HOW THE DIMENSIONLESS M/O NUMBER WAS INVENTED

One morning, John Wilson called a meeting at New Mexico Tech for all people involved in DOE Subsurface Program research. I think there were about five or six of us, including Allan. He waltzed in carrying a plate of muffins, and put it on the conference table. At first, I was a little puzzled. I knew that Allan had been diagnosed with celiac disease the previous year, and could not tolerate wheat. Evidently, he had discovered that other grain flours baked up almost as well as wheat, and had gone about setting up some sort of experimental research laboratory in his kitchen. After several days of intense effort, he had been able to calculate the optimal ratio of millet-to-oat flour for baking the ideal wheat-free muffin. I suppose, like any good mathematician, he wanted independent verification of his conclusions.

That's where we came in. Several of us dutifully took a muffin and bit into it, expecting the worst. But to my surprise, it tasted as good as any muffin made with wheat. I think I ate three of them by the time the meeting ended.

To this day, I can still picture Allan decked out in one of Peggy's frilly aprons, flours and eggs caked in his eyebrows and hair, whizzing maniacally around his kitchen and searching for that optimal ratio of millet to oat (which, by the way, is now widely hailed as the dimensionless M/O number).