Quasel
noun · plural: Quasels
Acronym: QUantum-mechanically ASymmetrical ELastoid
(as you would have guessed)
A Quasel is an irregular, smooth, edgeless, three-dimensional entity of variable material and indeterminate intent. Quasels live in the ether surrounding us and are plentiful, but very hard to spot. So far, only one human is known to be able to visually detect them (see: Quasels!). Ordinary homo sapiens must therefore rely on artistic representations. Quasels can look as though made from stone, wood or metal or many other things. Whether they genuinely consist of these materials or merely adopt their appearance for their own enjoyment remains a matter of deep research.
Quasels appear remarkably malleable. They can be compact or spread out. They can be tiny or gigantic. While still images of them look like they are frozen, don't be fooled. In reality, Quasels are not static: they permanently shape-shift; and any depiction merely captures a transient Quasel moment.
Quasels have a clear outline, no corners, no sharp points, and an aesthetic tendency that many observers find inexplicably pleasing. All Quasels possess eyes (see: Eyes?)—at least one, but an upper limit doesn't appear to exist. These are not used for seeing but for interlinking: with other Quasels, with themselves, and more often than not in arrangements that make it surprisingly difficult to determine either the number of Quasels or the number of eyes involved. This ambiguity has made Quasels a favourite research subject among curious, playful, and statistically overconfident humans.
Quasels, by nature, are equipped with quite limited brain capacity and their emotional spectrum is astonishingly narrow. All they know is joy. Hence they are entirely unable to even try and evoke any other emotion in the beholder, or convey a hidden message. All Quasels are creatures of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, animals, body parts, objects or entanglements, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Apart from existing, interlinking, enjoying themselves and resisting accurate counting, Quasels do nothing.
Although Quasels are widely believed to have existed since the creation of the universe—or perhaps somewhat earlier (see Evolution)—they were first discovered, recognised and named during the 1980s by Lars Falck, then a physics student. Once he realised that the theory of relativity had already been discovered by someone else, he turned to creative use of otherwise wasted spare time, ink, paper, and brain cells. Many early Quasels are thought to have existed in lecture notes, seminar diaries, on classroom desks and - surely - in love letters. Sadly though only a single authenticated specimen (see Holotype) survived the Great Abandonment, a hiatus of neglect lasting several decades.
Interest in Quasels was unexpectedly revived in the age of artificial intelligence, when an attempt to challenge machines with an apparently trivial counting task (which they failed spectacularly) led to a rather more uncomfortable question:
Are humans actually any better? (see AI Challenge)
All Quasel puzzles on this website are still designed by hand by Lars Falck.
