Sighs and Whispers

http://www.google.com/patents?id=PM9bAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Frustrated with the intertitles in silent films, Charles Pidgin invented a better solution in 1917: The performers would inflate balloons on which their dialogue was printed. “The blowing or inflation of the devices by the various characters of a photo-play will add to the realism of the picture by the words appearing to come from the mouth of the players,” Pidgin wrote. Even better, “the size of the speech may be increased with the increase of various emotions depicted on the screen.”

It’s not too late to implement this.

| Entertainment · Technology

Cookie-Cutter Holes

On Nov. 24, 1984, the Spokane, Wash., Spokesman-Review reported the discovery of a massive chunk of earth, 10 feet long by 7 feet wide, that had somehow been plucked from the ground and put down, right side up and intact, 73 feet away. Roots had been torn apart rather than cut, and, strangely, the debris between the hole and the slab traced an arc rather than a straight line.

“All we know for sure is that this puzzle piece of earth is 73 feet away from the hole it came out of,” said geologist Greg Behrens.

Similar “cookie-cutter holes” have been observed elsewhere; the earliest known reference is in the Royal Frankish Annals of the 8th century:

In the land of the Thuringians, in the neighborhood of a river, a block of earth fifty feet long, fourteen feet wide, and a foot and a half thick, was cut out, mysteriously lifted, and shifted twenty-five feet from its original location.

No doubt there’s a mundane explanation for this, but for now no one knows what it is.

| Oddities

One-Note Sentences

Monotonous conversation from around the world:

Finnish:

Etsivät etsivät etsivät etsivät etsivät.
“The searching detectives are searching the searching detectives.”

Spanish:

¿Cómo como? ¿Cómo cómo como? Como como como.
“How do I eat? What do you mean, how do I eat? I eat how I eat.”

Icelandic:

Ái á Á á á í á.
“A farmer named Ái, who lives on a farm by the name of Á, owns a female sheep that is in a river.”

Malay:

Sayang, sayang sayang sayang, sayang sayang sayang?
“Darling, I love you, dear, do you love me?”

Romanian:

Stanca sta-n castan ca Stan.
“Stanca stood in a chestnut tree like Stan.”

Hungarian:

A követ követ követ.
“The envoy follows a stone.”

Tagalog:

Bababa ba? Bababa!
“Going down? It is!”

| Language

The Self-Flowing Flask

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boyle'sSelfFlowingFlask.png

Denis Papin described this perpetual motion scheme in 1685. The pint of liquid in the goblet weighs more than the ounce in the tube, and so forces it down. When the liquid spills out the top of the tube and back into the goblet, it starts a cycle that must continue until the liquid finally evaporates. Where is the error?

| Science & Math

Pieces of Pi

In the decimal expansion of π:

  • the digits 27182818 — the first eight digits of e — appear at position 1,526,800.
  • the digits 14142135 — the first eight digits of the square root of 2 — appear at position 52,638.
  • the first eight digits of π itself — 31415926 — reappear at position 50,366,472.
  • 16470 appears at position 16470.
  • there are seven 7s at position 3,346,228, eight 8s at position 46,663,520, and six 9s at position 762.
  • The White House switchboard number (456-1414) is at position 3,193,808, the population of France (65,073,482) is at position 98,709,092, and Disneyland’s zip code (92802) is at position 41,112.

Write out the alphabet starting with J:

JKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZABCDEFGHI

Erase all letters that have left-right symmetry (such as A) and count the letters in each of the five groups that remain. (James Davis)

| Science & Math · Trivia

Sea Story

Published in London’s Wide World Magazine in 1898, Louis de Rougemont’s adventures in Oceania made a sensation: He had witnessed octopus attacks on the pearl fishers of New Guinea, rode turtles while a castaway on an anonymous Pacific islet, and spent 30 swashbuckling years as a god-king among Australian cannibals. Here he’s beset by migrating rats:

It was impossible for me to observe in what order the rats were advancing, on account of the great stretch of country which they covered. Soon, however, their shrill squeals were distinctly heard, and a few minutes later the edge of that strange tide struck our tree and swept past us with a force impossible to realise. No living thing was spared. Snakes, lizards–ay, even the biggest kangaroos–succumbed after an ineffectual struggle. The rats actually ate those of their fellows who seemed to hesitate or stumble. The curious thing was that the great army never seemed to stand still. It appeared to me that each rat simply took a bite at whatever prey came his way, and then passed on with the rest.

In September an F.W. Solomon wrote in to say that he recognized the author — he was a Swiss manservant named Louis Grien whose nearest approach to the Outback had been a stint as butler to the governor of Western Australia. After some temporizing, De Rougemont vanished; he reappeared the following year in a South African music hall, billing himself as “The Greatest Liar on Earth.”

See Romance at Short Notice.

| Hoaxes

“A Snow Mushroom”

"http://books.google.com/books?id=ozETAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA98&dq=%22snow+mushroom%22&as_brr=3&ei=0CVWSqykK4PCMq7Q0aMH#v=onepage&q=%22snow%20mushroom%22&f=false

From the American Annual of Photography, 1908:

It is a natural snow-cap resting on the stump of a felled tree. The cap is nine feet in diameter and nearly four feet thick. Its weight has caused the rim to bend so that the top becomes a curved dome. The originally horizontal strata of the snow slope steeply downwards near the rim and small pieces break off where the strength is least, hence the edges are rough though the top is smooth. The cap acts as an umbrella sheltering the ground beneath from snowfall. The structure had taken some months to grow and would have been difficult to dislodge, for the snow was firmly welded by its own pressure. The total weight of the snow cap was calculated at about one ton.

See also Mushroom Rocks.

| Oddities