The Manchester Museum hit the
spotlights recently thanks to a mysterious spinning
statuette on display. The
statuette in question has been filmed turning 180° over the course of several days, seemingly of
its own accord. The story hit headlines all over the world, and news film crews
showed up for several days on the trot to get a piece of the action. I have
been working as a demonstrator at the Manchester Museum, which is part of the University of Manchester, for the past year or
so, and since the media storm over this unexplained phenomenon, all my students
who have visited to attend a science session have wanted to see the famous
statue and speculate as to the explanation. Several teachers have even
surreptitiously sidled up to me and quietly asked me what the trick is.
 |
| The Statuette showing us its prayer for beer and bread... |
The statuette, which by all accounts is
nothing special, has only recently started turning, since it was moved a couple
of metres from its previous position to a new display cabinet. Other objects in
the same cabinet don’t move, and it only spins during daylight hours.
You can see the time-lapse video of the
spinning statue and get more information here:
The University of Manchester’s resident
‘voice on all things physics’, Professor Brian Cox, quickly spoke out with his
logical explanation for this mystery motion. He cites differential friction,
between the stone surface and the glass of the shelf, which is causing the figurine
of Neb-Senu to vibrate and therefore rotate, when visitors walk through the
gallery. However, lots of tweeters, visitors and bloggers have asked how this
can explain the fact that the statue only rotates half a turn, and doesn’t move
in any other direction.
Regardless of what Brian Cox, or anyone
else thinks about the explanation, one thing’s for sure: the buzz around the
museum has been very tangible of over the recent week or two. The ‘mystery’ has
sparked intrigue among some of our young visitors who might have otherwise
rushed through the Ancient Worlds gallery to head to the more interesting
snakes and frogs in the vivarium, or the stuffed polar bear in the Living
Worlds gallery. It has probably also increased traffic through this jewel in
Manchester’s crown. While some people have claimed this must be a publicity
scam - if more people bother to go to the museum, isn’t that a good thing?
This got me thinking about the role of
superstition in science, and in our lives in general. Although I’m a staunch
scientist I’m also superstitious. It sounds contradictory, but I knock on wood
if I’m hopeful that what I’m talking about will come true, and I always pick up a penny off the floor
and hand it to whoever I’m with, since, as the saying goes, “Find a penny, pick
it up, all day long you’ll have good luck. If you give it to a friend, then
your luck will never end.”
Whilst I’ve never noticeably experienced
any improvements to my day when I find a penny on the floor, my rationale is
that at least the person I’m with ends up slightly richer than before, and no
harm was done. My boyfriend, who is the most frequent recipient of my
treasures, is used to me arriving home, rummaging in my pockets and retrieving
a grubby 1p for him, with an expectant grin on my face. He graciously thanks me
for the offering, and has learned not to ask what oily puddle it came from. On
a good day, the coin is silver, and on rare occasions sometimes my beady eyes
spot a £1 coin for him!
I decided to look into this issue of
superstition and science a little more deeply. Unsurprisingly, there’s very
little research out there into the crossover between scientific evidence and
superstitious beliefs. The two are understood to be polar opposites, and
proponents of one seem to be harsh critics of the other. There is, however, one
brilliant book by Bruce M. Hood called ‘The Science of Superstition’. Hood
begins the book by writing about houses which local authorities destroyed
following revelations that horrific murders took place inside them. These
unfortunate properties are notoriously difficult to sell at their actual value
and are targeted by twisted fanatics who want to catch a glimpse of the site of
such terrible events, and maybe even take a souvenir for themselves. I’d never
thought about this issue before, but I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a
house where victims had been tortured, killed and buried, and I don’t think
many people would.
To an extent we all value a connection
between an emotion and an inanimate object. Perhaps your childhood teddy holds
too many good memories to be thrown away. I’m sure that if da Vinci had dusted
off an old canvas and painted an EXACT copy of the Mona Lisa a few years after
the first, the duplicate - although identical in every respect - wouldn’t be
nearly as valuable as the original is today. There’s a restaurant in Cornwall
that sells food leftover by its famous patrons. Granted the sales are in aid of
charity, but isn’t that a little bit disgusting? Hood calls this connection to
objects, which we create in our minds, the ‘Supersense’. While on holiday in
Peru last year, I saw a surprising number of people (all of them tourists)
climbing onto or reaching to touch cordoned off Incan objects. Groups of
hippies can be found meditating on the stones of Sacsayhuaman on a daily basis;
guards must be employed to prevent wandering hands from touching the Intiwatana stone at Machu Picchu. It seems people love to
feel the ‘energy’ of these important objects.
 |
| Ed and me, looking excited about reaching Machu Picchu! |
There’s a great deal of superstition in the
scientific practices going on around me in the lab. Some colleagues will only
label tubes in a certain direction, or arrange equipment in a particular order.
It’s not uncommon to inherit a protocol someone else has optomised, only to
find that shaving out steps makes no difference to the outcome whatsoever.
Humans naturally place significance on
objects or behaviour. The very fact that the statuette in Manchester Museum was
found buried with a mummy makes it special and valuable. We wouldn’t have
museums displaying these artifacts if we didn’t care about their connections.
Just next to the Egyptology gallery is a room dedicated to objects relating to
excavations of settlements of ancient humans in Britain. Take it from me, as
someone who has pored over these cases for some time, most of the stuff on
display is little more than rocks. If you squint, you can just about see how
these inconspicuous lumps have been modified by ancient hands for a particular
purpose, but if we applied nothing but pure, Vulcan logic to these stones, we
wouldn’t care toffee for them. It’s all well and good for Prof Brian Cox to
dismiss the mystery of the spinning statue with an explanation, but personally,
I like that there are some things we can’t explain. As the French say, “C’est
pour faire parler les curieux” (‘it’s to
make the curious talk’). In other words, if the mystery can’t be reasoned
but it excites a discussion, then it’s worth it.
