That sinister laughter that you can hear is emanating from this week’s Futures story — a cautionary tale by John Cooper Hamilton about physics and a bid for world domination called This big. When he’s not plotting to take over the world, John writes, and you can find out more about his work at his website. Here, he reveals the inspiration behind his latest tale (and an important recipe) — as ever, it pays to read the story first.

Writing This big

This story, a series of jokes, began as an intense, heartfelt debate between myself and a close college friend, a physics student.

Using classic techniques of rhetoric such as analogy, talking quickly and not-properly-following-the-maths, I maintained that subatomic particles are relatively large. My contention that beach-ball-sized neutrinos cause spontaneous human combustion was the lynchpin of the argument.

Many, many years later, my friend is a physicist.

I have This big.

I’m grateful for the opportunity to share the story. I hope it made you laugh, and hope even more it made you groan. But I’d like to think anyone might enjoy contemplating our mad scientist’s ideas. To consider exactly what makes them mad, or what about his way of thinking is enticing.

Everyone should be glad to see a twentieth-century cultural fixture, the blender joke, carried forward to the twenty-first.

Thank you for your patience and attention. Now, as promised:

SHC flambe

Cover bottom of small pan with soy sauce. Add minced daikon and grated ginger, simmer for three minutes. Add split banana and cook until banana softens. Stir brown rice into sauce – should remain soupy – add sake. Warm, ignite and enjoy as savory-sweet accompaniment to any seafood dish.