A Brief History of Time, Communication, The Cloud and Everything

In the beginning there was a cloud. Slowly, over aeons of time, bits of this huge cloud clumped together and consolidated. Then suddenly one day - bang! It  got hot enough to trigger a nuclear reaction. The sun appeared and blew away most of the cloud.  Some bits of cloud remained, and these turned into the planets. After a bit of violent upheaval, they finally settled down into the configuration we have today, with the Earth situated at a very pleasant distance from the sun and at a nice moderate temperature. Under these conditions it was inevitable that life formed and eventually evolved into animals, plants and the human race.

 

In the Beginning There Was a Cloud

If you look at the literature on the history of the human race, it is obvious that human beings and their ancestors never actually communicated at all for the first two and a half million years. That's rather a long time to just sit and stare at your neighbour. No wonder they developed stone axes and decided to hit each other with them. They must have been absolutely fed up with the sight of each other.

Eventually however, someone came up with the bright idea that it might be nice to talk, so language came into being. This seems to have happened somewhere around 50,000 years ago, and it was an instant hit. It was like a virus, with everybody now chattering away to everybody else.  The Earth, totally silent for the previous 4.5 billion years after it coalesced out of the primordial cloud, suddenly became a noisy place.  It was full of conversations like  "I heard Mrs Ugg talking to the Oggs the other day.  Terrible people, those Oggs, their cave is always filthy, full of old dinosaur bones. I wouldn't deign to speak to them myself".  But other people would speak to them, and they continued to do so for millennia.

Stories were invented so that people could pass them on and others could learn from what had happened before.  These stories turned into lengthy sagas, and the amount to remember became huge. As time went on, the sagas turned into entire encyclopedias, and it all started to get a bit difficult. Eventually everybody got fed up. This stimulated the human brain to suddenly cross another size threshold, and to invent WRITING. What a day that was!  The only problem was this: what on earth to write on?

They tried a few things. Sand: no problem writing, but the words tended to get obliterated quite quickly.  Rock: could scratch this a bit, but it was hard work to get any amount of information down. Then somebody thought about animal skins. This seemed to be fine with just two minor problems. The animals objected rather a lot to being skinned, so the ones chosen tended to be the smaller ones.  This meant that you either had to write very small or stitch a lot of them together. The other problem was that these started to smell after a few days and then rotted shortly afterwards, once again defeating the object of the exercise.

The human brain must have hit another huge technological breakthrough  about 7,000 years ago, when somebody thought it would be a good idea to go and pick a few reeds and stick them together, strip off the outside and use the sticky bit in the middle. Bash it all together with a hammer, making an even stickier mess, and  finally weight it all down and  leave to dry. So papyrus was born, and the Egyptians loved it. At this point it seems that the capacity of the human brain started to know no bounds, and in no time at all (c 2,000 years), paper was invented. This could be written on with ease, didn't disintegrate, and it could be copied again and again. What's more, it could be put together to make books. Libraries soon came into being, holding all the wisdom of human history.  There was a minor blip when the library of Alexandria went up in flames taking about three quarters of the world's knowledge with it, but it didn't take long to go and work it all out again.

In the 19th Century a man called Babbage invented something called a 'Difference Engine', the world’s first computer. At first computer data were saved on paper, but this method required a lot of trees, took up masses of storage space, and nobody ever got round to reading it anyway. So somebody invented paper tape.  Not a great advance, as this was even more difficult to read than print-out, but you could at least feed it back in to your computer.  After that came reel-to-reel tapes. Marvellous! Now you could retrieve any information you wanted; you just had to remember which tape it was on, and hope that the machine operators weren't on a coffee break.

Finally we move into the 21st Century, and somebody has invented a way of storing data in a cloud. Just look up above you and you can see what a great advance this is.  In the UK there is certainly plenty of storage space. This is the future! Unlimited on-line document storage, right up there in the sky. Your plans are safely stored in a nice big cloud hanging over Manchester.  No danger of ever losing that data: there is always a cloud over Manchester.

