Steven Thorpe

“I knew some tax collector called Steven. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.”
~ Oscar Wilde on Thorpedo.

Steven Thorpe (generally known as 'Thorpedo') is the ancient Walsallian God of Physics. Steven is rumored to be receiving a doctorate in the subject and is currently writing two books: Steven: The Life and Times of a National Treasure and Thorpisms: The Musings of Steven Thorpe. Caving into popular demand, Steven will be appearing next year on BBC One's This Is Your Life.

Steven Thorpe. My goodness, I think this man is a beatnik.

The Thorpedo, a Biography

The Thorpedo is known throughout the town of Walsall to be living disproof of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. It is common knowledge in Walsall that he created the universe.

“Everybody knows it was Thorpedo and his magic hands that made the world and that, innit?”

~ Princeton Journal of Science on Evolution

Thorpe read Natural Sciences at St John's College at the University of Cambridge, where he amazed the tutors with his intellect. By demonstrating a revolutionary grasp of the application of the laws of physics, Thorpe was able to complete the degree course in just under an hour, with two half hour breaks. His graduate thesis on "Thorpistic Temporal Relativity" was sent to the world's leading academics, and was received with great acclaim by all concerned. It has been translated into 60 languages and is available from a variety of suppliers. The University has agreed to present Thorpe with his doctorate once he explains just what it all means, and what the hell it has to do with physics.

Thorpisms

Thorpe is admired throughout the ancient town of Walsall for the pearls of wisdom he shares with the locals. These have become affectionately known as 'Thorpisms'. A few examples follow:

• "Be quiet and watch the Meerkats!"

• "Most of you did do well, but half of you didn't."

• "A new planet in the solar system has been discovered, named Xena. X-E-N-A, as in the warrior princess."

• "Have you heard of an Electrostatic Precipitator? No? You haven't lived!"

• "Welcome back to the wonderful world of Physics!"

• "It's my Disney Balloon. I want to give it to a small child and make their day."

• "Most of your hand is made up of water. And blood. Mainly blood, really."

• "Imagine the charge as a great, big ball of coulomb."

• "Don't you dare try to learn in my lesson!"

• "Aliens did not create the universe. If it did, it would have to be one hell of an alien. It would have to be the mother of all aliens."

• "It's easy to vaporise yourself..."

• "This equation is very important. It is your friend."

• "If you were hit by microwaves...You'll be alright, just hide under the bed."

• "I don't want to be Obi-Wan, I want to be Chewbacca!" (Proceeds to make a chewbacca snarl)

• "Sweet heavens of Murgatroid, what do you think you're doing?"

• "Let's see how the Tesla has enriched our lives."

• "You're gonna take down the results and plot the graph while you're doing the experiment, just like proper scientists."

• "Imagine, if you will, a field of wheat..."

• "They didn't say it would be like this at the interview."

• "I enrich the subject with vivid metaphor and all I ever get is abuse."

• "Failure is not funny."

• "It's like a veritable kaleidoscope condensed into one very pleasing whole"

• "A picture is worth ten words."

• "Do I teach at all? That is the question."

• "What am I? A performing monkey?"

• "A potential divider is simply two resistors in parallel; I kid you not."

• "Are you aware of the concept of Basketball?"

• "Demonstrate the crab walk please."

• "With a name like 'Sadique' she might have been one of them Europeans. Like French."

• "None of you have got any good pictures of me. Probably a good thing. I dunno."

• "My Words of Wisdom should never be allowed to be viewed by the public."

Theories and Other Works

Thorpe is responsible for one of the most important texts in the world of physics. His graduate thesis (Thorpistic Temporal Relativity) presents a groundbreaking and radical account of the theory of time dilation during physics lessons. He has written over 600 academic works including his famous graduate thesis, 3 symphonies and a clarinet concerto, and a series of horror novels under the pseudonym "Steven King".

Thorpistic Temporal Relativity

This, Thorpe's graduate thesis, was the culmination of five years of university research into time dilation in the presence of a boring object. He conjectures that every massive body emits a "tedium field", with strength and range proportional to the boringness of the body. The tedium field affects the flow of the time-space continuum such that time is effectively slowed within the area of the field. Experiments have shown that, in close proximity to a geologist, an egg can take up to four hours to soft boil.

Here we present the introduction to this magnum opus, as to reproduce any more would violate the copyright and cost us money.

“Every minute you spend not enjoying your life is a minute wasted. Don't waste time. Although, can you waste time? Time goes on forever, so even if you waste a bit, there's loads more to come. Too much. More than there's been already, and there's been a lot. So all I'm saying is there's a lot of time, but it's how you spend it. It's not a waste of time if you pack lots of stuff into it. Good stuff though. Don't pack bad stuff into time, that's a waste of time.”

~ Steven Thorpe

Trivia

The modern concept of Father Christmas was originally derived from Thorpe's exploits, when he mistakenly fell down a young child's chimney wearing nothing but a thong and bra, holding a bottle of whiskey. The name 'Father Christmas' is an anglicised version of the Walsallian dialect for 'Chimney Tramp'.

He is extremely scared of otters. This closely guarded secret fear was revealed to the public in June 2007 when Thorpe mistook his own hand for one of these furry and fun-loving mammals. He was later found hiding under a desk, rocking violently and murmuring "The otters are coming, the otters are coming" repeatedly.

The iPhone was in fact invented by Thorpe as part of a preliminary investigation for his postgraduate thesis. It is understood that the original purpose of the experiment was to determine the length of a metre rule. In the Thorpedo's own and great words:

“It just sort of happened.”

~ Steven Thorpe on the iPhone

Thorpe is a keen amateur chess fanatic, and once described himself as the best player never to represent St John's, Cambridge. He won his first major trophy at the tender age of 23 and has retained the title of Staffordshire Junior Champion ever since. However, he retired from professional chess in early 2007 as the British Chess Federation refused to believe that he was under 16.

He is a close colleague of Johnny Rockett.