Strike!

Merrimack College mathematician Michael J. Bradley was coaching his son’s Little League team in 1996 when he noticed something odd in the rulebook:

Home base shall be marked by a five-sided slab of whitened rubber. It shall be a 12-inch square with two of the corners filled in so that one edge is 17 inches long, two are 8 1/2 inches and two are 12 inches.

non-euclidean home plate

That’s impossible. “The figure implies the existence of a right isosceles triangle with sides 12, 12 and 17. But (12, 12, 17) is not (quite) a Pythagorean triple: 122 + 122 = 288; 172 = 289.”

“Thus, these specifications seem to give new meaning to a ‘Field of Dreams.'”

| Oddities

“A Weather Prophet”

A pleasant anecdote is told of Partridge, the celebrated almanac maker. In traveling on horseback into the country he stopped for his dinner at an inn, and afterward called for his horse that he might reach the next town, where he intended to sleep. ‘If you would take my advice, sir,’ said the ostler, as he was about to mount his horse, ‘you will stay where you are for the night, as you will surely be overtaken by a pelting rain.’ ‘Nonsense, nonsense,’ said the almanac maker, ‘there is sixpence for you, my honest fellow, and good afternoon to you.’ He proceeded on his journey, and sure enough he was well drenched in a heavy shower. Partridge was struck with the man’s prediction, and being always intent on the interest of his almanac, he rode back on the instant, and was received by the ostler with a broad grin. ‘Well, sir, you see I was right after all.’ ‘Yes, my lad, you have been so, and here is a crown for you, but I give it you on condition that you tell me how you knew of this rain.’ ‘To be sure, sir,’ replied the man; ‘why the truth is we have an almanac in our house called Partridge’s Almanac, and the fellow is such a notorious liar, that whenever he promises us a fine day we always know that it will be the direct contrary.’

— The Golden Rule, and Odd-Fellows’ Family Companion, Oct. 16, 1847

| Science & Math

Immortalized

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

Ambassador Richard Washburn Child once dined with Calvin Coolidge at the White House.

After dinner, the president said he had something to show him. He led Child to one of the smaller rooms in the mansion, opened the door, and turned on the light.

“On the opposite wall hung a portrait of himself,” Child later recalled. “I thought it so very bad I could think of nothing to say.”

For a long moment the two men stood on the threshold. Then Coolidge snapped off the light and closed the door.

“So do I,” he said.

| Art · History

Peace and Quiet

Once upon a time, Master Hobson, who was a rich haberdasher in the Poultry, lying in St Alban’s, there came certain musicians to play at his chamber door, hoping that, as they filled his ears with their music, he would fill their purses with money; whereupon he told one of the servants of the inn (that waited upon him) to go and tell them that he did not then want to hear their music, for he mourned for the death of his mother. So the musicians, disappointed of their purpose, went away. The fellow that heard him speak of mourning, asked him how long it was since he buried his mother. ‘Truly,’ quoth Master Hobson, ‘it is now very nearly forty years ago.’

— William Carew Hazlitt, The New London Jest Book, 1871

| Humor

Dotty

Each point in an infinite plane is colored either red or blue. Prove that there are two points of the same color that are exactly 1 meter apart.

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

“Lovers’ Signals”

At Southsea, Portsmouth, and other places off which our warships are accustomed to anchor, many of the better-educated servant-maids with sailor sweethearts have learnt to be such experts in the way of heliographing that, with ordinary small mirrors, they frequently flash messages to the men on the ships. A naval officer told the present writer that he had often, when on deck, been both amused and surprised at the accuracy with which some of these girls used this form of signalling out of pure fun.

— Tit Bits, quoted in Strand, May 1907

| Technology

Thump

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brooklyn_blizzard_1888.jpg

New England got unexpectedly clobbered in March 1888 when 40 inches of snow fell in a day and a half. Businesses were closed and streetcars abandoned as screaming winds whipped the drifts into house-devouring hills as deep as 50 feet. Thirty trains were paralyzed near New York City, their passengers taken in by nearby residents, and the city’s fire engines lay mired in the streets, unable to respond to calls. “Despatches between Boston and New York were sent by way of London” due to downed lines, reported the Albany Cultivator & Country Gentlemen, and “for two hours on Tuesday people crossed the East river on an ice floe brought up by the tide.”

The forecast had been “clearing and colder, preceded by light snow.”

| Oddities