Afoot

In 2004, the world’s foremost scholar on Sherlock Holmes was found garrotted on his bed. Richard Lancelyn Green had been planning a three-volume biography of Arthur Conan Doyle but had had trouble gaining rights to the author’s private papers and manuscripts, which were scheduled to be auctioned at Christie’s. Lancelyn Green believed that Doyle’s daughter had wanted these to go to the British Library instead, but his efforts to stop the auction had been unsuccessful. In the weeks before his death he told friends that an unidentified American was following him and that he’d come to fear that his contention over the papers might have put his life in danger.

The coroner returned an open verdict. Lancelyn Green’s best friends said it was not in his nature to take his own life, but others wondered whether he might have arranged his death to cast suspicion on a rival, mirroring the Sherlock Holmes story “The Problem of Thor Bridge,” in which a jealous wife contrives her suicide to cast doubt on a woman her husband had been flirting with.

The case remains unsolved. “I think he wanted it to look like murder,” said James Gibson, who had edited a Doyle bibliography with Lancelyn Green in 1983. “He must have been planning it for days, giving us false clues. He created the perfect mystery.”

| Crime · Death · Literature · Oddities

One World

https://picryl.com/media/paris-postcard-aleconte-15-7fa0f2

Al-longs, ong-fong der lar Part-ree-e-yer,
Ler joor der glwore ait arr-ee-vay.

— Lyrics to La Marseillaise rendered in phonetic French for British soldiers in World War I, from Frank Scudamore’s “Parley Voo”!!, 1915 (via Tony Augarde’s Wordplay, 2011)

| History · Language

Help Wanted

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Criminal_Investigation/ZlcvAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA226&printsec=frontcover

In an 1893 textbook, criminologist Hans Gross tells how investigators interpreted this ideograph, which had appeared on the wall of a remote Austrian chapel:

The bird, drawn with a single stroke, represents a parrot, alluding to the great loquacity of the owner of the mark, who was famous housebreaker. The second sign is a church, the third a key. Below, we see three round objects on a line; this, according to the calendar of the Styrian peasantry, is the emblem of St. Stephen, i.e., three stones placed on the ground, alluding to the martyrdom of the Saint by stoning. They here indicate the date, viz., St. Stephen’s Day, 26th December. By the side is an infant in swaddling clothes, this indicates the birth of the Saviour, the date being 25th December. The whole thus means: the owner of the parrot sign intends to break into a church on 26th December. He desires accomplices, and will accordingly be in the neighbourhood of the sign (a lonely chapel in a wood) on 25th December to meet whoever turns up.

“The police, knowing the importance of the signs, took a copy to the Magistrate, a priest helped to interpret the liturgical emblems, and on Christmas day four dangerous criminals were captured near the chapel in the wood.”

| Crime · Language

Ha!

In 1722, Jonathan Swift published the “last speech” of one Ebenezer Elliston, “a malefactor executed for street robbery,” “published at his desire for the common good”:

Now as I am a dying man I have done something which may be of good use to the public. I have left with an honest man (and, indeed, the only honest man I was ever acquainted with) the names of all my wicked brethren, the present places of their abode, with a short account of the chief crimes they have committed, in many of which I have been their accomplice, and heard the rest from their own mouths: I have likewise set down the names of those we call our setters, of the wicked houses we frequent, and of those who receive and buy our stolen goods. I have solemnly charged this honest man and have received his promise upon oath, that whenever he hears of any rogue to be tried for robbing or housebreaking, he will look into his list, and if he finds the name there of the thief concerned, to send the whole paper to the government. Of this I here give my companions fair and public warning, and hope they will take it.

Did it work? Who knows?

| Crime · Hoaxes · Literature · Society

Mouthful

In 1641, a syndicate of Puritan clergymen published a pamphlet upholding the Presbyterian theory of the ministry.

They published it under the memorable pseudonym Smectymnuus, an acronym derived from the initials of the five authors: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and William Spurstowe.

The Oxford English Dictionary still recognizes the wonderful word Smectymnuan, meaning any of these authors or one who accepted their views.

| History · Language

Paper Route

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Group1-Origami_The_Beloch_Fold.png
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Origami can solve general cubic equations! The method was developed by Italian mathematician Margherita Piazzolla Beloch, who in 1936 found a way to use paper folding to construct the common tangents to two parabolas.

Given two points p1 and p2 and two lines l1 and l2, we can, whenever possible, make a single fold (dashed line) that puts p1 onto l1 and p2 onto l2 simultaneously. This fold finds a common tangent to two parabolas: one with focus p1 and directrix l1, the other with focus p2 and directrix l2.

“Now, two parabolas drawn in the plane can have at most three different common tangents, suggesting that this origami fold is equivalent to solving a cubic equation,” writes Western New England College mathematician Thomas C. Hull. “Straightedge and compass constructions, on the other hand, can only solve general quadratic equations.”

Beloch’s contribution went uncredited for decades, but it’s now receiving a fuller appreciation. See the 2011 paper below for more details.

(Thomas C. Hull, “Solving Cubics With Creases: The Work of Beloch and Lill,” American Mathematical Monthly 118:4 [April 2011], 307-315. More here.)

| Science & Math

The Social Whirl

In a 1962 nightmare, writer Thomas Meehan imagined having to introduce Uta Hagen to Yma Sumac, Ava Gardner, Abba Eban, Oona O’Neill, Ugo Betti, Ona Munson, Ida Lupino, the Aga Khan, Ira Wolfert, Ilya Ehrenburg, and Eva Gabor at a Greenwich Village cocktail party:

“Uta, Yma; Uta, Ava; Uta, Oona; Uta, Ona; Uta, Ida; Uta, Ugo; Uta, Abba; Uta, Ilya; Uta, Ira; Uta, Aga; Uta, Eva.”

Then Polish concert pianist Mieczyslaw Horszowski turns up. “‘Come in, Mieczyslaw!’ I cry, with tears in my eyes. ‘I’ve never been so glad to see anyone in my whole life!'”

| Humor · Language

Before and After

Why does the slogan ‘Whatever is, always was to be’ seem to imply that nothing can be helped, where the obverse slogan ‘Whatever is, will always have been’ does not seem to imply this? We are not exercised by the notorious fact that when the horse has already escaped it is too late to shut the stable door. We are sometimes exercised by the idea that as the horse is either going to escape or not going to escape, to shut the stable door beforehand is either unavailing or unnecessary.

— Gilbert Ryle, Dilemmas, 1954

| Oddities

Long Distance

The Javan cucumber, Alsomitra macrocarpa, broadcasts its seeds on papery wings that can glide long distances. Some have been found on the decks of ships.

The unique design inspired aviation pioneer Igo Etrich to build an artificial flying wing, which he adapted into Germany’s first mass-produced military aeroplane.

| Oddities · Science & Math

The Watercolor Illusion

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Australia_watercolour_illusion.svg

The interior of this map is white, but it appears to be suffused with a pale yellow. In fact the blue and orange coloring is confined to the border.

This “bleeding” effect was discovered by University of Sassari psychologist Baingio Pinna in 1987. It’s still being investigated.

| Oddities