Immobili Homo Sapieno Bangalore Publicus Hexa-wheel

“The answer will be found in Bangalore,” said the Upstart. As is common in most professions dealing with higher education (or in other words, knowing more and more about less and less until you know everything about nothing), the seniors ignored him.
“The meeting is adjourned,” screamed the President of the International Chemistry Congress into the microphone, though he had no need to raise his voice. I suppose the problem with being in a position of power is trying to stay there. As they say in India, “Fevicol ka mazboot jod hai. Tootega nahin!!”. The old chap knew that no one respected him, so he shouted. Another possible reason to raise his decibel level could have been the theory proposed by the Upstart. As with almost all upstarts, this Upstart had come from nowhere, had no formal degrees, and to all knowledge had never done any research or presented any paper. No wonder then that he was despised by the seniors.

The topic of debate was the age-old Packaging Problem. How atoms arrange themselves so as to achieve maximum efficiency in the spatial domain was a question that had been haunting scientists for decades. Earliest known theories said that atoms are cubical in shape, so they can easily be placed on top of each other and there would then be no gaps between them. But then the nucleus was discovered, and Rutherford with his famous alpha particle experiment showed that most of an atom is empty space. Thus an atom was like a box in which a long awaited flat screen television comes to your house. It’s a huge box with a small TV inside, just like an atom. Though the scaling factor is a little warped, I suppose u will get the idea. So the TV is the nucleus and the little sponge balls that ensure the TV reaches u safely are the electrons. The electrons exist in the form of a cloud around the nucleus.

The alpha-particle experiment complicated matters. Other discoveries like the Uncertainty principle, which said that electrons exist everywhere at the same time, did nothing to save the situation. Thus theories delving into complex higher mathematics were formulated, which, though unable to solve the problem, at least were complex enough to seem right. Hexagonal formation, aabbcc, abcabc, and so on… the number of possible patterns is endless. The truth was that no one knew the real answer. So when the Upstart proposed his theory, everyone opposed his theory.

This brings us to the theory itself!! It is clear that for maximum packing, when an atom moves, it will cause others to move too. Or if the other atoms are unrelenting, then none of the atoms can move, unless one of them has a lot of energy which he is ready to expend in the process. Now the earth has a high density core. So consider the earth as an atom. And the atmospheric cloud is then an electron cloud. That makes people the electrons. But zooming in, this approach fails because electrons are all alike. As a famous author once said, “All humans are born equal. Some humans are more equal than others.” Hence the earth-atom theory collapses. So let the people be atoms. This gives us an interesting little theory called “Immobili Homo Sapieno Bangalore Publicus Hexa-wheel”. What it means is that in a Bangalore bus, creatures categorized at the top of the primate chart of the animal kingdom are so tightly packed that they cannot move. As the Upstart discovered to his chagrin, to get down at Tippasandra market, one must get to the exit (a wormhole in atomic terms, but I digress) at CMH Road itself, else you will be borne unwillingly to BEML Gate. Thus there is no part of the atomic surface (read human body) that is not in contact with the corresponding surface of some other atom. Of course, every theory has its flaws, and this one is no exception, as the she-atoms are separate, but this can be attributed to a diamagnetic field which is stronger than the nuclear force. This field will of course be explained very easily by some very high order Lorentz equations or something like that.

The matter was put to the vote, and it was decided to send an independent observer to test the theory. It was proved right without any room for doubt. The Upstart has now been nominated for both the Nobel and IgNobel prizes in Chemistry.