“The humourless,” says Clive James, “keen to be thought otherwise, love to laugh but need to be told when, so they are always glad when the clown dresses for the part.” So don’t write in. I didnae mean it.

That said, there have been times when I have been tempted to be pointlessly vulgar, insensitive or controversial just to get some kind of a reaction, or at least to receive proof that somebody had actually read the column. Such thoughts are behind me now, because I’ve had an e-mail. Admittedly it came from someone who already knew me, someone we’ll call Derek (because that’s his name).

Derek picked up on the idea that Standard grade physics should be taught via a series of top 10 lists. He liked it but suggested that I’d be struggling beyond numberthree when it came to the top 10 physicists.

Derek is an English teacher, which explains why he took the trouble to fire off such an insulting comment. English teachers, in general, hate physicists. This is because they know that we are just as clever as they are but had to work a lot harder at university. Worse, every teacher is a teacher of English but only a few of us have the first idea of what quantum mechanics is all about. (Judge for yourself whether this is more post-modernist irony.) English teachers console themselves that they are dealing with a subject that shapes human thought.

Galileo (number four on the list, so up yours, Derek - I did think of another one) worked out that the Earth was not at the centre of the universe. This was so subversive to then held notions that the Church threw him in the slammer. Is it a coincidence that abstraction in art and literature flourished at a time when relativistic and quantum theory was pulling apart established ideas in physics? Who is shaping human thought now?

Enough of this playground point-scoring. To be good at physics requires imagination and the ability to abstract. It is probably fair to say that my English teachers had at least as much to do with developing these skills as had my physics teachers. I don’t find that ironic, do you, Derek?

* Gregor Steele has only published his e-mail address in The TES Scotland and in classic car magazines, yet he still receives “spam” offering him natural alternatives to Viagra.