The Formula Formula

London, UK. Scientists have finally uncovered one of the most elusive secrets of modern tabloid journalism: the so-called 'formula formula'.

The editor of 'Super News Celebrity Fun' explains: 'picture the scene: it's 11PM on a Monday. The final copy is due in 20 minutes and there's still half a page unfilled because the pullout 'grow your own clothes' ran under-length. Our only recourse is to ring some media-friendly pseudo-scientists for a 'madcap boffin formula' that renders some banal aspect of everyday life in nauseatingly pedantic mathematics. Recent 'successes' include 'duncability analysis' and the 'Brittany Spears Ratio'.

'Duncability' is an approximated count of the number of biscuits that can be 'dunked' into the unit cup of coffee before the unit research group runs out of funding. The formula is complicated but elegant:

Dunkability = mu / gamma + 2 * phi.

Where mu is the number of biscuits in a packet, gamma is the mass of the earth divided by its angular momentum and phi is very complicated, you probably wouldn't understand.

'The problem', sighed the editor, 'is that with this whole credit crunch thing going on it's a lot harder to get enough junk science to fill our pages'. It is for this reason that interest in the 'formula formula' has peaked.

The 'formula formula' is a formula that generates all manner of nonsense formulae (a meta-formula) without the need for a misguided research group.  The formula formula is imprecise and is more a recipe for creating further nonsense than an actual formula.  The most important aspect of the guide dictates that subject of the research must be able to be prefixed with 'formula for the perfect ...', e.g. 'toast, woman, haircut, etc.'. The second key ingredient is plenty of Greek letters, these summon up images of bearded men (and women) of science in white coats, lending the formula an air of credibility. If this isn't sufficient simply replace every instance of 'scientist' and of 'researcher' with 'boffin'.

The final ingredient is to ensure that you use language that completely alienates the reader from scientific enquiry for themselves. If you are to televise your formula ensure that the narrator is standing in front of a blackboard with as many wave equations as you can muster.   For larger 'feature' length articles  include a picture like the one to the right.

Next week: 'knit yourself thin'.