Stephen Hughes is a physicist in Australia. Apparently, one day he looked in an edition of the Oxford English Dictionary and found the word "siphon" was incorrectly defined.
According to the AFP news agency, Hughes said, "It is gravity that moves the fluid in a siphon, with the water..." ((((sleepy...so sleepy...))) "...in the longer downward arm pulling the water up the shorter arm. An extensive check..." ((((struggling to keep consciousness)))) "...of online and offline dictionaries did not reveal a single dictionary that correctly referred to gravity being the operative force in a siphon." ((((zzzzz))))
I think we can all assume Stephen Hughes is the life of the party. His quotes ooze with a debonair suaveness that is rarely seen outside a high-stakes poker game in a James Bond movie.
Leave it to a scientist to find a supposed error created by English majors. But how come no one has asked Hughes why he was even looking up the definition to begin with? As a scientist, shouldn't he know how a siphon works? What would make him look in a dictionary to figure it out? He seems so cocksure about what it means--yet who was the one originally looking up the definition? Was it an English professor or a writer? Or--no--wait--it was a...scientist.
By that logic, my complete lack of looking up various avenues within theoretical physics means I already have a complete understanding of it all. I know. It's impressive. But I don't like to brag.
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