There are more clouds on Earth than anybody can possibly use, but if we do ever run out of them, just look up a little higher into the heavens.  Venus is covered in them, and Jupiter, with a surface area over 120 times that of Earth, has an inexhaustible supply. Is there another technological advance beyond Cloud Computing? Maybe so, but it isn't needed just yet. There is plenty of cloud space to store all the world's knowledge for many hundreds of years to come. So we can all live happily ever after, safe in the knowledge that it is all secure, accessible, and constantly backed up.

The Hidden Power of the Algorithm

What is an Algorithm?

To start with the basics, let’s look at a definition of an algorithm.  I like this one from Whatis.com?

An algorithm (pronounced AL-go-rith-um) is a procedure or formula for solving a problem. The word derives from the name of the mathematician, Mohammed ibn-Musa al-Khwarizmi, who was part of the royal court in Baghdad and who lived from about 780 to 850. Al-Khwarizmi's work is the likely source for the word algebra as well.

A computer program can be viewed as an elaborate algorithm. In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm usually means a small procedure that solves a recurrent problem.

Another way of looking at it is to say an algorithm is a series of logically ordered instructions, rather like a recipe for baking a cake.  If you are sensible, and use a Delia Smith recipe, you will probably end up with a beautiful cake.  If you are foolish enough to go to a Keith Floyd recipe book, it will probably turn out to be a culinary disaster.

A Mathematical Genius at Work

In itself, an algorithm is neither good nor evil.  As a problem-solving tool it could be effectual or it could be useless; it all depends on the quality of the human mind that creates and programmes the algorithm in the first place it, and the appropriateness of the human response to the algorithm results.

The War on Terror

Thanks to revelations reported in The Guardian by ex American intelligence analyst Edward Snowden, data-gathering techniques by government security organisations have been hitting the headlines across the globe. The US intelligence organisation known as the National Security Agency or NSA has been widely reported to be covertly collecting colossal quantities of data from our phones, computers, and social networks.  Thanks to advances in communications techniques and the ease and cheapness of current-day data storage, it is now physically and economically feasible for them to create, maintain and interrogate these mammoth databases as they search for terrorist conspiracy activities.

The other reason for the existence of these data monsters is that modern computing techniques make it feasible to trawl through them.  It would not be possible for human beings to read all of that information (and it would no doubt be an incredibly boring task, too), but algorithms can search it, analyse it and report back to the government security agencies. These techniques are a major weapon in the state’s armoury for the so-called war against terrorism.  We know that algorithms are deployed by the NSA and GCHQ (the UK equivalent listening centre, General Communications HQ at Cheltenham), but we can only take an educated guess at the rules used by the algorithms, and hope that they are being used wisely.

Big Brother is Watching You

Algorithmic techniques have also been used in recent years to facilitate ‘predictive policing’ and in some instances they have achieved dramatic successes.  The idea here is to harness the power of the algorithm to provide data to enable police to deploy their resources in the right place at the right time.  This is sometimes known as ‘Minority Report Policing’, after the Steven Spielberg  sci-fi movie with Tom Cruise, where "PreCrime", a specialized police department, stops crime before it actually happens, using information provided by three psychics called "precogs". 

In the real world the technique is more correctly known as CRUSH, or ‘Criminal Reduction Utilising Statistical History".  The earliest example of this I could find was ‘Operation Blue Crush’, a pilot Crush operation staged in Memphis, Tennessee back in 2005, and during which 1,200 people were arrested over the course of just three days.  Have a look at this link to find out more: http://www.memphispolice.org/blue%20crush.htm

Algorithms, Quants, and the City

As a reader of this blog you are already well aware of the power of  The Geek.  Did you know that, in the city, highly-paid geeks known as ‘Quants’, or Quantitative Analysts, are employed to create algorithms to formulate trading strategy?  The traditional picture of the stock market trading floor peopled by traders in suits and ties making frantic telephone calls and yelling ‘Sell, sell!’ has now largely been superseded by computer servers running ‘algos’ to predict market fluctuations.

