Emails to which I am utterly unable to think of an intelligent response (Series #19,766):

“Mr. Derbyshire—I was eating tangerines last night, and stumbled upon something I thought interesting. You were the only person I could think of who might answer this:
“A continuous tangerine peel, when laid flat, is the same shape as the f-hole of a violin. It strikes me as more than coincidental that the f-hole would be a “peeled sphere”; since it evolved over centuries, I assume it has certain optimum resonant properties, since nothing about a violin is solely decorative. If I stumbled stupidly onto something, it would follow that someone has already done extensive work on it. Are you aware of anything, or am I chasing a rabbit trail?”

[Derb] No clue. You might want to forward your findings to the Discovery Institute, though…