Reddit user xilefakamot created this in 2020 — a “topologist’s map of the world.”
It depicts international borders and nothing else — the shapes, sizes, and distances between countries are forsaken in order to present the pattern of their borders as efficiently as possible.
“No calculations per se – I sketched out a series of networks showing which countries bordered each other, then gradually smoothed them out to make the map – all done manually.”
(Via MapPorn.)
The French constrained writing group Oulipo invented a new crime they call “plagiarism by anticipation.”
If William Shakespeare writes something, and you later write the same thing, then Shakespeare is guilty of plagiarism for anticipating your idea.
“Thus justice is done, and each is rewarded according to his merit.”
“I and my rhinoceros, said the tick-bird.” — Sotho proverb, quoted in Ruth Finnegan, Oral Literature in Africa, 1970
A bicycle has wheels of different sizes. On the rim of each wheel is a bug. As the bike travels, the bug on the smaller wheel traces a large number of small arches, and the bug on the larger wheel traces a smaller number of large arches. On a given bicycle trip, which bug travels the greater distance through space?
Remarkably, they travel the same distance. The arches are cycloids, and one revolution of a wheel produces one cycloid arch of length 8r, where r is the wheel’s radius. With each revolution the wheel travels a distance 2πr along the road. This means that during a bicycle journey of distance D, the wheel makes D/2πr revolutions, and the attending bug’s total distance through space is (D/2πr)(8r) = 4D/π. The rs have dropped out, which means that the size of the wheels doesn’t matter — the length of each bug’s path through space is 4/π times the length of the bicycle journey.
Via Doug Rohrer’s 1993 book Thought Provokers.
Somewhat similar: How much paint does my carousel need?
quidam
n. an unknown person
oppidan
n. an inhabitant of a town
obrute
v. to overwhelm, bury; to cover over
recumbentibus
n. a knockdown blow
The “sitting man” is numbered among the victims of Vesuvius in 79 CE.
He died crouching in a corner of his house, holding a scarf over his mouth.
In 2007 I posted this cryptic verse by William Whewell:
U 0 a 0 but I 0 U,
O 0 no 0 but O 0 me;
O let not my 0 a 0 go,
But give 0 0 I 0 U so.
You sigh for a cipher but I sigh for you,
O sigh for no cipher, but O sigh for me;
O let not my sigh for a cipher go,
But give sigh for sigh, for I sigh for you so.
In An Almanac of Words at Play (1975), Willard R. Espy offered this addition. What does it say?
Oy OO thO he O
2 On an OO. OO bO
An OO but he never thO
He’d O the OO dealer O
For the OO OO bO.
Say, has OO’s OO brO
OO O that OO sO?
OO’s OO’s good for nO.
What say you? The man who does not believe in the existence of the gods is unholy? And is not he who believes in such gods as the superstitious believe in a partner to opinions far more unholy? Why, for my part, I should prefer that men should say about me that I have never been born at all, and there is no Plutarch, rather than that they should say ‘Plutarch is an inconstant fickle person, quick-tempered, vindictive over little accidents, pained at trifles. If you invite others to dinner and leave him out, or if you haven’t the time and don’t go to call on him, or fail to speak to him when you see him, he will set his teeth into your body and bite it through, or he will get hold of your little child and beat him to death, or he will turn the beast that he owns into your crops and spoil your harvest.’
Paul Wetzger’s 1900 composition “Avant et Retour” is a table canon — it’s designed to be placed on a table between two players so that one reads the score right side up while the other reads it upside down. The two halves produce one contrapuntal composition:
J.A. Lindon composed this remarkable pair of monosyllabic poems in 1969. The two read the same, but each has its own rhyme scheme, and each is a distinct acrostic, the first letter of each line spelling out the title.
Cats, Cats, Cats, Cats!
Cats come with mews,
All have sharp claws,
They air their views.
Stray soon from laws,
Climb wall. Each tom
And each mog — grand
Thieves — munch meal from
Scamp’s lunch. Scamp planned …
Chain off, he might
Aim at a rout,
Touch mogs and bite
Such prime bits out!
Chance came. Grey dawn.
At once left mat.
The deuce! On lawn -
Scamp loose — no cat!
Chase ’em, Scamp, Go On!
Cats come with mews, all
Have sharp claws, they
Air their views, stray
Soon from laws, climb wall.
Each tom and
Each mog — grand thieves — munch
Meal from Scamp’s lunch.
Scamp planned …
Chain off, he might aim
At a rout, touch
Mogs and bite such
Prime bits out. Chance came.
Grey dawn. At
Once left mat. The deuce!
On lawn — Scamp loose -
No cat!
(J.A. Lindon and Walter Shedlofsky, “Convertible Acrostics,” Word Ways 2:3 [August 1969], 159-161.)
Two trains, A and B, start simultaneously from opposite ends of a 450-mile track. Each travels nonstop at a uniform speed to the opposite end. A finishes its journey 4 hours after passing B, and B finishes its journey 9 hours after passing A. What were their speeds?
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