A Spoonful of Sugar

For out-and-out politeness commend us to Mr. Justice Graham, who when once presiding at the Old Bailey in the days when the law sent crowds to the gallows, had to sentence no less than sixteen prisoners to death. In reading out their names he inadvertently missed one — John Robins — and then with due solemnity exhorted them to prepare for their doom, and pronounced on each the sentence of death. The condemned left the dock, and his lordship’s attention was called to the fact that he had omitted to read John Robin’s name. ‘Bring him back,’ said the Judge. ‘By all means let John Robins step forward.’ Back came the unfortunate man, and Graham, addressing him in his singularly courteous manner, assured him that ‘the omission was purely accidental, and I ask your pardon for my mistake. I am very sorry, and can only add that you will be hanged with the rest.’

— Law Notes, March 1905

| Death

Thin Thinking

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:San_Juan_Bautista_El_Greco.jpg

Some of the figures (particularly the holy ones) in El Greco paintings seem unnaturally tall and thin. An ophthalmologist surmised that the painter had a defect of vision that caused him to see people this way.

The zoologist Sir Peter Medawar pointed out that we can reject this conjecture on purely logical grounds. What was his insight?

Click for Answer
| Art · Puzzles · Science & Math

Unquote

“A man cannot be comfortable without his own approval.” — Mark Twain

“A man who finds not satisfaction in himself, seeks for it in vain elsewhere.” — La Rochefoucauld

“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” — Emerson

| Quotations

Shadow Governments

http://books.google.com/books?id=ehgDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_slider_thumb#v=onepage&q&f=false

In 1907 an anonymous turner produced a vase that threw a shadow of Queen Victoria.

Seventy years later, for the Silver Jubilee in 1977, a vase was produced that evoked the profiles of both Prince Philip and Elizabeth II.

Is this a tradition? It might lead us to see too much.

| Art · Oddities · Society

What’s in a Name?

Founded by Daniel Dennett, the Philosophical Lexicon converts philosophers’ surnames into useful words (with often pointed definitions):

  • bergson, n. A mountain of sound, a “buzzing, blooming confusion.”
  • braithwaite, n. The interval of time between two books. “His second book followed his first after a long braithwaite.”
  • chomsky, adj. Said of a theory that draws extravagant metaphysical implications from scientifically established facts.
  • derrida, n. A sequence of signs that fails to signify anything beyond itself. From a old French nonsense refrain: “Hey nonny derrida, nonny nonny derrida falala.”
  • foucault, n. A howler, an insane mistake. “I’m afraid I’ve committed an egregious foucault.”
  • heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of substance. “It’s buried so deep we’ll have to use a heidegger.”
  • hughmellorate, v. To humiliate at a seminar.
  • kripke, adj. Not understood, but considered brilliant. “I hate to admit it, but I found his remarks quite kripke.”
  • rand, n. An angry tirade occasioned by mistaking philosophical disagreement for a personal attack and/or evidence of unspeakable moral corruption.
  • turing, v. To travel from one point to another in simple, discrete steps, without actually knowing where one is going, or why.
  • voltaire, n. A unit of enlightenment.

And, inevitably, dennett: “To while away the hours defining surnames.”

| Language

“The Unprovable Liar”

‘What I am saying cannot be proved.’

Suppose this statement can be proved. Then what it says must be true. But it says it cannot be proved. If we assume it can be proved, we prove it cannot be proved. So our supposition that it was provable is wrong. With that road closed to us, let’s try the only other one available — let’s suppose it cannot be proved. Since that is precisely what it says, then it is true after all. And this ends our proof of the above statement!

— Gary Hayden and Michael Picard, This Book Does Not Exist, 2009

| Science & Math

“The Poet’s Corner”

In November 2003, Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational Linguistics challenged its readers to discover why Ed Wolpow had sent in the following poem:

ADIRONDACK SHINGLES

Among old and crafty mountain men,
Far gone in their heart-held dreaming,
Nearest neighbor one mile down a rock road,
Busy poking old and peeling car bonnets,
An owl hoots past a tin ear.
The sunny period in every week
Is time for one–one hoarse chuckle.
It’s not the place for foxy generals
Nor a spiffy consul, furtive, medalled.
No young and flaxen onlookers
With peach fuzz included.
Extant alumni of a meaner university
Plead for simple knots and bolts.
Home to fossil icons of steep hills,
And not fossil verses which gleam
With glib phrases that parse nicely,
A rogue element in every line.

The answer is that each line contains the name of an element.

| Language

Consultation

A letter from Lewis Carroll to 14-year-old Wilton Rix:

Honoured Sir,

Understanding you to be a distinguished algebraist (i.e. distinguished from other algebraists by different face, different height, etc.), I beg to submit to you a difficulty which distresses me much.

If x and y are each equal to ‘1,’ it is plain that 2 × (x2 – y2) = 0, and also that 5 × (x – y) = 0.

Hence 2 × (x2 – y2) = 5 × (x – y).

Now divide each side of this equation by (x – y).

Then 2 × (x + y) = 5.

But (x + y) = (1 + 1), i.e. = 2.

So that 2 × 2 = 5.

Ever since this painful fact has been forced upon me, I have not slept more than 8 hours a night, and have not been able to eat more than 3 meals a day.

I trust you will pity me and will kindly explain the difficulty to

Your obliged, Lewis Carroll

| Literature · Science & Math

Line Handling

http://books.google.com/books?id=9jVEAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_atb#v=onepage&q&f=false

“If you can describe clearly without a diagram the proper way of making this or that knot, then you are a master of the English tongue.” — Hilaire Belloc

| Language