In the recent foray into the physics of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, there was a comment on Chad’s post which mentioned Jasper Fforde’s The Fourth Bear. I had read the first book in the series, so I picked this one up a few weeks ago, and since this is the Jell-0 of reading material — always room for it — I finished it while atomic physics was still leaking out of my ears.

It’s good. Detective Inspector Jack Spratt is in charge of the Nursery Crimes Division, responsible for investigating any crimes involving anthropomorphized animals or persons of dubious reality from works of fiction, especially nursery rhymes. Vaguely reminiscent of Douglas Adams in terms of zanyness, but it all makes some weird sort of sense. As promised, the thermodynamics of the three bowls of porridge (a quasi-controlled substance, permissible only in rationed amounts) gives Jack a major clue to solve the intertwined mysteries in the book. There is another physics nit, though. It’s a spoiler, though, so stop reading if you plan on reading the book. Continued below the fold.

There’s a point at which the cucumbers are going critical and exploding from a “thermocuclear reaction,” but it’s based solely on mass. Criticality is a matter of mass and geometry, and the curve of the cucumber is one thing that is discussed in the competitive cucumber growing dialogue. The cucumber could theoretically have been disarmed by chopping it up, but this wasn’t considered as the action unfolded.