Most financial institutions, including banks and pension funds, now rely on algorithms. Sometimes competing algorithms have been known to clash, and, on occasion they have been blamed for speeding up trading to the extent of destabilizing the market and causing a meltdown.  It’s not only the big rollers in the city that can be affected: the ‘algo’ is also impacting ordinary people by influencing the way their savings and pension funds are invested.

Algorithms in Everyday Life

It doesn’t stop there. The power of the algorithm extends way beyond the rarefied world of investment and trading. Think about dating websites, credit checks, online retailing, retailer loyalty schemes, tailored and targeted discount  vouchers, online insurance quotations and internet search engines: they all use the same principles to analyse our personal interests and our buying habits.

Algorithms are being used extensively now simply because of the explosion in the quantity, quality, and availability of data spawned by the era of global mass communications.  The technique is now so widespread and industrialised that it is commonly known as ‘Data Mining’.

All this is nothing new, of course.  Alan Turing and his team of Bletchley Park code-breakers used algorithms to powerful effect back in the 1940s, and they were instrumental in victory against the Nazis in World War II.  This is a perfect example of an algorithmic tool being harnessed to good effect.  In the wrong hands, and wielded unwisely, there is also the potential for it to become an instrument of the powerful and unscrupulous who seek to dictate, repress, control and censor.

The Mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism

This is an intriguing story I first heard a few weeks ago, when my boss Steve, a keen amateur astronomer and general all-round geek in his own right, suggested that the Antikythera Mechanism would make a good subject for a blog posting.  I have kept the story in reserve since then, until a couple of nights ago, when BBC 4 broadcast a documentary programme about it, The Two-thousand-Year-Old Computer, which reawakened my interest. Researching a little further,  I found that some pretty exotic and exaggerated claims have been made about the Antikythera Mechanism, including

• It is the oldest known analogue computer
• It was made by aliens
• It can predict the future
• It proves the existence of time travel

Heady stuff indeed, and much too fascinating to be left on the back-burner any longer, so here it is.

The Antikythera Wreck Site

The story began in the Mediterranean back in 1901, when a sudden and violent storm forced sponge divers to make an unscheduled stop near the island of Antikythera, on the edge of the Aegean between mainland Greece and Crete.  Whilst stranded there they decided they may as well try a dive, and discovered not sponges, but a 2000 year-old Roman shipwreck.  The first impression was of human corpses and dead horses scattered across the sea-bed.  Closer inspection revealed them to be the remains of a cargo of priceless antiquities including some rare and exquisite bronze statures, most of which are now housed in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens.

A Fragment of the Antikythera Device

Among the hoard of beautiful art works, which included such treasures as The Philosopher’s Head, and  full-size statues of Hercules, The Ephebe, a discus thrower, a marble bull and a bronze lyre, another, less prepossessing  artefact was found.  Broken into 82 pieces and badly corroded by its long sojourn at the bottom of the sea, the Antikythera Mechanism looked like a piece of old junk.  It clearly was some kind of antique machine, however, and an initial archaeological study carried out in 1902 revealed a gear wheel embedded inside.  This led historians to believe the object to be an astrolabe or astronomical clock:  its true purpose and significance was not discovered for another hundred years.

The main problem for scholars has always been the sheer depth and inaccessibility of the wreck site.  The sponge divers who discovered the wreck back in 1901 were only able to venture down so far thanks to their heavy diving suits, with their bulky copper and brass helmets and weighted shoes.  Even with this equipment (which remained the standard diving kit from the late 19th Century through most of the 20th Century) one of the divers died trying to salvage the wreck, and two others were paralysed by the bends.

