In order that life should be a story or romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it, at any rate, should be settled for us without our permission. … A man has control over many things in his life; he has control over enough things to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much hero that there would be no novel.
— G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1906
In 1896, Adolf Beck found himself caught up in a senseless legal nightmare: Twelve women from around London insisted that he’d deceived them and stolen their cash and jewelry. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll follow Beck’s incredible ordeal, which ignited a scandal and inspired historic reforms in the English justice system.
We’ll also covet some noble socks and puzzle over a numerical sacking.
In the 1850s, railroad passengers traveling from Baltimore to Philadelphia would debark at the Susquehanna River, cross the river on a ferryboat, and board a train waiting on the other side. In the severe winter of 1852, so much floating ice had piled up at this point that the ferry couldn’t be used, so railroad engineer Isaac R. Trimble came up with a novel solution: He built a railway across the ice for the baggage and freight cars, and a sledge road beside it along which horses could draw his passengers. The cars had to descend 10 to 15 feet from the bank to the surface of the ice, and at the other side they were tied to a locomotive and pulled up. The “ice bridge” opened on Jan. 15 and was accounted a great success. The Franklin Journal reported, “Forty freight cars per day, laden with valuable merchandise, have been worked over this novel tract by the means above referred to, and were propelled across the ice portion by two-horse sleds running upon the sledge road, and drawing the cars by a lateral towing line, of the size of a man’s finger.”
“At the present writing, this novel and effectual means of maintaining the communication at Havre de Grace is still in successful operation, and will so continue until the ice in the river is about to break up. Then, by means of the sledges, the rails (the only valuable part of the track), can be rapidly moved off by horse power, not probably requiring more than a few hours’ time, so that the communication may be maintained successfully until the last moment. If properly timed, as it doubtless will be, the railroad may be removed, the ice may run out, and the ferry be resumed, it may be, in less than forty-eight hours.”
In fact, wrote historian Charles P. Dare, the ice bridge operated until Feb. 24, “when it was taken up, and, in a few days, the river was free of ice. During this time, 1378 cars loaded with mails, baggage and freight were transported upon this natural bridge, the tonnage amounting to about 10,000 tons. The whole was accomplished without accident of any kind; and the materials were all removed prior to the breaking up of the river without the loss of a cross-tie or bar of iron.”
An eight-digit number contains two 1s, two 2s, two 3s, and two 4s. The 1s are separated by 1 digit, the 2s by 2 digits, the 3s by 3 digits, and the 4s by 4 digits. What is the number?
It used to be said that the sun never set on the British Empire; it still doesn’t set on the Commonwealth of Nations, as Gibraltar is on the opposite side of the earth from New Zealand’s Te Arai Beach.
At their height, the sun didn’t set on the French Empire, the Dutch Empire, or the Spanish Empire, either. New Caledonia, an overseas territory of France, is opposite Mauritania, once part of French West Africa. Parts of Suriname, a former Dutch colony, are opposite the Indonesian island Sulawesi, once part of the Netherlands East Indies. And Luzon, the largest island of the Philippines, is opposite eastern Bolivia; both were once controlled by Spain.
The Pacific Ocean is so large that it stretches more than halfway around the world — parts of the ocean are on opposite sides of the earth.
This curious game was invented by Princeton mathematician John H. Conway. Two players take turns naming positive integers, but an integer is off limits if it’s the sum of nonnegative multiples of integers that have already been named. Once 1 is named, everything is off limits (because any positive integer is a sum of 1s), so that ends the game; the player who is forced to name 1 is the loser. An example gives the idea:
Now we’ll use our next turns to name 2 and 3, and you’ll be forced to name 1, losing the game.
Though the game is very easy to understand, it’s still full of mysteries. For example, R.L. Hutchings has shown that playing a prime number as the first move guarantees that a winning strategy exists, but no one has figured out how to find the strategy. And no one knows whether there are any winning opening moves at all that aren’t prime.
More on the Sylver Coinage page.
There’s an interesting detail in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait of 1434. The painting depicts Italian merchant Giovanni di Nicolao Arnolfini and his wife in their home in Bruges. In the background is a convex mirror over which is inscribed the legend “Johannes de eyck fuit hic 1434” (“Jan van Eyck was here 1434”). And curiously, reflected in the mirror, where we’d expect to see the painter and his easel, are two figures:
In 1934 art historian Erwin Panofsky offered a unique explanation for this: The painting is an “artistic marriage certificate.” Neither Arnolfini nor his new wife had any relatives at Bruges at the time of their marriage, and the custom at the time was to record two witnesses to the wedding. “So that we can understand the original idea of a picture which was a memorial portrait and a document at the same time, and in which a well-known gentleman-painter signed his name both as artist and as witness.”
Amused by the reflection, Hungarian graphic designer István Orosz set up his own arrangement in his 1997 etching Johannes de Eyck fuit hic, below. “Here I attempt to show the world behind the door with the help of two mirrors.”
For a thousand bucks you can buy your own Van Eyck mirror and investigate for yourself.
(Erwin Panofsky, “Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait,” Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 64:372 [March 1934], 117-119.)
When Triberg, Germany, unveiled a new parking garage in 2012, it included 12 parking spaces designated for women’s use, as has been required by German law since the 1990s. The spaces are somewhat larger than normal and located near the mall entrance, to reduce the possibility of sexual assault.
Due to the Triberg mall’s shape, it also has one space on each level that requires a complex parking maneuver. Mayor Gallus Strobel decided to designate these for men … which brought on a backlash from people who felt that it insults women’s parking skills.
“It’s a joke,” Strobel told ABC. “Everyone in Triberg thinks it is a joke. We looked at the two parking spaces and we said, ‘They could be dangerous for your car,’ so at the same time, we decided to make them for men, and then give 12 others for women.”
Is this sexist? Considerate? Unnecessary? Germany isn’t the only nation that uses women’s parking spaces — they’ve also been introduced in Austria, Switzerland, and China, where the spokesman for one northern mall told AFP, “The fact that our women’s parking spaces are wider is simply due to practical reasons and shouldn’t imply that women are worse at driving than men.”
For his part, Strobel seems to have his eye on the bottom line — after Triberg controversy made the news, the town’s tourist traffic increased from 250,000 to 400,000. “Women can come here and prove me wrong,” he told the Times of India, “and while they’re at it, they can see the town’s attractions.”
Here’s an especially vivid example of the illusion created by Dick Termes’ six-point perspective.
If you can convince yourself that the front half of this sphere is transparent, and that the image is painted on the interior of the back half, you’ll find that you’re inside the cage, turning to your left, while the birds are outside the cage, looking in at you. (To get started, I find it helps to focus on an edge of the sphere, rather than the center.)
There are many more examples on Termes’ YouTube channel.
