Dr Gaseous Ballcock of the Huddersfield Academy of Performing Seals claims to have developed what he calls the world's first 'perfect circle'.

This, he explains is a circle in which the ratio of the diameter to the circumference can be expressed as a whole number.

Circumference

"I wanted to invent a circle in which you could simply multiply the diameter by four in order to find the circumference," Dr Ballcock explained. "This does away with all that nasty 'pi' business, which I could never really get a handle on anyway. I don't wish to blow my own trumpet, but I think my circle is a vast improvement over the old model."

Dr Ballcock kicked off his career in experimental geometry with an ambitious attempt to flatten triangles to make them more user-friendly, an endeavour in which he failed spectacularly. Undeterred, he later enjoyed some success with a project to round off hexagons, and was a valuable member of the international team put together to stretch dodecahedrons.

Profound repercussions

His new work on circles will have profound repercussions in a number of important areas, most notably engineering, rocketry and plumbing. But Dr Ballcock himself is far more excited about a quite different application.

"It's going to completely change the way we look at doughnuts," he told us animatedly. "They're going to be bigger, fatter and have more jam in them. Personally, I can't wait."