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March 28, 2024

Mandy Nolan’s Soap Box: Sock Theory

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odd-socks

I have 132 odd socks. Each week the count goes up. I gather them in a basket in my laundry in the hope that one day they will be re-united with their lost sock mates. The basket of lost socks was started as a place of hope, but now after years of hanging onto partnerless socks I realise that for many of my foot-based friends that it’s become time to declare many of them a ‘cold case’. There is no hope. The lost sock isn’t coming back. It’s gone.

This is not because of carelessness or an inconsistent methodology. I am persistent and rigorous in my management of displaced socks. Lone socks are never returned to the sock drawer. They are shelved in a lost-sock basket awaiting reunion. Once a week I sit cross-legged on the carpet and organise a lineup. Sadly, the prospects aren’t good. I only manage to achieve about a five per cent hook-up rate. And so the mountain of disassociated socks continues to grow.

This has caused me to seriously ponder one of the most common domestic existential crises. This is a shared phenomenon. Something so mundane we have lost sight of the magic. So let’s ask that question one more time, but open our minds to the vastness of possibility. Where do socks go? Lost socks can’t all be lost. They must still exist somewhere. Is there a sock-shaped hole in the universe? You may think this is insane. But it’s eminently more sensible than David ‘Avocado instead of a Brain’ Wolfe’s declaration that gravity is a toxin and that Earth is flat. I suspect his socks leave him in disgust all the time. (Perhaps the only way out is to commit sock suicide in the nutribullet.)

All socks go missing. That is a fact. You don’t need a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy to prove that. You just need a washing machine. Now I accept that there is some explainable sock loss. Perhaps one is dropped, balled up and tucked in the shoe on the way from the soccer field to the car. Perhaps one is lodged in the dark crevice of the dryer. There may be a sock in the school bag. Lost property. One under your bed. Up your bum.

Even if we were to electronically track these socks I think it would still only account for a very small percentage and still leave us with an alarming number of unaccounted-for socks. These socks still exist. But not here. These socks cause me to wonder if it’s in fact not misplacement at all, just ‘placement’ somewhere else. What if socks aren’t actually lost at all? Just existing in another dimension. Our socks have become interdimensional time travellers. I mean, didn’t that astronaut say ‘one small step for man’? And what do you wear while making that small step? A sock.

What if our socks were time travelling without us? String Theory provides the answer. The point-like particles of physics aren’t points at all. String Theory suggests they are one-dimensional strings propagating through space. In string theory we don’t just have the four dimensions of height, width, length and Einstein’s crack at explaining spacetime. In string theory we have up to ten dimensions. That’s right. There are currently six dimensions I haven’t yet searched for missing socks. These universes co-exist somewhere along the string, perhaps a moment behind, or a moment after exactly where you are right now. Somewhere in another dimension I haven’t even bought the sock yet, so not only is it not lost, it doesn’t yet exist. So the question posed in multi-dimensional sock time is: ‘Can I lose something that doesn’t yet exist?’ Or perhaps, an even more complex question: ‘Can I find something I haven’t yet lost?’

I am wondering whether what we are talking about here is S-Duality. (S being for Sock I think.) This is where two seemingly different physical systems turn out to be equivalent in a non-trivial way. Think about it. Socks are the manifestation of duality. They come in twos. They are identical. Even a one-legged man must purchase two socks before he wears just one.

I have written to Dr Brian Greene, the world-renowned particle physicist and cosmologist who is striving to solve the most pertinent riddle of our time: String Theory. You see, while it hasn’t been disproven, it still hasn’t been proven. The lost-sock phenomenon could in fact be the clue. Dr Greene is perplexing about this cosmic riddle but the answer is right under his nose. On his foot. His sock. I have worked it out. A housewife’s guide to the galaxy. Sock Theory. Once we nail that we save the world. And we get our socks back.

 


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7 COMMENTS

  1. Don’t rip on David Wolfe!… One of his very claims (found on Wiki of course) clearly explains what happens to the socks…. Mushrooms (a fungi) have an “advanced intelligence and consciousness” and mushroom spores can “levitate off the planet”… It doesn’t take long for all those poor lost unwashed socks to fester and develop fungi of their own..and so the socks are soon carried off to the stars under the winds of the levitating mushroom spores…. the science is all there…. This could unveil the answer to space travel. Colonising new planets may be closer to reality than ever before…. as said before .. one small step .. wearing a sock

  2. Mandy, you are clearly either not living in Byron Shire or else you haven’t become a”local” yet! We don’t wear socks in Byron, we wear thongs! Not the kind that sneak up your crack and look like you’re not wearing panties. No! The kind that hold on between your toes (the big one and it’s immediate neighbour) with a flat bit on the bottom. If you try to get a little more localised you’ll find that at the most you only need two pairs of socks. The need to be a solar system waste dumper will disappear. Who knows, in time you may even become a true local and stop wearing shoes of any kind!

  3. I have bought a new Washing machine that is allergic to socks and does not eat them…….I think I will start a new fashion of wearing ODD socks….problem solved.

  4. Mandy you have tackled one of life’s most profound mysteries. I’ve always been mystified about my own SWOP (Socks Without Partners) club. Insightful and hilarious as ever.

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