Department of Physics & Astronomy
The University of British Columbia
6224 Agricultural Road, Vancouver BC, V6T 1Z1
Voice: (604) 822-4514
Fax: (604) 822-5324
Email: rcoope@physics.ubc.ca
I have developed a new theory of style. I believe that style in in fact a force of nature, mediated by style quanta (I propose to call them stylons) which have energy. People or things with style actually radiate style all the time, by converting other forms of energy. For example, I predict that when a rider (BMX or mountain) does an exceptionally stylish dirt jump - say a 360 X-up or backflip to flare - there will be a measureable difference between the rider's incoming and outgoing velocities. The difference in energies is pure style. Intuitively it seems that these are small quantities, like gravitational radiation.
The critical problem in further understanding style physics is to develop tools to measure style. The challenge here is that since style is a social construct, we need to develop social metaphors for the components generally used in a photonic or electron detection system. I argue that we will need to invent a styleoscope, with a large reflector and detector (at the primary focus of style, connect it to a style amplifier and then to a styleometer. (The latter being a galvanometer which reads from 0 to 11) I shall comment further on possible social metaphors for these components in future.