By the 1970s, the story had moved on and, after decades of careful conservation and cleaning and in-depth study, the mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism began to unravel. Modern techniques such as X-ray and gamma scanning allowed scholars to shed more light on its internal workings, revealing a more complex system of gearing than was previously recognised.

In 1974 Derek de Solla Price of Yale University published the results of years of intensive research, demonstrating that the device was constructed along mathematical principles for astronomical purposes.  For example, it would probably have been used to calculate the position of the Sun and Moon, the phases of the Moon, eclipse cycles, and the locations of the planets.

Professor de Solla and his Reproduction of the Device

Professor de Solla discovered that it was probably made as early as 87 BC, and although no other similar devices from that period have ever come to light, the sophistication of the design led him to believe that it cannot have been the first one of its type. Such is the complexity of the design that it is commonly referred to as the first analogue computer.  A reproduction of the mechanism created by Professor de Solla, along with other reconstructions  created by other scholars, is currently on display in the Athens Museum in a special exhibition about the Antikythera shipwreck.

By the 1970s deep-sea the design of deep sea diving equipment had also been modernised and improved, allowing famous TV personality and undersea explorer Jacques Cousteau to visit the Antikythera wreck.  A few more minor finds were brought up by Cousteau’s team, but, even with their sophisticated scuba equipment, they could only spend limited time on the sea bed.  For many years afterwards, nobody visited it at all, but in the last couple of years there has been fresh interest in studying the mechanism, and permission is being sought from the Greek government to send some new expeditions to the site.

So, the mystery of the Antikythera Mechanism continues to baffle and intrigue. Who knows, there may be other undiscovered fragments still down there. There may even be another mechanism down there!

Postscript

The Antikythera Mechanism was the inspiration for and a central plot device in a  2010 TV film called  Stonehenge Apocalypse, in which it saves the world from an impending catastrophe.

The Invisibility Man Wins Prestigious Scientific Award

As a self-confessed and hopeless geek, I am, of course, obsessed with the incomparable Sir Isaac Newton. If you have visited this blog before you may have read about Isaac Newton and the Cat Flap, a tongue-in-cheek but nonetheless respectful homage to the great man. I was therefore extremely interested to hear about the recent award of the Institute of Physics’ prestigious Newton medal to Professor Sir John Pendry.   This award is made annually for outstanding contributions to physics, and Sir John has won it for  pioneering  the concept of the 'invisibility cloak' and developing a new class of 'metamaterials'.

The human race has always been fascinated by the idea of invisibility, and our literature  is full of it. Probably the first and most interesting instance occurred in 1897 in HG Wells' science fiction novella (or, as Wells styles it, ‘grotesque romance’) The Invisible Man.  In this story Griffin, the anti-hero, stumbles upon an invisibility formula during his time as a medical student, and uses his invisibility to commit crimes.

Other famous invisibility plot devices occur in Star Trek, in which the Starship Enterprise protects itself from attack by means of a ‘cloaking device’ using technology stolen by Captain Kirk from a Romulan ship, and Harry Potter, where the ‘invisibility cloak’ is a magical garment which renders the wearer invisible. For all those of you who would not classify Star Trek and Harry Potter as literature, I can only apologise for mentioning them in the same breath as the great HG Wells, who is another one of my personal heroes.

In the 21st Century real scientific knowledge is starting to catch up with the predictions of science fiction. How close is current scientific knowledge to achieving true invisibility?   In HG Wells' story, invisibility was achieved chemically, with the use of 'special pigments'. Nevertheless his ideas are uncannily similar to Sir John Pendrys’s metamaterial discoveries. In chapter 19 of The Invisible Man, CERTAIN FIRST PRINCIPLES, Wells offers this scientific explanation:

