In Brief

When H.P. Re of Coldwater, Mich., died in 1931, his claim to have the world’s shortest name was up for grabs, and the Associated Press held a sort of contest to find his successor. J. Ur of Torrington, Conn., expressed early confidence because he had no middle initial, but, AP reported:

C. Ek and J. Ek, brothers from Duluth, promptly entered the lists as cochampions. Mrs. V. Ek, not to be outdone, claimed not only the woman’s title, but the mixed doubles championship. A former Duluth policeman said his name was C. Sy.

Then Fairmount, Minnesota, entered E. Py, farmer; Clinton, Iowa, put forward C. Au, J. Au, and W. Au, triple threats; Indiana offered Ed Py, inmate of Newcastle Jail; and Indianapolis made a poor try with Fix Ax.

In the end the palm went to Aaron A of Chicago, who went by A.A., a name that AP noted “leads all others in the Chicago telephone directory, alphabetically as well as longitudinally.” A’s ancestors had been jewelers in Saxony, and a philologist speculated that the surname derived from an old German word for river.

| Language · Oddities

Velato

The esoteric programming language Velato uses music as its source code. The first note of a composition establishes a “command root” note, and the intervals that follow specify instructions. The command root can be changed between statements, and the notes that make up a chord can be interpreted in a specified order, so there’s some latitude to help a composition sound “musical.” This program produces the output “Hello, World”:

https://esolangs.org/wiki/File:Velato_HelloWorld.gif

Here’s what that sounds like:

A few other musical languages: Fugue, VenetianScript, Yet Another Musical Esolang.

| Art · Technology

Tight Quarters

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bishop_Rock_Lighthouse_SV8006.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

The world’s smallest island with a building on it is the Bishop Rock, a skerry off the coast of Cornwall. The islet is 46 by 16 meters, and the tower’s base is 10 meters across. Before the installation of a helipad in 1976, visitors would rappel from the tower’s base to waiting boats.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thousand_Islands_single_house.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Among the Thousand Islands at the head of the Saint Lawrence River is the smallest inhabited island in the world, known as “Just Room Enough.” It accommodates a single house.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Smallest_House_in_Great_Britain,_Conwy_(8035).jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

The “Smallest House in Great Britain” stands on the quay in Conwy, Wales. Built in the 16th century, it has a floor area of 3.05 by 1.8 meters.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Drumheller,_AB,_Canada_-_panoramio.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Built in 1958, the Little Church in Drumheller, Alberta, is available for ceremonies. It seats six.

| Oddities

Lahaina Noon

Twice a year, objects Hawaii lose their shadows as the sun passes directly overhead.

A “zero shadow day” occurs biannually between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, arriving at each location when the sun’s declination equals its latitude.

| Oddities · Science & Math

“The Difficult Case of Wine”

A gentleman had a bottle containing 12 pints of wine, 6 of which he was desirous of giving to a friend; but he had nothing to measure it, except two other bottles, one of 7 pints, and the other of 5. How did he contrive to put 6 pints into the 7-pint bottle?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

“Narrow Escape of a Mouse”

https://archive.org/details/strand-1897-v-14/page/117/mode/2up

Mr. Chas. Hy. Heskins, of 94, Blenheim Road, Reading, was good enough to send in this extremely curious and interesting photo. The kettle, it seems, was a disused one, and stood for a long time on a shelf with the lid partly off, much as we see in the photo. One night the mouse got in, possibly in the hope of finding some stray crusts. Why the little animal should take it into his head to leave the inhospitable kettle by the spout is not known, but he did, with the result portrayed in the photo. His head got through all right, and two pathetic little paws; but ‘the force of Nature could no farther go,’ and poor mousie stuck fast. Next morning someone took the kettle in hand, and ‘assisted’ the mouse’s hindquarters with a stick of wood, with the result that he emerged slowly and stiffly, and was finally allowed to hobble painfully away. Truly, a narrow escape in more senses than one!

— Strand, July 1897

| Oddities

Number Theory

What’s the funniest number? Yale physicist Emily Pottebaum proposed the Perceived Specificity Hypothesis, which states that “for nonnegative integers < 100, the funniness of a number increases with its apparent precision." She surveyed 68 acquaintances and found that:

  • Among integers divisible by 10, 0 is funniest.
  • Odd numbers are consistently funnier than even.
  • “Furthermore, the most oddly specific numbers — odd numbers with a degree of specificity of 2 — are the most funny, according to the data presented here.”

The degree of specificity characterizes the distance between an integer and the nearest multiple of 5:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.24175
Image: arxiv.org

So 3, 7, 13, 17, etc. were judged to be funniest.

“I acknowledge my Ph.D. advisor, who I shall not name out of respect for her academic integrity, for her exasperation upon learning about this study. I thank her for putting up with my antics and plead that she continue to do so until I graduate.”

(E.G. Pottebaum, “What Is the Funniest Number? An Investigation of Numerical Humor,” arXiv preprint, arXiv:2503.24175 [2025].)

| Science & Math