On the grounds of the Fortress of Kruševac, in Serbia, is a “window to the past” that depicts the donjon tower as it appeared in its medieval heyday. At its height it served as the entrance to a medieval fortified town, the seat of Moravian Serbia.
A Stand of Seats
High Wycombe, a town of furniture makers, historically celebrated important visitors with arches of chairs. The most famous marked the arrival of Prince Edward in 1880; three years earlier a similar arch had arrested Queen Victoria on her way from Windsor Castle to Hughenden to visit Lord Beaconsfield.
“It was made up of chairs of all kinds, and bore the words, ‘Long Live the Queen,'” read the Annual Register. “Her Majesty’s attention was specially attracted by this curious structure, and the Royal carriage was stopped that its occupants might have a better view.”
Math Notes
In a 1752 letter to Euler, Christian Goldbach suggested that every odd integer is the sum of a prime and twice a square. (At the time, 1 was considered a prime number.)
Only two exceptions, 5777 and 5993, have ever been found.
Exchange
One day Stan Laurel visited a stationery store.
The clerk seemed to recognize him.
“Say,” he said. “Aren’t you –”
Laurel said, “Oliver Hardy.”
“Right,” said the clerk. “Say, whatever happened to Laurel?”
Laurel said, “He went balmy.”
Illustration
A pleasing observation by W.V. Quine from 1988:
Fermat’s Last Theorem can be vividly stated in terms of sorting objects into a row of bins, some of which are red, some blue, and the rest unpainted. The theorem amounts to saying that when there are more than two objects, the following statement is never true:
Statement. The number of ways of sorting them that shun both colors is equal to the number of ways that shun neither.
He explains this, very concisely, here.
(W.V. Quine, “Fermat’s Last Theorem in Combinatorial Form,” American Mathematical Monthly 95:7 [September 1988], 636.)
“De Nyew Testament”
We Fada wa dey een heaben,
leh ebreybody hona ya name.
We pray dat soon ya gwine
rule oba de wol.
Wasoneba ting ya wahn,
leh um be so een dis wol
same like dey een heaben.
Gii we de food wa we need
dis day yah en ebry day.
Fagib we fa we sin,
same like we da fagib
dem people wa do bad ta we.
Leh we dohn hab haad test
wen Satan try we.
Keep we fom ebil.
From the New Testament in Gullah. The whole book is here.
Podcast Episode 328: A Canine Prisoner of War
In 1944, British captives of the Japanese in Sumatra drew morale from an unlikely source: a purebred English pointer who cheered the men, challenged the guards, and served as a model of patient fortitude. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of Judy, the canine POW of World War II.
We’ll also consider the frequency of different birthdays and puzzle over a little sun.
Black and White
Navy Barrage
In 2014, Australian TV presenter Karl Stefanovic wore the same blue suit every morning for a year on Channel Nine’s Today program. Not a single viewer asked about it.
In the same period viewers sent regular criticisms of co-host Lisa Wilkinson’s wardrobe. “Who the heck is Lisa’s stylist?” one wrote. “Today’s outfit is particularly jarring and awful. Get some style.”
“I’m judged on my interviews, my appalling sense of humour — on how I do my job, basically,” Stefanovic told the Sydney Morning Herald. “Whereas women are quite often judged on what they’re wearing or how their hair is. … Women are judged much more harshly and keenly for what they do, what they say and what they wear.”
(Thanks, Rini.)
Student Debt
Around 1220, Oxford University proposed this form letter for young scholars seeking money from their patrons:
To his venerable master A., greeting. This is to inform you that I am studying at Oxford with great diligence, but the matter of money stands greatly in the way of my promotion, as it is now two months since I spent the last of what you sent me. The city is expensive and makes many demands. I have to rent lodgings, buy necessaries, and provide for many other things which I cannot now specify. Wherefore I respectfully beg your paternity that by the promptings of divine pity you may assist me, so that I may be able to complete what I have well begun.
One father wrote, “A student’s first song is a demand for money, and there will never be a letter which does not ask for cash.”
(From Charles H. Haskins, The Life of Medieval Students as Illustrated by Their Letters, 1898.) (Thanks, Paul.)