Affe #224

About Affe mit Waffe Deprecated

Louis Breguenon was not amused – he had been stood up again. Whether on purpose or not, he didn't know yet. But fact was that he had been standing under the mentioned palm tree for at least an hour, waiting. He was fed up with all the monkeys and their sense of time, or rather the lack of it.

Louis himself took time very seriously. After all, he had a reputation to lose as the inventor of the pineapple-coconut sundial. The principle was simple: A pineapple was set up and time was determined by its shadow. If the shadow of the pineapple was longer than three coconuts in the morning, it was time for breakfast, if the shadow was smaller than two coconuts at noon, it was time for lunch, and if the shadow was longer than three coconuts again in the evening, it was time for dinner. However, he had to admit that the measurement could sometimes be inaccurate and therefore the interpretation could depend heavily on the individual user. For this reason, in order to prevent incorrect use of the clock, some monkeys made breakfast, lunch and dinner several times to be on the safe side. Common sources of error were, for example, when it was cloudy and no shadow was visible, the wind blew the pineapple away, or when the pineapple was eaten out of hunger. The operating instructions for the "Breguenon Clock" warned against the last point in particular – a pineapple-coconut sundial simply didn't work without the pineapple.

Louis had always been inventive. Even as an apprentice apeling, he amazed his master with his talent and intelligence. To further his education, he took evening courses in mathematics at the Collège Macaquarin, where they taught the "Hourly Coconut Method". This consisted of lighting a standardized coconut shell, which burned up within an hour. This procedure was initially tested with other fruits, but it turned out that with bananas, these always disappeared before even a quarter of an hour had passed. While that was a good way to measure 15 minutes, the rate of consumption of bananas over the course of a day really added up. In the end, the inventors settled on something inedible, but the "15-minute Banana Method" led to the realization that flambéed bananas were delicious.

In addition to timekeeping, the school also taught subjects like measuring temperature using Doucbear's law. It stated the relationship between air temperature and the rate at which crickets chirp – published in an article entitled "The Cricket as a Thermometer". The method was to count the number of chirps in a minute, subtract 40, divide the result by 4, and then add 50. The result was the temperature in Fahrenheit. The procedure could be speeded up by simplifying the formula and counting the number of chirps generated in 15 seconds. It also worked best with the snow tree cricket, since the chirping of the more common field crickets did not correlate as reliably with temperature. However, the monkey lecturers also cited this as a simple example of where a mathematical model could fail: Applying algebra to the equation would lead to the conclusion that according to the model at 1000 degrees Celsius, which was around 1800 degrees Fahrenheit, crickets should be chirping at 6,970 chirps per minute, which would be around 116 chirps per second. The crucial factor in this mathematical model was the temperature range in which crickets lived. Therefore, in reality, the actual number of chirps would be zero since no known crickets would be alive at that temperature.

Louis was relieved not to have to use crickets for his measurements. Coconut shells were much easier to handle and store. Nevertheless, he couldn't get the crickets out of his head, or the fact of the acoustic component. Perhaps he should invent a timekeeping device that emitted a warning tone after a specified time had elapsed. Something that was easily understood and, at best, always available to all primates. With that train of thought, he fell into deep brooding, forgetting that he was still waiting under the palm tree.

A month later, Louis Breguenon patented the "Breguenon Belly Timer". The process was as simple as it was effective: After eating five standardized "Breguenon Bananas", there was an individual amount of time after which the stomach started growling again. Of course, for the timer to function properly, the supply of standardized bananas must not run out, which had a good side effect on customer loyalty.

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