Quantum Immortality and Nani's socks

Fascinated by the article in the Scientific American blog which disproves the existence of the soul by the use of a wave equation. The argument being that there must be some mathematical function that involves the soul if the soul is to be a repository of memory, personality and what have you after physical death. Fascinating from a historical point of view, at least, as it's the old "how do you weigh a soul" theory all over again. And interesting in that if your belief is that physics can measure everything that is to do with physics, then subject to Uncertainty (and even that has its limits, although we don't know what they are) then I'd totally agree.

Of course, the belief that the soul hangs around after death is in any case not a very Judaeo-Christian belief, in that the Biblical belief is that when you're dead you're dead - and the resurrection, not some floating disembodied consciousness, is what defeats death. But I look forward to the next bash in this series, when they attempt to include hubris and futility as part of a wave equation and work out how they inter-relate with mass and energy.

Which brings me onto the far more important question of Nani's socks.  As part of the BBC's ongoing programme to relativize religion - simultaneously trying to downgrade it while not offending anyone - we have this article, hooked onto the European Champions' League final, commenting on the significance of faith in sport. Apparently if you look carefully at Lionel Messi you may catch him crossing himself - while Javier Hernandez (pronounced "Chícharito") has even been known to pray. To the BBC this is a part of that wide world of oddity called faith - the customs of strange Latin persons, no doubt. And by the end of the article it is reduced down to about the same importance as Nani's socks.

But it's Nani's socks rather than the article itself that worry me - that kind of reporting from the BBC being par for the course. But this is important news. "Nani, the Manchester United winger, plays with his socks the wrong way round."

What on earth do they mean by this? Do they mean that Nani has the heels of his socks on the front of his ankle? If so, as good luck routines go it sounds terribly counter-productive, as it must interfere with him kicking the ball. Or are Man United socks chiral - that is, there is a left and a right sock? And if this is the case, does this non-interchangeability relate to their shape, or just to Man Utd having different emblems on different sides  - with an "inside" and an "outside" according to whether they carry the player's number on one side?

For myself, I will content myself with the old chemical fact that chiral molecules rotate polarized light in different directions.  Because I reckon that means that next time Man United play Liverpool, we merely have to beam strongly polarized light onto the game and  Nani will run straight off the pitch. And also reflect that my other team, Rushden and Diamonds, would probably have suffered less in their affairs were it not for some of their players' habit of putting their boots on the wrong feet, due to not having pairs consisting entirely of left ones.

For the record, this evening we will be praying that Chicarito wins. And we will also be praying for the rest of his team to get heavily beaten by Barcelona.