Eric Temple Bell led two lives. By day he was a mathematician at Caltech; by night he wrote science fiction as John Taine.
By a happy chance the two personalities met in 1951, when the Pasadena Star-News asked Taine to review Bell’s book Mathematics, Queen and Servant of Science.
Not one to lose an opportunity, he accepted. “The last flap of the jacket says Bell ‘is perhaps mathematics’ greatest interpreter,'” Taine wrote. “Knowing the author well, the reviewer agrees.”
GREAT CRESTED GREBE is typed entirely with the left hand.
A bit of conjuring adapted from Augustus de Morgan:
1. Think of a one-digit number and remember it. (Example: 4.)
2. Write down a number of any length. Jumble the figures into another number, and subtract one from the other:
3. Count the letters in your father’s first name, your state capital, and the name of your favorite Beatle, and add them together.
4. Multiply this number by 4 and its reverse by 5. Add these together, plus the number from step 1.
For example, suppose your father’s name is William, your state capital is Oklahoma City, and you choose Paul. That’s 23 letters in all, and 23 reversed is 32. (4 × 23) + (5 × 32) + 4 = 256.
5. Mix these figures (256) into the result from step 2 (4600708659), in any order, say 4560207086569.
Seeing nothing but this final list of figures, the conjurer names the one-digit number from step 1.
How does he do it?
Someone once asked G.K. Chesterton what book he’d most like to have on a desert island.
He answered, “Thomas’s Guide to Practical Shipbuilding.”
Assure the company that it is in your power, if any person will place himself in the middle of the room, to make a circle round him, out of which, although his limbs shall be quite at liberty, it will be impossible for him to jump without partially undressing himself, let him use as much exertion as he may. This statement will, without doubt, cause some little surprise; and one of the party will, in all probability, put your asseverations to the test. Request him to take his stand in the middle of the room, then blindfold him, button his coat, and next with a piece of chalk draw a circle round his waist. On withdrawing the bandage from his eyes and showing him the circle you have described, he must at once perceive that he cannot jump out of it without taking off his coat.
— Samuel Williams, The Boy’s Treasury of Sports, Pastimes, and Recreations, 1847
In June 2001, a 10-year-old Staffordshire girl wrote her name on a tag, attached it to a helium balloon, and released it. It floated 140 miles to Wiltshire and came to rest in the garden of another girl.
Both girls were named Laura Buxton, both were 10 years old, both are fair-haired, and each owns a black female Labrador, a guinea pig, and a rabbit.
Irving Berlin composed more than 3,000 songs, including “God Bless America,” “White Christmas,” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business,” but he could barely read music, and his own singing voice was nearly inaudible.
Worse, as a self-taught pianist he played everything in F# major, requiring a special piano to explore other tonalities. “The black keys are right there under your fingers,” he once said. “The key of C is for people who study music.”
He relied on assistants to arrange his ideas — but he still claimed credit for the ideas themselves. “You may not be able to type your own letter, but somebody else can do it for you,” he said. “But they can’t make it up for you.”
More self-contradicting words:
Zing is appeal, but zinging is criticism.
spoffle
v. to make oneself very busy over a matter of very little consequence
“An Eastern Counties word.” — Charles Mackay, Lost Beauties of the English Language
On the night of Sept. 2, 1859, an enormous solar flare produced brilliant auroras around the world. Newspapers and ships’ logs reported striking displays throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and Australia; Bostonians could read by their light at 1 a.m.
At the height of the storm, a curious conversation took place between two New England telegraph operators:
Boston: Please cut off your battery, and let us see if we cannot work with the auroral current alone.
Portland, Maine: I have done so. Will you do the same?
Boston: I have cut my battery off and connected the line with the earth. We are working with the current from the Aurora Borealis alone. How do you receive my writing?
Portland: Very well indeed. Much better than with the batteries on. There is much less variation in the current, and the magnets work steadier. Suppose we continue to work so until the Aurora subsides?
Boston: Agreed. Are you ready for business?
Portland: Yes; go ahead.
They carried on in this way for two hours, the storm inducing enough current in the lines to support their transmissions. It marked the first conclusive link between auroral activity and electricity.
(Thanks, Michael.)