One of the most extraordinary stories this week concerned a Japanese scientist who has spent the past 10 years working out the reason for traffic jams. He and his team of researchers soaked up millions of yen studying the reason for log-jams and this month, the New Journalof Physics published the findings. The reason for traffic jams is ... wait for it ... too many cars! Who'd have thought?
To be fair, the professor put it slightly differently. He said: "When a large number of vehicles, beyond the road capacity, are successively injected into the road, the density exceeds the critical value and the free flow state becomes unstable." Translation? When every bugger leaves work at the same time as you, the roads are clogged.
Another report that was every bit as silly was the one commissioned by the Wellington Rugby Union which wanted to find out why the number of college rugby players was dropping. According to the report, it's because today's teens are lazy, lack commitment and give up easily if they're not the top of the class.
The report said Wellington's elite rugby players needed to interact more with college kids and give them something to aspire to. If the union had asked me, I could have told them it's because they think rugby sucks. Kids today have choices. They're also from all sorts of ethnic backgrounds, many of which don't have a tradition of playing rugby. Give the kids a break. Just because kids aren't playing rugby, doesn't mean they're losers.