 But consider, visibility depends on the action of the visible bodies on light. Either a body absorbs light, or it reflects or refracts it, or does all these things. If it neither reflects nor refracts nor absorbs light, it cannot of itself be visible. You see an opaque red box, for instance, because the colour absorbs some of the light and reflects the rest, all the red part of the light, to you. If it did not absorb any particular part of the light, but reflected it all, then it would be a shining white box. Silver! A diamond box would neither absorb much of the light nor reflect much from the general surface, but just here and there where the surfaces were favourable the light would be reflected and refracted, so that you would get a brilliant appearance of flashing reflections and translucencies—a sort of skeleton of light. A glass box would not be so brilliant, nor so clearly visible, as a diamond box, because there would be less refraction and reflection. See that? From certain points of view you would see quite clearly through it. Some kinds of glass would be more visible than others, a box of flint glass would be brighter than a box of ordinary window glass. A box of very thin common glass would be hard to see in a bad light, because it would absorb hardly any light and refract and reflect very little. And if you put a sheet of common white glass in water, still more if you put it in some denser liquid than water, it would vanish almost altogether, because light passing from water to glass is only slightly refracted or reflected or indeed affected in any way. It is almost as invisible as a jet of coal gas or hydrogen is in air. And for precisely the same reason!

Compare this with Sir John’s proposal for creating an ‘invisibility cloak’ by using metamaterials.  These are substances defined not by their chemical constitution, but by their internal structures on the smallest scale, which allow them to guide light around objects and render them invisible to the human eye. Altering the nano-scale structure of a metamaterial causes directional changes in its electromagnetic waves.  Light waves flow around objects covered in metamaterial and – hey presto – they are invisible!

I must admit that I am only a geek with no real scientific credentials, and I apologise for the inadequacy of my technical explanation. For a fuller explanation of the properties of metamaterials, why not have a look at Professor Pendry’s website? http://www.cmth.ph.ic.ac.uk/photonics/Newphotonics/

More about the Newton Medal   

This year's Newton award will be presented at a ceremony in London on November 15.  Professor Pendry will give the Institute's Newton Lecture in October. Previous winners of the Newton medal include Martin Rees, Leo Kadanoff, Edward Witten, Alan Guth and Anton Zeilinger.

From the website of the Institute of Physics:

http://www.iop.org/about/awards/newton/page_60376.html

Having Trouble with your pc? If you are under Forty You Don’t even Know the Meaning of Trouble

Can anyone else out there remember the 80’s?  Big hair, shoulder pads, leg-warmers, and horrendous pop music are the first things that spring to mind.  Not only that, but back in those days there were very few computers and definitely no internet.  How on Earth did we survive without Email, Facebook and mobile phones? Well, as I recall, it wasn’t easy...

High Tech ,  1980s Style

To arrange a meeting with a friend, you had a choice of writing a letter or calling them up on the phone.  Writing a letter meant finding suitable stationery and a supply of postage stamps.  Phoning involved calling from a traditional, land-line telephone.  In practice this often meant using a call-box.  First, you had to queue up outside the box, usually in the rain, while someone else conducted a seemingly endless conversation with their Mother in Basingstoke.  Once you had managed to get inside the box you then had to be sure to have the correct denomination of coins to hand, or else use the dreaded ‘Reversed Charges’ system and talk to a battle-axe of a Telephone Operator.  Sometimes it just seemed a whole lot easier to give up and spend another night in watching Dallas. What a wonderful, high-tech innovation it seemed when the phone card was introduced!

The world of business was an even bigger minefield.  In the typical 1980s office, for example, getting the computer boffins to co-operate with you to create even a simple report used to be a major exercise in office politics, communications and diplomacy.  The doorway to the IT Department looked to most people like the Mouth of Hell, only slightly less welcoming and appealing. Not only did you have the spotty, smelly, aggressive  and socially illiterate Computer Programmers to deal with (and I should know, I was one), there were other, even more frightening, difficult and cantankerous people to negotiate with and pacify in order to get the simplest task done.

