Riddle of the Sphinx

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For most of its history, Egypt’s Great Sphinx lay buried up to its neck in sand. This photo was taken in 1867; the sphinx wasn’t fully dug out until 1925.

Strangely, we know very little about it. It’s one of the world’s largest statues, but no one knows who built it, or when, or whose likeness it bears. We’re not even sure what it is — we call it a sphinx, but we borrow that term from Greek mythology. A true sphinx would have the head of a woman.

No one knows what the ancient Egyptians called it, but its Arabic name, Abu al-Hôl, translates as “Father of Terror.” Maybe we should cover it up again.

| History

National Statistics Per Capita

Large countries get the most attention, but the picture changes when you adjust for size:

  • Highest GDP: United States
  • Highest GDP per capita: Luxembourg
  • Largest military: China
  • Largest military per capita: Vatican City
  • Most expensive military: United States
  • Most expensive military per capita: Israel
  • Most Olympic medals: United States
  • Most Olympic medals per capita: Australia
  • Most Cannes Palmes d’Or: United States
  • Most Cannes Palmes d’Or per capita: Denmark
  • Most Nobel Prizes: United States
  • Most Nobel Prizes per capita: Iceland
  • Most startup companies: United States
  • Most startup companies per capita: Israel
| Society

Left-Handedness and Age

Twelve percent of American 20-year-olds are left-handed, but only 5 percent of 50-year-olds and fewer than 1 percent of people over 80.

Does this mean that more lefties are being born today? Or that older generations were forced to switch hands? Or that southpaws die sooner? No one knows.

| Oddities · Trivia

Rongorongo

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Statues aren’t the only mystery on Easter Island. Tablets found on the island bear a mysterious script, known as rongorongo, that has never been successfully deciphered.

Some scholars have pointed out similarities between the strange characters and the prehistoric script of the Indus Valley in India, 6,000 miles away, but others dispute this.

The islanders themselves give eager and varying accounts to archaeologists and historians, and perhaps they themselves don’t know. Some say that rongorongo means peace-peace, and that the documents record treaties, perhaps with visitors to the island.

So far, none of the attempts at translation have withstood peer review.

| Language · Oddities

The Best of Times

German arithmetician Zacharias Dase (1824-1861) once multiplied two 100-digit numbers in his head. It took him 8 hours 45 minutes.

Karl Gauss estimated that even a skilled mathematician, using pencil and paper, would require fully half that time.

| Science & Math

An Early Serial Killer

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Wander too far away from the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 and you might disappear forever.

Herman Mudgett, an enterprising serial killer, built a row of three-story buildings near the Chicago fair and opened it as a hotel. Guests discovered — too late — that it was a maze of more than 100 windowless rooms, where Mudgett would trap them, torture them in a soundproof chamber, and then asphyxiate them with a custom-fitted gas line.

Then he’d send the bodies by chute to the basement, where he’d cremate them or sell them to a medical school.

This went on for three years, until a fire broke out and police and firemen discovered the trap. No one knows how many people Mudgett killed; he confessed to 27, but estimates go as high as 230.

He was hanged in Philadelphia in 1896.

| Crime · Death · History · Oddities