SYDNEY: Not all the technology news is grim, as we have discovered. Here’s a little bit of schadenfreude that bobbed up yesterday.
It seems that 27-year-old Australian astrophysicist Dr Daniel Readon, who studies pulsars and gravitational waves, decided to liven up the widespread current boredom of self-isolation by playing with four powerful neodymium magnets.
He thought that if people wore magnets on their wrists they could set off an alarm when the wrist was brought too close to the face. Alas, it did the opposite, buzzing continuously unless his hand was brought close to his face.
So Dr Daniel continued playing with the magnets, for unexplained reasons clipping two to his ears, then two inside his nostrils and two more outside. Alas, when he removed the two outer magnets, the two inside his nose clamped together and couldn’t be removed.
Hospital record: Daniel Reardon’s discharge report after presenting at hospital with magnets stuck up his nose. Photograph: Supplied by Daniel Reardon
Pliers get unpliable
Reardon attempted to use pliers to pull the magnets out, but the pliers in turn became magnetised. He says: “Every time I brought the pliers close to my nose, my entire nose would shift towards the pliers and then the pliers would stick to the magnet. It was a little bit painful at this point.
“My partner took me to the hospital that she works in because she wanted all her colleagues to laugh at me.”
Hospital treatment eventually succeeded. Readon says he has ruled out further experiments with magnets and hopes to find other ways to pass his spare time.
