Short Subjects

When PLAFSEP magazine asked its readers to nominate the silliest library subject heading, the hands-down winner was BUTTOCKS (IN RELIGION, FOLK-LORE, ETC.). Other highlights, gathered by columnist John R. Likins:

AMERICAN GIANT CHECKERED RABBIT
BANKRUPTCY–POPULAR WORKS
CATASTROPHICAL, THE, see also COMIC, THE
CHILD ABUSE–STUDY AND TEACHING
CONTANGO AND BACKWARDATION
DENTISTS IN ART
FANTASTIC TELEVISION PROGRAMS
FOOD, JUNK
GHOSTS–PICTORIAL WORKS
GOD–ADDRESSES, ESSAYS, LECTURES
HEMORRHOIDS–POPULAR WORKS
JESUS CHRIST–PERSON AND OFFICES
LABORATORY ANIMALS–CONGRESSES
LOVE NESTS–DIRECTORIES
MANURE HANDLING
MUD LUMPS
ODORS IN THE BIBLE
PRAYERS FOR ANIMALS
SICK–FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS
URINARY DIVERSIONS, see also URINE DANCE
WASPS (PERSONS)

That’s from Likins’ article “Subject Headings, Silly, American–20th Century–Complications and Sequelae–Addresses, Essays, Lectures,” in Technical Services Quarterly, vol. 2, no. 1/2, Fall/Winter 1984, using data from the Library of Congress and Cataloging in Publication. In The Library at Night (2006), Alberto Manguel gives these:

Banana research
Bat binding
Boots and shoes in art
Chickens in religion and folklore
Sewage: collected works
Sex: cause and determination
Tic: see also toc

And the Whole Library Handbook (1991) offers these, collected by the Library of Congress Professional Association:

Adult children
Beehives; see Bee–Housing
Diving for men
Drug abuse — Programmed instruction
Feet in the Bible
Hand — Surgery — Juvenile literature
Lord’s Supper — Reservation
Low German wit and humor
Monotone operators
Running races in rabbinical literature
Standing on one foot; see One-leg resting position
Stupidity; see Inefficiency, Intellectual

I think some of these may now be out of date, but there’s certainly no shortage of curious headings — in doing research for this site I recently ran across “Raccoon — Biography.”

| Literature

Business as Usual

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

On July 1, 1858, the Linnean Society of London heard a joint presentation by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace on the theory of evolution by natural selection.

In his annual report the following May, society president Thomas Bell wrote, “The year which has passed has not, indeed, been marked by any of those striking discoveries which at once revolutionize, so to speak, the department of science on which they bear.”

| Science & Math

In Brief

In 1962, botanist Reid Moran published a note in the journal Madroño recounting his collection of a bush rue on a mountaintop in Baja California.

The note’s title was “Cneoridium dumosum (Nuttall) Hooker f. Collected March 26, 1960, at an Elevation of About 1450 Meters on Cerro Quemazón, 15 Miles South of Bahía de Los Angeles, Baja California, México, Apparently for a Southeastward Range Extension of Some 140 Miles.”

The text read, “I got it there then.”

This was followed by a 28-line acknowledgment section in which Moran thanked the person who had reviewed the text, his college professors, and the person who had mailed the manuscript.

| Science & Math

Going Up

A problem from the 2003 Moscow Mathematical Olympiad:

A store has three floors, which are connected only by an elevator. At night the store is empty, and during the workday:

(1) Of the customers who enter the elevator on the second floor, half go to the first floor and half to the third floor.

(2) The number of customers who get out the elevator on the third floor is less than 1/3 the total number of customers who get out of the elevator.

Which is greater, the number of customers who go from the first floor to the second on a given workday, or the number who go from the first floor to the third?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Too Late?

Paul R. McClenon of Washington D.C. contributed this problem to the January-February 1964 issue of Recreational Mathematics Magazine:

The poor patient read the prescription which would save his life. ‘Mix carefully a one-pint drink, made of scotch whisky and water, mixed one to five (1/6 scotch, 5/6 water). Drink it quickly and go to bed.’

However, the patient finds only the following items at hand:

A one-quart bottle, about half full of scotch whisky.
An eight-ounce glass.
An unlimited supply of water from his faucet.
A sink with a drain.
No other containers or measuring devices.

He can pour from either container to the other, without spilling a drop, and can fill either to the brim without loss. How should he mix the prescription? Will he figure it out in time? Will he be saved? Did a doctor or bartender write this prescription?

The magazine went out of business before it could publish the solution. I’ll leave it to you.

05/17/2013 UPDATE: There seem to be a number of ways to accomplish this. Here’s one:

We need a 16-ounce dose that’s 1/6 whiskey, so the final mixture must contain 2.666 ounces of whiskey.

  1. Fill the 8-ounce glass with whiskey, then empty the jug.
  2. Return the glassful of whiskey to the empty jug and add two glassfuls of water.
  3. Fill the glass with this 2-to-1 mixture of water and whiskey. The 8-ounce glass now contains 2.666 ounces of whiskey, our target.
  4. Empty the bottle, pour the glass’ contents into it, and add one 8-ounce glassful of water.

That leaves us with 16 ounces in the jug, 1/6 of which is whiskey and the rest water, as directed.

Thanks to everyone who wrote in.

| Puzzles

Outreach

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Moon_Art_Scale_Fingers.jpg

There’s a museum on the moon. As Apollo 12 prepared to depart in 1969, New York sculptor Forrest Myers commissioned drawings from six prominent artists and had them engraved on a ceramic wafer, then arranged for a Grumman engineer to smuggle it onto the lunar lander.

Two days before launch he received a telegram confirming that the engineer had been successful. If he was, then the tiny museum is still up there, bearing drawings by Robert Rauschenberg, David Novros, John Chamberlain, Claes Oldenburg, Forrest Myers, and Andy Warhol. Perhaps they’ll attract some patrons.

| Art · Oddities