Take for example the Key Punch Department, always peopled by an entirely female work-force and always ruled with a rod of iron, usually by an Amazonian woman called Brenda.  Even if you were clever enough to write your own computer programs for yourself, in Assembler, COBOL or FORTRAN, you still had to beg and plead with the Key Punch Supervisor to get your program onto the computer. No such luxuries as your own keyboard and mouse for data input; the mainframe was an expensive and mysterious piece of equipment hidden away from view in its own room with its own attendants and even its own carefully controlled micro-climate. Woes betide the hapless employee who wandered into this inner sanctum without the appropriate authorisation. 

This place had to be approached with extreme caution, only after making an appointment, and only if you had the correct badge and a program written out on the officially-approved stationery. As a humble Junior Programmer I used to have an awful time of it, struggling to complete coding-sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction.  Apparently my handwriting wasn’t up to scratch, and caused alarm bells to ring all over the Data Entry area. Once you had tidied up your coding sheets to Brenda’s satisfaction, cleared the Data Entry hurdle and got your program onto the mainframe, there was another, even more terrifying obstacle to overcome: the Computer Operator.

Just as all Data Entry Supervisors were called Brenda, so there was another unwritten Law of the Universe which dictated that all Computer Operators should be called Martin, and should dress in Corduroy jackets and gingham shirts liberally spattered with gravy and beer-stains.  The main reason for their existence was to bar access to the Mainframe to mere mortals like me.  Heaven forfend if anyone should try and get the precious mainframe to actually DO anything useful. Incorrect and irresponsible programming was liable to make the whole thing overheat and possible explode, or go into an endless loop. This was my trademark mistake, and usually led to the printer spewing out interminable screeds of expensive computer paper, and to another, inevitable rollicking for me from Martin. Oh the shame and humiliation of it.  Quite frankly it was much easier to just make the data up,  and type up your own fictitious report yourself :  a lot quicker and probably just as useful to all concerned.

Nowadays, well, you just don’t know you’re born!  No need to beg and plead with the awkward squad in the IT Department, no need to spend hours writing out COBOL programs longhand, no need  to drag your required information kicking and screaming out of the guts of a constipated mainframe computer.  Crikey, not even any need for a knowledge of any programming methodologies or languages.  All you need is a pc or laptop, an internet connection, and away you go, all by yourself.  There’s probably more processing power and storage capacity in today’s average home pc than there would have been in the entire IT department of a multi-national company back in the eighties.

So stop complaining about problems with your computer, because quite frankly, there really aren’t any to speak of.  Intermittent internet connection?  Broadband speed not fast enough?  Don’t make me laugh. Make the most of it, make friends with your pc; it’s probably the most powerful piece of technology you will ever own, and it’s so easy.  Plug it in, switch it on and get online to any information you could possibly desire, all from the comfort of your own home.  Research into any and every field of human endeavour, share documents and brainstorm ideas, link up and network with like-minded people all over the world!  With these facilities we should be able to organise World Peace, feed and clothe the entire World and design wonderful homes, schools and employment for all, no problem.  Creating a Business Intelligence Report for the Head of Accounts should be mere child’s play! Bet I could even find out what my old friends Brenda and Martin are doing these days, and send them a message!  On second thoughts, perhaps not.  I’m tired, let’s just have another game of Solitaire and a quick look at Facebook.  Saving the planet can wait till tomorrow.

Isaac Newton & the Cat Flap

Famous throughout the world as a pre-eminent physicist, mathematician, astronomer, alchemist, natural philosopher and theologian,  Sir Isaac Newton has exerted more influence on the development of modern physics than Einstein and made a greater contribution to the welfare of humanity than Jesus. So says Wikipedia, so it must be true. It is a lesser-known fact that he also deserves an honourable mention for his role in improving the lot of the humble Home Worker.

