The Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium hold two anthropomorphic landscapes painted in the 16th century, one masculine (above) and one feminine (below).
The artist is unknown.
He and She
The Lovers’ Knot
This unusual poetic form made its first appearance in William Browne’s 1625 verse collection Britannia’s Pastorals.
The text traces a single continuous intertwined line, involved with itself and never ending.
A Few Specific Words
abactor
n. a person who steals livestock
epyllion
n. a little epic
hecatomped
adj. measuring 100 feet square
nouveau pauvre
n. a person who has recently become poor
pogonology
n. a treatise on beards
tessaraglot
adj. written or printed in four languages
transpontine
adj. beyond a bridge
truandise
n. fraudulent begging
(Thanks, Kevin.)
Penetration
The coastline of Nova Scotia was once frequented by pirates, and people occasionally dig for buried pirate treasure. On a local radio program a few years ago I heard an interview with someone who had done a study of attempts to find pirate treasure. He claimed that in most of the cases in which treasure was actually found, it was in a place where treasure-hunters had dug before, rather than in a brand new, previously undug, location. Past diggers simply hadn’t dug deep enough. The previous digger had, in fact, often stopped just short of the treasure. If the previous digger had dug a little deeper than he did, he would have found it.
The interviewer asked him what advice he would give to treasure hunters on the basis of this study; and, producing an interesting application of induction, he lamely suggested that diggers should dig a little deeper than they in fact do. Can you see why this advice is impossible to follow?
— Robert M. Martin, There Are Two Errors in the the Title of This Book, 2002
Paperwork
Meek young men grow up in libraries, believing it their duty to accept the views, which Cicero, which Locke, which Bacon, have given, forgetful that Cicero, Locke, and Bacon were only young men in libraries when they wrote these books.
— Emerson, “The American Scholar,” 1838
(Daniel Dennett: “A scholar is just a library’s way of making another library.”)
Charlie’s Birthday
A puzzle by National Security Agency mathematician Stephen C., from the agency’s July 2015 Puzzle Periodical:
Charlie presents a list of 14 possible dates for his birthday to Albert, Bernard, and Cheryl.
- Apr 14, 1999
- Feb 19, 2000
- Mar 14, 2000
- Mar 15, 2000
- Apr 16, 2000
- Apr 15, 2000
- Feb 15, 2001
- Mar 15, 2001
- Apr 14, 2001
- Apr 16, 2001
- May 14, 2001
- May 16, 2001
- May 17, 2001
- Feb 17, 2002
He then announces that he is going to tell Albert the month, Bernard the day, and Cheryl the year.
After he tells them, Albert says, “I don’t know Charlie’s birthday, but neither does Bernard.”
Bernard then says, “That is true, but Cheryl also does not know Charlie’s birthday.”
Cheryl says, “Yes, and Albert still has not figured out Charlie’s birthday.”
Bernard then replies, “Well, now I know his birthday.”
At this point, Albert says, “Yes, we all know it now.”
What is Charlie’s birthday?
Prospects
“The telescope makes the world smaller; it is only the microscope that makes it larger.” — G.K. Chesterton
“An Egg Sent Through the Post”
I send you a photograph of the empty shell of an ostrich’s egg, with the necessary Customs declaration attached by means of a string tied to a match, and inserted in one of the holes. The shell bears the addresses of the sender and receiver written in ink, and also has the postage-stamps affixed. The novelty lies in the fact that it came by the ordinary post from Port Elizabeth (S. Africa) to Whitstable, nearly seven thousand miles, exactly as seen in the photo — that is to say, with no packing whatever — and arrived in a perfectly undamaged condition.
— W.H. Reeves, in the Strand, November 1903
The Pulfrich Effect
When you view a pendulum swinging laterally before your eyes, your brain understands correctly that the bob is moving in a straight line perpendicular to your line of sight. But if you put a dark filter over one eye, the bob seems to move in an ellipse, swinging somewhat closer to the screened eye.
Apparently the visual system responds more quickly to bright objects than to dim ones, so when the clear eye correctly sees the bob’s position at A, B, and C, the obscured eye sees it at A’, B’, and C’, and the brain reconciles these reports by supposing it’s at A*, B*, and C*. German physicist Carl Pulfrich first described the effect in 1922.
The Devil’s Golf Course
Death Valley contains an enormous jagged salt flat produced by the evaporation of an ancient lake.
It takes its name from a 1934 National Park Service guidebook, which declares that “only the devil could play golf on such rough links.”