe the idea was too revolutionary.  The Pope turned it over to the Inquisition, which indicated, "We'll take care of it." However, Galileo was so famous that he was only put under house arrest, where he wrote a book.  It set a precedent.    

A link between scientific discovery and cutting jokes was pointed out by emeritus professor R. L. Handy of Iowa State University, who credits it to the late author, Arthur Koestler.  "Discovery and jokes both involve new ways of looking at things, often with a surprise ending."  A common example of a "reversal," as in Will Rogers' famous observation, "Every time Congress makes a law it's a joke, and every time Congress makes a joke it's a law."  Maybe that is why Congress now doesn't do either.   

Faculty and graduate students often gathered around the coffee pot to have a donut and make jokes about new ways to do things, and then somebody might say, 'Why not?'"  Some of the "why-nots" went on to garner research contracts and patents that are used internationally.  " Why test soil samples when it's easier to test the hole?"      

Handy recently put his "why-nots" into a new book, "FORE and the Future of Practically Everything."  The book covers a smorgasbord of topics from the population growth in California to record heights achieved in the pole vault.  

"The basic idea is as easy as putting sugar in a cup of coffee," he says.  "The sugar has to stop dissolving when there is no more sugar left to dissolve."

The mathematics of the process, which he calls FORE, enables past information to be projected into the future.  "Would you believe, in another 160 years the life expectancy of men will be the same as that of women?" he says, adding, "I can hardly wait."

FORE also can translate old records into modern equivalents.  "Jesse Owens ran in spiked shoes on cinder tracks, so what if he had run in Super Quad Flashers on paved tracks?  Might he still hold a world record?"  It turns out that he wouldn't, but he still would come close.  FORE also can define "gender factors" affecting sports records.    

Handy calls the approach "A guess with a college education," and "The E=mc² of prognostication."  Even though it projects past information into the future, he dislikes the term futurist.  "It's better than that," he says.  " It's projectionist."

The book discusses the future of world food production, petroleum exploration, and other serious topics like how many home runs can legitimately be hit in a single season? 

The publisher is Moonshine Cove Publishing.  The book is available in print or in Kindle from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  

FORE is an acronym for "first-order rate equation."  We thought you would never ask.

Media Contact: Richard Handy, Dr. R. L. Handy, 515-795-3355, [email protected]

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SOURCE Dr. R. L. Handy