Guy Incognito

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

Suppose [a] man who underwent [a] radical change of character — let us call him Charles — claimed, when he woke up, to remember witnessing certain events and doing certain actions which earlier he did not claim to remember, and that under questioning he could not remember witnessing other events and doing other actions which earlier he did remember. … [Suppose that] all the events he claims to have witnessed and all the actions he claims to have done point unanimously to the life-history of some one person in the past — for instance, Guy Fawkes. Not only do all Charles’ memory-claims that can be checked fit the pattern of Fawkes’ life as known to historians, but others that cannot be checked are plausible, provide explanations of unexplained facts, and so on. Are we to say that Charles is now Guy Fawkes, that Guy Fawkes has come to life again in Charles’ body, or some such thing?

— Bernard Williams, “Personal Identity and Individuation,” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1957

“If it is logically possible that Charles should undergo the changes described, then it is logically possible that some other man should simultaneously undergo the same changes: e.g., that both Charles and his brother Robert should be found in this condition. What should we say in that case? They cannot both be Guy Fawkes: if they were, Guy Fawkes would be in two places at once, which is absurd.”

| Science & Math

Traffic

On July 9, 1962, a Western Airlines L-188 was flying over central Nevada when the pilot felt a thud. On landing, the crew found a football-sized dent in one of the horizontal stabilizers. Stuck in the dent was a feather, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service identified as a mallard’s.

The plane had been flying at 21,000 feet.

| Oddities

Changing Teams

A very old Jewish man called his wife to his bed. ‘I am going to die. Please call a priest — I wish to convert to Catholicism.’ His wife responded with shock and disbelief, reminding her husband that they had been devout Jews all their lives. ‘I know, dear,’ he said, ‘but isn’t it better that one of them should die than one of us?’

— Anonymous epigraph to John Martin Fischer, The Metaphysics of Death, 1993

| Religion

Match Point

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Henrietta wants a yacht. Her parents think she’s too young. Like all rich people, they settle disagreements by playing competitive lawn tennis.

Henrietta must play three singles matches against her parents. If she wins two matches in a row she gets the yacht. Her mother is a better player than her father. Should she play mother-father-mother or father-mother-father?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Glorious Union

The high point of the Buckingham Palace switchboard operator’s day is when she puts the Queen through to the Queen Mother. ‘Your Majesty? Her Majesty, Your Majesty.’

— Jerrold M. Packard, The Queen & Her Court: A Guide to the British Monarchy Today, 1981

| Society

Words and Numbers

The name of any integer can be transformed into a number by setting A=1, B=2, C=3, etc.: ONE = 15145, TWO = 202315, THREE = 2081855, and so on.

Because every English number name ends in D (4), E (5), L (12), N (14), O (15), R (18), T (20), X (24), or Y (25), no such transformation will produce a prime number.

But in Spanish, which uses 27 letters, both SESENTA (60) = 20520514211 and MIL SETENTA (1070) = 1391220521514211 yield primes.

(Thanks, Claudio.)

| Language · Science & Math

R.I.P.

A man was killed by a circular saw, and in his obituary notice it was stated that he was ‘a good citizen, an upright man and an ardent patriot, but of limited information with regard to circular saws.’

— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879

| Death

High Gear

http://books.google.com/books?id=bbURAAAAYAAJ&rview=1&source=gbs_navlinks_s

In May 1892, the French newspaper La Petite Gironde sponsored a unique contest: The first man to travel on stilts the 302 miles from Bordeaux to Bayonne and Biarritz and back would win 1,000 francs.

Sometimes the stilts broke, although they were made of strong ash. The men would then halt for repairs and seize the opportunity of taking a meal–soup and fried eggs, perhaps, with coffee and white wine. … First arrivals at various control-posts were presented with bouquets, laurel wreaths, and more substantial tokens in the shape of free rations and money. Others frankly touted for contributions in the towns, and made a grand thing of it.

Of 69 starters, 32 covered the course in the allotted time of eight and a half days. The prize went to 31-year-old Pierre Deycard, who finished in 4 days 7 hours — after which he was treated to a banquet of 15 courses “and then made to parade the town with a bank note for 1,000 francs pinned on his chest.”

(From Strand, January 1898.)

| Oddities