Isaac Newton, the Greatest Geek of All Time

One fateful day in the late 17^th century, whilst on the brink of demonstrating the Generalised Binomial Theorem by means of the Approximation of the Roots of a Function (sounds a bit technical to you and me, but just an average morning’s work in the Newton household) Newton became distracted by the antics of his cat.  Desperate to get out of the house to answer a much-needed call of Nature, Puss was clawing frantically at the door, and set up a prolonged and noisy bout of miaowing and caterwauling.  Finally, even the most high-minded brain could stand it no longer, and science took a back seat for 5 minutes while the genius abandoned his scientific endeavours to get up from his desk and let the cat out. 

There followed a ten-minute interlude of perfect peace and quiet; just long enough for Sir Isaac to return to remember where he had got to before he was so rudely interrupted. Then Grimalkin, having successfully completed his crucial mission, decided to come back inside.  He returned to the door-step and set up such an ear-splitting lamentation as would raise the dead from their graves.  Three minutes of this appalling racket was sufficient to distract even Sir Isaac from the depths of his philosophising, and so, once again, the course of scientific and metaphysical enlightenment was put on hold while the cat was let back in.  So it went on for the rest of the day, until even our long-suffering hero had had enough, laid down his quill pen in an abrupt, nay angry manner, and went to kick the poor innocent creature. Just as his noble foot was poised to administer the cruel blow, it happened: Sir Isaac Newton had an idea!

This sort of thing was always happening to him at unexpected moments.  We all know about the apple falling from the tree and inspiring him to discover gravity.  What most people don’t know is that this was just one in a long line of brilliant ideas instigated by common-or-garden incidents.  Let’s face it, a lesser mortal would just have eaten the ruddy apple, or given the poor old cat a jolly good kicking, but Sir Isaac was a veritable one-man ideas factory, and couldn’t help himself.  So what was his great idea and contribution to humanity?  That’s right: the cat-flap!  What a boon, both to mankind and to the feline race.  No more irritating mewling noises, no more annoying interruptions.  At last, freedom for the Home Worker to concentrate on his studies in perfect peace and tranquility.  And as for the cat, no more uncomfortable bursting bladder.  Thanks to the simple but utterly brilliant notion of taking a hand saw and cutting a small, cat-sized hole in the door, the philosopher is forever free to concentrate on the most complex of  theses, and the domestic cat is saved the constant humiliation of having to ask permission from its master to perform the most basic and essential of functions. 

It is no coincidence that Newton’s finest achievements were made in the years immediate following this historic event. So it is no exaggeration to conjecture that, were it not for the invention of the lowly cat flap, we would still be labouring under the misapprehension that the Sun travels around the Earth, and that the Moon is made of green cheese.The cat flap has certainly made my working life, largely spent in a home shared with (among others) two cats, more peaceful and productive.  To be strictly scientific about it (which would please old Sir Isaac) I offer you the following equation: -

500,000

(ESTIMATED NUMBER OF HOME-WORKERS IN THE UK)

            X

 6

(THE  NUMBER OR TIMES PER DAY THAT A NORMAL CAT REQUIRES TO BE  LET IN OR OUT OF THE HOUSE)

             X

1

(THE AVERAGE NUMBER OF CATS OWNED BY THE TYPICAL HOME WORKER)

            X

10

(THE AVERAGE TIME IN MINUTES WASTED IN LETTING CAT IN OR OUT)

            / 60 X 30

            =

15,000,000

(THE NUMBER OF LOST MAN-HOURS PER MONTH IN THE UK)

 With more and more people choosing to work from home, that is a heck of a lot of man-hours!  So the cat flap is a considerably more useful invention than say, the type-writer, the personal computer or the Internet. I would even go as far as to say that for me, it is a greater time-saving device than even my trusty laptop. What a godsend for all of us. The only unfortunate part of the story is that, in his enthusiasm, Sir Isaac cut two separate holes in his back door, a big one for the cat and a smaller one for the kittens.  Thank goodness he didn’t own a Great Dane. His house was always a bit draughty from then onwards.  Which only goes to show that no one is perfect, not even the greatest scientific genius of the modern age.