Author: Greg Ross
Palingram
A self-reproducing sentence by Lee Sallows — “Doing what it tells you to do yields a replica of itself”:
This reminds me of a short short story by Fredric Brown:
THE END
Professor Jones had been working on time theory for many years.
“And I have found the key equation,” he told his daughter one day. “Time is a field. This machine I have made can manipulate, even reverse, that field.”
Pushing a button as he spoke, he said, “This should make time run backward run time make should this,” said he, spoke he as button a pushing.
“Field that, reverse even, manipulate can made have I machine this. Field a is time.” Day one daughter his told he, “Equation key the found have I and.”
Years many for theory time on working been had Jones Professor.
END THE
In a Word
juise
n. judgment; a judicial sentence; penalty
William Vodden had a particularly bad day in 1853. He was on trial in Wales for larceny, and the jury foreman delivered a verdict of not guilty. The chairman discharged Vodden, but then there was a stir among the jurors, who said they had intended a verdict of guilty.
Vodden objected and appealed the case, but Chief Baron Pollock decided that “What happened was a daily occurrence in the ordinary transactions of life, namely that a mistake was made but then corrected within a reasonable time, and on the very spot on which it was made.” Vodden got two months’ hard labor.
Franklin’s Mint
More wisdom from Poor Richard’s Almanack:
- Anger is never without a Reason, but seldom with a good One.
- The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
- The worst wheel of the cart makes the most noise.
- Prosperity discovers Vice, Adversity, Virtue.
- God heals, and the doctor takes the fees.
- The same man cannot be both Friend and Flatterer.
- Beauty and folly are old companions.
- Eat to please thyself, but dress to please others.
- Hear Reason, or she’ll make you feel her.
- What’s given shines, what’s receiv’d is rusty.
- Sally laughs at everything you say. Why? Because she has fine teeth.
- Words may shew a man’s Wit, but Actions his Meaning.
- It’s common for men to give pretended reasons instead of one real one.
- Fear to do ill, and you need fear nought else.
- Success has ruin’d many a Man.
Altho’ thy teacher act not as he preaches,
Yet ne’ertheless, if good, do what he teaches;
Good counsel, failing men may give, for why,
He that’s aground knows where the shoal doth lie.
A Change of Heart
Harry Mathews devised this Möbius equivoque. Write this stanza on one side of a strip of paper:
I’d just as soon lose my mind
If your fondness for me lasts
I’d abandon all female charms
As long as I stay dear to you
One could seed one’s petunias
Among humdrum city flowerbeds
Igniting ice is likelier than
Our remaining snugly together
Turn the strip over lengthwise and write this stanza on the other side:
if your desire turns elsewhere
my dream of love might come true,
if you say I’m past caring for,
my deepest wish will be granted.
in distant regions of the skies,
the stars could make their way —
separating, whatever the pretext,
alone can keep my world intact.
Give the strip a half twist and glue the ends together. Now the poem reads:
I’d just as soon lose my mind if your desire turns elsewhere
If your fondness for me lasts my dream of love might come true,
I’d abandon all female charms if you say I’m past caring for,
As long as I stay dear to you my deepest wish will be granted.
One could seed one’s petunias in distant regions of the skies,
Among humdrum city flowerbeds the stars could make their way–
Igniting ice is likelier than separating, whatever the pretext,
Our remaining snugly together alone can keep my world intact.
See Another Equivoque.
Second Chances
In science it often happens that scientists say, ‘You know, that’s a really good argument; my position is mistaken,’ and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn’t happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
— Carl Sagan, in a 1987 address, quoted in Jon Fripp et al., Speaking of Science, 2000
To Whom It May Concern
On Jan. 9, 1793, two astonished farmers in Woodbury, N.J., watched a strange craft descend from the sky into their field. An excited Frenchman greeted them in broken English and gave them swigs of wine from a bottle. Unable to make himself understood, he finally presented a document:
The farmers helped the man fold his craft and load it onto a wagon for the trip back to Philadelphia. Before leaving, the Frenchman asked them to certify the time and place of his arrival. These details were important — he was Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and he had just completed the first balloon flight in North America.
One hundred sixty-nine years later, when John Glenn went into orbit aboard Friendship 7 in 1962, mission planners weren’t certain where he’d come down. The most likely sites were Australia, the Atlantic Ocean, and New Guinea, but it might be 72 hours before he could be picked up.
Glenn worried about spending three days among aborigines who had seen a silver man emerge from “a big parachute with a little capsule on the end,” so he took with him a short speech rendered phonetically in several languages. It read:
“I am a stranger. I come in peace. Take me to your leader, and there will be a massive reward for you in eternity.”
Podcast Episode 8: Owney the Mail Dog, Candy Bombers, and Bertrand Russell
In 1888 a mixed-breed terrier appointed himself mascot of America’s railway postal service, accompanying mailbags throughout the U.S. and eventually traveling around the world. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll recount Owney’s postal adventures and the wave of human affection that followed him.
We’ll also look at an Air Force pilot who dropped candy on parachutes to besieged German children in 1948, learn the link between drug lord Pablo Escobar and feral hippos in Colombia, and present the next Futility Closet Challenge.
Three Theorems
Theorem 1. A crocodile is longer than it is wide.
Proof. A crocodile is long on the top and bottom, but it is green only on the top; therefore a crocodile is longer than it is green. A crocodile is green along both its length and width, but it is wide only along its width; hence a crocodile is greener than it is wide. Therefore a crocodile is longer than it is wide.
Theorem 2. Napoleon was a poor general.
Proof. Most men have an even number of arms. Napoleon was warned that Wellington would meet him at Waterloo. To be forewarned is to be forearmed. But four arms is a very odd number of arms for a man. The only number that is both even and odd is infinity. Therefore, Napoleon had an infinite number of arms in his battle against Wellington. A general who loses a battle despite having an infinite number of arms is very poor general.
Theorem 3. If 1/0 = ∞, then 1/∞ = 0.
Proof. Given:
Rotate both sides 90° counterclockwise:
Subtract 8 from both sides:
Now reverse the rotation:
Unquote
“I find all books too long.” — Voltaire
“The covers of this book are too far apart.” — Ambrose Bierce
“A big book is a big nuisance.” — Callimachus
“Long books, when read, are usually overpraised, because the reader wants to convince others and himself that he has not wasted his time.” — E.M. Forster
“I made this letter very long, because I did not have the leisure to make it shorter.” — Pascal
“Paradise Lost is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.” — Samuel Johnson