Ten scientific facts you didn't realised applied to the Fringe

Lieven Scheire presents a geek's guide to Edinburgh

1. Edinburgh is a three-dimensional city

This might sound obvious, but unlike most cities Edinburgh has the tendency to confront you with it's three-dimensionality, especially when you are a Fringe-tourist trying to navigate your way to the next show on a two-dimensional map. Every now and then you will end up at the right spot on the map, only to see that the street you need to be in is a few meters below you. You have found the right x and y coordinates but find yourself at the wrong z-value. That's just Euclidian geometry laughing in your face. What you need is a jetpack.

2. At the Fringe you can see four-dimensional comedy shows

There are a lot of grammar nazis out there, whom I try not to piss off too often, but allow me to be a science nazi every now and then. When I see a movie advertised as a ‘3D movie’ I sadly shake my head and think: ‘Every movie is a 3D-movie’. Our universe consists of three space dimensions and one time dimension. A movie screen is a two-dimensional plane. But a movie... moves. In time. So it is a three-dimensional thing. A 2D movie is just a photograph. The movies they call 3D are actually 4D, three space dimensions and one time dimension. Just like most shows at The Fringe. Apart from the occasional living sculpture that is... they are 3D.

3. Nobody knows why we laugh

Not all scientific mysteries are subatomic or cosmological. Among the more mundane unsolved problems: nobody knows why ice is so slippery; why we yawn; why lukewarm water freezes faster than cold water; and nobody knows why we laugh. Laughing is very familiar to us, but it is an odd thing when you try to think about it objectively. Why would a primate like us spontaneously start making loud hiccuping noises and release happy hormones in his bloodstream when he sees a cat fall graciously off the couch, or when a person on a stage shares an unexpected observation about a politician? Nobody knows.

4. Nobody knows what comedy really is

Apart from the strange physical phenomenon of laughter; there is another mystery: what is this thing we call ‘a joke’? There are many theories, and it has puzzled biologists, psychologists and philosophers for centuries. Some think it expresses a short moment in which we feel superior. That would explain slapstick. Others say it is a sign to other people saying ‘I know this is not real’. Gorillas make laughing noises when they play-fight, to show others that it is not a real fight.

But for every theory of comedy you can always think of a joke that makes people laugh but doesn't fit the theory. There's a lot of joke-data to be collected at the Fringe. Why not join forces this year and solve this problem once and for all.

5. The Ebert test could cost many comedians their jobs

You have probably heard of the Turing test, which tries to determine whether a computer is ‘intelligent’. It goes like this: a human judge has a written conversation with two partners that he cannot see. One of them is human, and the other is a computer. If, after the conversations, the judge can't tell which one was the human and which one was the computer, then this computer has passed the Turing test. There is a popular T-shirt amongst IT-nerds saying ‘I failed the Turing test.’

A similar thing is the Ebert test: when software engineers succeed in writing text-to-speech software that can tell a joke that makes people laugh, then this software has passed the Ebert test. Who knows, maybe one day most performers at the Fringe will be computers? Let's start by making a T-shirt for comedians saying ‘I failed the Ebert test.’

6. It rains on Titan too

Yes, there will be rain. This is still Scotland. But there's always the comforting thought: oh, well, it rains on Titan too. Titan is a moon of the planet Saturn, and one of the most exciting places in our solar system. It has water and an atmosphere. It has clouds, rain, thunderstorms, oceans, rivers, lakes, mainland and mountains. A minor setback is the local temperature: -180° Celcius. But how can there be rivers when it’s that freezing? The rivers, oceans, rain and atmosphere consist of liquid methane. The solid frozen water makes up the mainland and the mountains. I guess Scotland's climate and environment are rather friendly after all.

7. Nobody knows why we yawn

While laughter is the scientific mystery that a comedian is probably after, there is another one that they will want to avoid: yawning. That's right: nobody knows why we yawn.

There have been many theories in the past, but they have all been at least partially discarded. Tiredness, an extra intake of oxygen, cooling down the brain... None of these theories can completely explain the phenomenon.

Two things we do know: yes, the yawn frequency increases when we're bored. So no excuses there for the performing comedian. And yes, yawning is contagious in humans. Seeing someone yawn can make you yawn. Reading about yawning can also make you yawn. Go ahead. Have a good satisfying yawn. My pleasure.

If a person in your audience yawns, you can always try to make him or her disliked by the rest of the crowd. Yawning is more contagious when you like the original yawner. Or you can turn the audience into red-footed tortoises, because then you're safe, according to the study No Evidence of Contagious Yawning In The Red-Footed Tortoise; winner of the 2011 Ig-Nobel Prize in Psychology.

8. The computer in your pocket is more powerful than the one that landed Apollo on the moon

To find your way through the four-dimensional jungle of venues and time slots, you will most probably use your smartphone and a few apps. If you can't even get to your destination with the help of the loyal square servant in your pocket, then here's an embarrassing thought: your smartphone has more computing power than the computer that guided the NASA missions to the moon. The moon is 400,000km away. You should be able to deal with a few hundred metres here.

9. CERN made your life easier at the Fringe. They invented the world wide web

When you are online looking for reviews or booking tickets, thank the nerds at CERN for inventing the world wide web. More specifically Tim Berners-Lee and his Belgian supervisor Robert Cailliau. Here's how to recognise a Belgian nerd: ask them who invented the world wide web. If they say ‘Tim Berners-Lee’, they're probably not Belgian. If they say ‘Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau’, they're most probably Belgian.

Here's another one: ‘Who predicted the Higgs boson?’ The Belgian answer will be: ‘Peter Higgs and Belgian professors Englert and Brout.’ Because it's true. And as a Belgian you have to work with what you've got.

10. CERN made your life easier at the Fringe. They invented the touch screen.

Another device you will probably be using to find your way through the festival is the touch screen. And once again thank the nerds. It was invented at CERN. Why did they invent it? Because their complicated machines had too many buttons and knobs. Such a nuisance. Better replace it with something compact and versatile like a touchscreen.

The fact that a touchscreen did not exist is of course only a minor setback for a team of brilliant nerds. You simply invent it, and then carry on smashing protons together while the rest of the world discovers and relishes your revolutionary invention. Mainly to catapult little annoyed birds at green pigs, but still.