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After months of arduous research and meticulous testing, scientists have discovered that there is an inverse relationship between the number of wheels on a given Segway and the perceived coolness of the user. After totaling the costs of prototype design and construction, and the employment of test subjects and judges, the experiment totaled nearly 5.8 million dollars in government grants.
A weary, haggard lead researcher, Whistler James, emerged from the lab yesterday to speak to a packed crowd of journalists and TV cameras.
"We are proud to announce that we have finally come to a conclusion. if you ride a 3-wheeled Segway, you do in fact look like a fucking tool." An excited uproar greeted the announcement. Once order was restored, James elaborated. "It appears that the coolness of individuals who ride on traditional, two-wheeled Segways can vary from extremely uncool to somewhat cool. The exact placement on the spectrum of coolness seems to depend on the surroundings, the amount of sick stunts pulled, and how hot the user is."
"According to our results," James continued, "one-wheeled Segways are in fact so sweet that we were able to recreate the fabled 'Steve Urkel/Stefan Urquelle' effect." For those unfamiliar with the metaphysics of awesomeness, the Urkel/Urquelle effect refers to a process by which a total dweeb is transformed into an individual with sex appeal rivaling that of those European dudes with impossibly well-toned bodies that should probably take a shower and stop hitting on your girlfriend.
"Furthermore," continued James, "we have empirically proved that anybody unfortunate enough to find themselves on a 3-wheeled Segway looks like a giant turd."
This research has significant repercussions for Brown University, which has provided a number of 3-wheeled Segways to select Public Safety officers. In the past, several members of the student body have suggested that it is difficult to take an authority figure seriously when he or she is perched upon a ride that looks like the nightmarish love child of a Honda Element and a 1980s era Macintosh. Now that these arguments have been vindicated by rigorous testing, it seems that the administration will be forced to provide some method of transportation for public safety officers that won't result in universal humiliation.
