06 February,2009 06:16 AM IST | | Balaji Narasimhan
To make an emoticon, take an elevator with a burning candle and add a drop of mercury
The answer? Neil said that the candle would go out due to a lack of oxygen but the mercury would form into an ellipsoid because of surface tension and would bounce back and forth between ceiling and floor until the elevator hit the ground.
Though this was just a joke, many people didn't get it. In fact, somebody called Howard Gayle who thought that this was a serious and real issue actually posted a terse message saying that "Because of a recent physics experiment, the leftmost elevator has been contaminated with mercury.u00a0 There is also some slight fire damage. Decontamination should be complete by 08:00 Friday."
Neil then suggested that people should put a ''' in the subject line to indicate a joke. Soon after, suggestions started pouring in for what would make a good character for a joke. One person suggested a '%' while another felt that '&' looks like a jolly fat man in convulsions of laughter. Yet another person liked '#' because it looked like two lips with teeth showing between them.
This discussion went on until 19th September 1982, when Scott E Fahlman suggested the use of ':-)' to highlight a joke and ':-(' to mark something that is not a joke.
So now you know how the smiley was born.