The observation that to many people Bobby Davro is perceived as funny and the consequences thereof for our knowledge of physics

Professor Gareth Morgan was just plain Gareth Morgan when he made the observation that was to turn him into the iconic scientist of his day and to change our understanding of physics forever.

At the time, Gareth was a postgraduate student at Swansea University where, in addition to his studies, he was closely involved in a number of student union clubs and activities, ranging from the Physics Soc to the Big Sock Soc (Professor Morgan had, his biography tells us, size 14 feet).

Gareth also wrote for the arts section of the student newspaper, Bad Press. He liked to litter his reviews with hardcore physics, as a result of which he’d developed a cult following amongst both science students and a significant section of the arts community.

That night he had gone to the Grand Theatre to see and up and coming local comedian who had been given a support slot to one time washed up 80s comic Bobby Davro. The local comic was keen, though not especially funny on stage, but he was funnier and entertaining backstage with a couple of beers inside him and Morgan found that he gave good interview. He was also a physics graduate himself, which resulted in an article in the next week’s Bad Press that was almost incomprehensible to the majority of its readers. The aspirant comic reportedly had a copy of the review framed on his wall for years afterwards.

The interview finished whilst Bobby Davro was still performing and Gareth decided to watch the last half hour of his show. He wasn’t at all surprised to find that Bobby Davro wasn't funny, having seen him previously on TV. However, he was surprised to find that the audience actually laughed throughout the show. For all his genius Morgan could not find any conceivable way in which Bobby Davro could be interpreted as funny. He was bemused.

Even Bobby Davro himself acknowledged the mystery in his autobiography. “I don’t understand my success,” he said, “sometimes I think I’m the least funny person alive.”

Morgan concurred with this view, yet as an empirical scientist couldn’t overlook the evidence of his own eyes and ears. People did actually find Bobby Davro funny.

It had long been understood that human perception was based upon imperfect comprehension of the physical reality. At a particle level ‘solid’ objects are anything but solid, and Morgan himself was colourblind and couldn’t tell the difference between green and red. The whole of our knowledge is based upon flawed sensory experience and the interpretation of these by our equally flawed brains.

However, Morgan realised that the phenomenon of people finding Bobby Davro funny went beyond these normal variances in taste and perception and suggested a fundamental flaw in our understanding.

Morgan began to experiment on Davro fans using the brainscan technology the University shared with the nearby Singleton Hospital. As he explained in his lecture to the Royal Society several years later, the slow reactions in the brains of the Davro fans had led to a startling revelation, that their brain cells behaved as if they were many millions of miles apart from each other, 0.13 light years to be precise, but bound together in their brains by some unknown force, thus giving the appearance of cohesion, albeit along with great slowness of mind.

Thus Morgan’s experiments had led him inexpertly to a previously unknown fifth fundamental force, which Morgan christened the Davro.

These conclusions showed that all previous assumptions and findings about the universe were fundamentally false and flawed, the Davro had the power to undermine all other forces.

Before the discovery of the Davro, science had concluded that it would be impossible to explore other galaxies, as it would take several billion years to reach even the nearest galaxy. Morgan’s Davro force demonstrated that the universe could be compressed together and led to technology that made it possible to travel intergalactic distances in the time it had previously taken to travel from London to Leeds. It made intergalactic travel the routine it has become for billions of today’s commuters.

However, in spite of all of these subsequent advances in scientific understanding, on problem remains unresolved. Nobody has yet managed to formulate a convincing explanation as to why anybody should find Bobby Davro funny. It remains a mystery.