New Global Office of Molecular Symmetry Orders a Mirror Twin for Every Object on Earth
Inspired by this year's Chemistry Nobel, regulators have decided that if life leans one way, manufacturing should simply lean the other.
Within hours of the Nobel announcement, a newly formed body calling itself the Office of Molecular Symmetry declared that humanity could no longer tolerate living inside a universe with a favorite hand. Its first directive requires that every object manufactured from this point forward — forks, doorknobs, umbrellas, the office's own letterhead — be produced alongside an exact mirror-image counterpart, to be stored separately in case nature changes its mind.
A spokesperson for the office, who declined to specify which hand they were speaking from, explained the reasoning in a brief statement: "We did not win the Nobel Prize, but we read about it, and that felt like enough to act." The office's second directive, issued shortly after the first, rescinded the first directive and replaced it with a mirror-image version of itself, which it says is simply good practice.
Early compliance has been uneven. A regional hardware distributor reported that its entire warehouse of wrenches is now technically two warehouses, doubling in content but not, regrettably, in floor space. A separate committee has been convened to determine whether the committee itself requires a mirror-image twin, and if so, which one gets to keep the original name.
The office insists this is only the beginning. Plans are reportedly underway to review left-handed scissors, the alphabet, and the general direction in which clocks run, all in the name of finishing what the chemists started.