Cathode to a Doughnut

Zeta is Greek to most people. Competitors were therefore asked to compose• an in baffled praise of the new contrivance. ode To judge from the entries, Zeta is to do with six things : neutrons, water, heat, torus, deu- terium and doughnuts. The competition might just as well have asked for verse which included these six words, for they cropped up with unfailing regularity in a variety of odes stretching from parodies of Pindar and Milton to pastiche of Shelley and Wordsworth.

Competitors clearly enjoyed themselves. Gloria Prince's 'anode' was the best of those which made fun of the Greek alphabet, although Gideon Crawle scored a good opening with his arresting `Alpha moment !' Barbara Smoker was the most succinct of those who attempted a description : It is not easy to explain,

But Zeta's a thermo-nuclear thing For burning water (sea or rain) In an aluminium ring.

A. Robin Davis was the only competitor to sub- mit his entry in visual form, with a main (or torus) ode reading clockwise, with subsidiary (or coudenser chorus) verses in the middle. Several odes concluded with a neat twist, such as C. W. Lyall's : 0 glad-eyed Goddess, please don't think it's rot For bashful me to say you're jolly hot.

But while several introduced the element of heat, James S. Fidgen was the most practical :

But, Cockcroft. one thing puzzles I : Could you use her to bake a pie?

What urged J. E. Sharp to begin thus?

0! for a Muse of technological fire,

Words of enormous length and meaning plain, That I, mere mortal man, might so aspire To render praise in more explicit vein To you, 0 symbol of the alphabet.. . .

The Muse descended so obligingly that adjudi- cation had to proceed on the strictest draconian principles. Some prize-worthy verses were re- jected for not containing enough bafflement, and, with so many good items, lines which were not exactly odes were inevitably ruled out. This still ,left a dozen felicitous entries which scored the coveted honour of an alpha rating. I accordingly recommend that the prize money, when converted from drachmae and oboloi, be awarded as follows: £2 6s. 8d. to J. A. Lindon, £1 13s. 4d. to Eileen Tulloch, £1 5s. to John Vallins and £1 Is. to J. Sweetman. G. J. Blundell's entry, which would have won a prize if he had been more baffled, is also printed. Honourable mentions to Ann East- gate, D. H. Martin, H. A. C. Evans, R. Kennard Davis, Vera Telfer and James S. Fidgen.

PRIZES

(J. A. LINDON)

O Zeta, defeater, what do I know of you?

How can I treat of the heat of the flow of you?

How can I speak of the peak of the heat

In the torus before us, the fabulous feat, Mighty Metro-Vick trick of five million degrees With a flash and a crash in a moment of flame, When I can't tell a jaw from a joule to my shame,

When a which and a watt are so nearly the same,

When of pinch it's a cinch I know barely the name, And plasma's as much a phantasma as these?

0 Zeta, supreme superheater of ions In the toils of your coils that they tell us are try-onsl

What warmer transformer was ever discharged?

And now they avow you will soon be enlarged!

How can I be odic, melodic or lyrical, Faced with a chaste and electrical miracle?

Zeta? I'd meet her and still be satirical, Chance a romance and be not panegyrical- Though poets know it's concerned with deuterium, How dhch allusion to fusion can weary 'em!

(EILEEN TULLOCH)

Oh, this Zeta is a wonderful invention, As the readers of our papers will agree! The contraption is beyond my comprehension, But appears to have connections with the sea. Did they analyse the whole of the Atlantic To locate whatever chemicals they sought? The extent of their achievement's so gigantic

That imagination boggles at the thought! I'm bewildered by the complicated chatter Of the fusions and the neutrons that abound, While deuterium, to me, is just a matter

That the clever little Zeta-thing has found! Though my scientific learning's superficial,

I'm convinced they'll find a suitable receipt -By production of a sun that's artificial- To eclipse, the Sputniks' marvels by her feat!

(JOHN VALLINS)

Thou late-discovered source of energy (The foster-child of Harwell's overtime), How can the baffled Muses sing of thee? With thermo-scansion or with nuclear rhyme?

Perhaps the Metaphysic's mood were best, Discovery to prompt conceit or pun. Donne might from thee have wrenched a tortured jest, Thy heat new-got, new-Pinched from the Sun.

'0 Torus, ring-shaped vessel,' might I cry, '0 Axial winding'-sounds to conjure with; But yet, 0 Thonemann; but yet, 0 Fry, To match thy feat my poem would lack pith.

I now, 0 Dr. Thompson, as you see, Have failed to spark in stanzas one to three. So I, for number four, will change the metre, Rejoicing that you called the damn thing Zeta, Which rhymes with what it really is, a heater.

(J. SWEETMAN)

What mean artistic man can learn To understand the fires that burn In your toroidal heart?

The kindly physicists explain In simple words, but all in vain, The secrets of their art.

The pinch effect is rather fine, It keeps the atoms in a line, And will not let them roam. A vacuum surrounds the place, Just like a patch of outer space, To make them feel at home.

Conceive a doughnut filled with gas

(An image plain to' any ass), That science calls a torus. We then apply electric force, Which splits these atoms and, of course, They throw out neutrons for us.

COMMENDED (G. J. BLUNDELL)

An alpha plus, 0 all mysterious Zeta- Our

Greek exhausted, may we call you Zed7-

For you who, to a high degree, Will, in the course of decades, make life sweeter (So it is said) For our more fortunate posterity! Hail, wise machine Who will put harness on the wild sea-horses, And turn them to more useful courses Upon the domestic scene!

We stand in awe of your potential greatness, We who have human, not electric, brains.

Grow not, we beg, too hot in your irateness At our weak comprehension! It remains

But to assure you how we loudly, laud you,

And applaud you. Pray, sir or madam, try to understand If we decline to shake you by the hand. We do not-please forgive us-fathom which is Precisely which among your host of switches.