STEPHEN FRY

Wow.
That is all.

I thought the whole point of QI was to get people to see how weird and fascinating the world is. The *real* world, not fabrications gleaned off the web.

I can imagine if there was a question like 'who invented the telephone?' Alan Davies would say 'Alexander Graham Bell', he'd get the obvious-but-wrong sirens and it would turn out to be some guy who invented it in 1750 but never patented it, or it was made out of toilet roll tubes or something, I don't know.

That already happened . . ..

I can imagine if there was a question like 'who invented the telephone?' Alan Davies would say 'Alexander Graham Bell', he'd get the obvious-but-wrong sirens and it would turn out to be some guy who invented it in 1750 but never patented it, or it was made out of toilet roll tubes or something, I don't know.

That already happened . . ..
haha wow, maybe i forgot that i remembered it or something. but then there have been a LOT of weird coincidences/me guessing what's going to happen over the last couple of days...maybe i'm in the matrix.

I'm afraid I've got a prior claim to being the matrix. Check out this snippet of a chat I had with my friend/professor two days ago.

WARNING: blasphemy ahead. So if your religious feelings are easily offended, now is the time to click the "back" button.

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poniness: you can't turn water into heroin. God cannot create dipole ex nihlio
me: God can do anything given enough impetus and alcohol
poniness: there's a conservation of magnetic moment, which explains the theodicy of the lack of monopoles
no, you're thinking of Russians
me: i mean, he created everything ex nihilo, what makes you think a dipole or two is beyond him?
4:09 PM poniness: because dipoles imply that there's a balance between opposing forces. to create one would imply creating the other
4:10 PM and unless yo'ure a zoroastrian, this is going to be problematic. Dipole = problem of evil
4:11 PM the lack of magnetic monopoles is proof of teh unity and goodness of god
4:12 PM me: nevertheless, dipoles exist, and God must've created them. so what would disable him from creating more of them at will?
4:25 PM poniness: because a god who creates new dipoles ex nihilo would not one one in which we could know that the world is good
me: "would not one one "?
poniness: be one
4:26 PM me: wouldn't that technically speaking do away not just with dipoles but with all miracules?
lol
'miracules' - miracles with animalcules
4:27 PM poniness: wow, i just finished grading papers on spermatism and religion
those woudl count as miracules
me: LOL
i am TEH PSYCHICs. lolz.
ph34r m3

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Haha! To be fair, Star Trek does use a fair amount of technobabble. Can someone tell me what a plasma injector does? It doesn't sound like injecting plasma anywhere would be a good idea.

The telephone was pretty useless until carbon transmitters (a type of microphone) was invented by Edison.

Interestingly, an article recently appeared on MSN about Bell's naughtiness surrounding the acquisition of the telephone patent:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22400009/

AxmxZ, could you provide us with the exact nature of the mistakes that QI researchers are constantly making? I'd be glad to fill you in on the background for any piece of research with which you disagree, as we keep a (reasonably) meticulous list of all our sources, as I'm sure you do with your corrections.

And yes, occasionally we make mistakes because we are (gasp!) human. QI genuinely does try to open people's eyes to interesting things of which most people may be unaware. Of course we welcome corrections and clarifications - that's an important part of learning - but might I suggest that you try to raise them with more grace. It's very easy to target the show's staff from afar, and use any perceived mistake as a springboard to elevate one's own intellectual status amongst one's peers, but that's not really the game we're in. We like to *discuss* differences of opinion, and perhaps work together to find the best explanation available, not embark on slightly pointless ego trips.

Yes, we were wrong about the first written use of the word 'hello' - it wasn't Edison at all, it turns out. But - quite interestingly - according to the OED, neither was it Mark Twain. That was indeed a simple mistake. But it's certainly worth trying yourself to find a thousand interesting facts and placing them before an audience of several million to see if every single one of them stands up. I'll guarantee nobody can do that. If you can manage more than a 95% hit rate, we'll consider hiring you!