Social isolation and quarantine are fundamental measures to face the global crisis caused by COVID-19, however, it is undeniable that this new way of life has not been something easy for many people to adopt.
While some have trouble understanding that they have to stay home, others try to cope with the situation by cooking, playing games or watching series and movies. All while several are using up these days taking virtual classes.
Daniel Reardon has decided that his days spent at home have a greater purpose. His astrophysicist degree had led him to a higher meaning, discover how to stop the coronavirus.
This 27-year-old astrophysicist is dedicated to studying pulsars and gravitational waves as part of the University of Melbourne research team. But during these days marked by COVID-19 he was bored and found nothing better than to start experimenting to create a device that could eventually serve to prevent the spread of this disease.
In theory, Reardon’s idea was good, according to The Guardian Australia, the astrophysicist wanted to create a device that would alert people when they were about to touch their faces. After all, this is an almost instantaneous reflection for many, but in the context of this pandemic, it is incredibly crucial to avoid touching our faces as a preventive measure against the virus.
Astrophysicist Daniel Reardon was testing out a DIY solution for COVID-19 transmission — a necklace that he hoped would buzz whenever the user put their hands near their face. Unfortunately, the experiment didn't go as planned. https://t.co/sOCrIJj6rL pic.twitter.com/ATPoUu4WXB
— leapsmag (@leapsmag) April 1, 2020
However, what seemed like a promising theory only brought Reardon trouble after his failed undertaking.
According to his own account, due to his lack of experience building circuits, the researcher ended up making a device that did the opposite of his initial idea and quickly had to terminate his mission.
“I have some electronic equipment but really no experience or expertise in building circuits or things,” explained the mad scientist.
But the boredom was not gone and Reardon began toying with the magnets that were part of his experiment.
“After scrapping that idea, I was still a bit bored, playing with the magnets. It’s the same logic as clipping pegs to your ears – I clipped them to my earlobes and then clipped them to my nostril and things went downhill pretty quickly when I clipped the magnets to my other nostril,” he said.
It turns out that Reardon had the brilliant idea to put two magnets inside his nostrils and two outside. Why is this a good idea you might ask? Well it wasn’t. When he pulled out the outer magnets, the inner magnets got stuck.
Obviously the astrophysicist tried to get them out, searched the internet for advice and decided that it was best to try more magnets to solve his problem. However, this only made it worse.
“After struggling for 20 minutes, I decided to Google the problem and found an article about an 11-year-old boy who had the same problem. The solution in that was more magnets. To put on the outside to offset the pull from the ones inside,” he clarified.
“As I was pulling downwards to try and remove the magnets, they clipped on to each other and I lost my grip. And those two magnets ended up in my left nostril while the other one was in my right. At this point I ran out of magnets, ” Reardon unintelligently deduced.
With several magnets already in his nose, Reardon had no choice but to listen to his wife and head to the emergency room where she worked.
In that place two doctors were in charge of applying anesthesia and manually removing the magnets. All after laughing a little at the “current” situation.
“The doctors thought it was quite funny, making comments like ‘This is an injury due to self-isolation and boredom.’”Reardon told.
Fortunately for this astrophysicist, everything ended well, but according to his own account, this incident could have had greater consequences.
In conversation with The Guardian Australia, Reardon said that when doctors removed three of the four magnets that were in his nose, the fourth went down to his throat. Fortunately, the scientist was able to catch it out, avoiding further complications for him and the doctors.
Astrophysicist gets magnets stuck up nose while inventing #coronavirus device
— Peter Cribbett (@PCribbett) March 30, 2020
Australian Dr Daniel Reardon ended up in hospital after inserting magnets in his nostrils while building a necklace that warns you when you touch your face https://t.co/eQWZQNvUxh pic.twitter.com/Ac5CRoQqxH
Finally, despite the fact that he will probably have to continue to spend boring days in quarantine, Reardon said that he no longer intends to make any more inventions with magnets in his home. Will he ever live this up? Nobody “nose.”
