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#44180 10/12/01 03:43 PM
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it must be the Fifties, or maybe even the late Forties, well before Google et al.
1948; see the link Faldage provided. Unfortunately, that link gives only a review, not the full text. Other url's (per brief googling), though also lacking full text, give a bit more of the flavor.

but I can tell you what it is, according to Asimov:
w-doc, my recall differs on some important details. Perhaps there as two or more spoofs, involving variants of the mythical substance?


#44181 10/12/01 03:55 PM
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Perhaps there as two or more spoofs

My Clementian memory does have his writing more than one version of this as well as several commentaries. The first was very scholarly in tone and was written in 1948 while he was still a Mr. Later versions came later. Go ahead. Make something of that. I'm a trained Fool. I can handle it.


#44182 10/12/01 08:15 PM
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Thiotimoline is a substance that is capable of being refined to varying degrees of purity. The more pure it is the longer it can go without combining with water. When the scientist first discovered the compound it was very impure, but he noticed that it seemed to dissolve before it actually got into water.

He then made some a little more pure and put it on a shelf in a glass container. When it came time for the thiotimoline to dissolve it caused the shelf to fall, with the result the bottle broke on a wet floor.

As the time lines became longer, the scientist devised new hurdles. In one of them he put the stuff in a safe, resulting in a flood which brought water to the thiotimoline. It was eventually used as a weapon. Think of putting thiotimoline in a strongbox at a remote location in Afghanistan!



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#44183 10/13/01 07:21 AM
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I assume that everyone here has heard of Marc Abraham's "Annals of Improbable Research" (AIR). I subscribe to the overflow email verion, "mini-AIR". It's hilarious and largely true. If anyone wants to have a look, try this:

To subscribe, send a brief E-mail message to:
LISTPROC@AIR.HARVARD.EDU
The body of your message should contain ONLY the words
SUBSCRIBE MINI-AIR MARIE CURIE
(You may substitute your own name for that of Madame Curie.)


I cut and paste the above bit from the last one received a week ago.




The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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