The Clockwork Monk

In the collection of the Smithsonian Institution is this 460-year-old automaton, a robot monk who walks in a square, beats his breast in contrition, raises a rosary and crucifix to his lips, turns and nods his head, rolls his eyes, and mouths obsequies. Its origin is not clear: The story goes that when the Spanish king’s son was ailing the relics of a Franciscan monk were brought to his side, and after he recovered the king commissioned the automaton in gratitude.

But no one really knows. “Many of the earliest automata were commissioned as expressions of religious belief: models of Jesus bled, automata of Satan roared and screamed, moving tableaux of biblical scenes were quite commonplace, coming to life for festivals and holy days,” writes historian E.R. Truitt in Ben Russell’s Robots: The 500-Year Quest to Make Machines Human. “Amazingly, no fewer than three mechanical monks survive: this one … and two more in Munich and Budapest, at the Deutsches Museum and Museum of Applied Arts respectively.”

December 7, 2018 | Technology

The Seneca White Deer

When the Seneca Army Depot in upstate New York was shut down in 2000 it left an odd legacy: the world’s largest herd of white deer. The fence erected around the facility in 1941 happened to enclose a few white-tailed deer that carried a recessive gene for all-white coats; the depot commander forbade his GIs to shoot any white deer, and eventually the white herd grew to number more than 300.

These are not albinos; they have brown eyes, not pink, and they live alongside some 600 brown white-tailed deer. In 2016 the Army sold the depot to a local businessman, and part of the land has now been established as a conservation park. Bus tours have “turned out to be hugely successful.”

December 6, 2018December 6, 2018 | Oddities

In a Word

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but I hadn’t realized the source was known: In 1844, British general Sir Charles Napier was criticized in Parliament for his ruthless campaign to take the Indian province of Sind. On hearing this, 16-year-old schoolgirl Catherine Winkworth “remarked to her teacher that Napier’s despatch to the Governor General of India, after capturing Sind, should have been Peccavi (Latin for ‘I have sinned’).”

She sent this immortal pun to Punch, which unfortunately printed it as a factual report:

This mangled its meaning and credited Napier. Winkworth’s authorship was discovered only by later literary sleuths.

December 6, 2018December 5, 2018 | History · Language

Abstract

Prince Hamlet thought uncle a traitor
For having it off with his Mater;
Revenge Dad or not —
That’s the gist of the plot —
And he did — nine soliloquies later.

— Stanley J. Sharpless

December 5, 2018 | Literature · Poems

The Indecisive Rower

A rower rows regularly on a river, from A to B and back. He’s got into the habit of rowing harder when going upstream, so that he goes twice as fast relative to the water as when rowing downstream. One day as he’s rowing upstream he passes a floating bottle. He ignores it at first but then gradually grows curious about its contents. After 20 minutes of arguing with himself he stops rowing and drifts for 15 minutes. Then he sets out after the bottle. After some time rowing downstream he changes his mind, turns around, and makes his way upstream again. But his curiosity takes hold once more, and after 10 minutes of rowing upstream he turns and goes after the bottle again. Again he grows ashamed of his childishness and turns around. But after rowing upstream for 5 minutes he can’t stand it any longer, rows downstream, and picks up the bottle 1 kilometer from the point where he’d passed it. How fast is the current?

	Select Click for Answer
Between passing the bottle and picking it up, the rower spends a total of 20 + 10 + 5 = 35 minutes rowing upstream. In this period his total motion relative to the bottle (and to the water) is zero — the distance he’s traveled relative to the water’s surface is the same upstream as down. We know he moves half as fast relative to the water when he’s rowing downstream as when he’s rowing upstream; this means he’s spent twice as much time rowing downstream as up, or 70 minutes. He also spent 15 minutes drifting, so altogether he picks up the bottle 35 + 70 + 15 = 120 minutes, or two hours, after passing it. The bottle has covered 1 kilometer in this time, so the current is moving at 1/2 kilometer per hour. (A simpler way to think about the timing is to imagine that the whole thing takes place on a lake rather than a river. The rower departs from the bottle, rows 35 minutes in one direction, sits motionless for 15 minutes, and rows back to the bottle at half his earlier speed. When he reaches the bottle his round trip has taken him 35 + 15 + 70 = 120 minutes, or two hours.)

Click for Answer

December 5, 2018December 4, 2018 | Puzzles

“Map of the Road to Hell!!”

This is literally the first thing you find if you search the Library of Congress for “map of the road”. I.N. Barrillon drew it in 1858. “Reader! how far have you travelled on this dreadful road? Examine thyself! Turn ye turn ye for why will you die!!”

You can’t make out all the details here (the library has some beautiful larger scans), but it’s amazing what will land you in trouble. The major rivers in Hell are Gambling River, Drunkenness River, and Perdition River, but the tributaries include Chess Creek, Backgammon Branch, Lottery Creek, Egg Nog Creek, Cider Branch, and Lemonade Branch.

In his 1973 Atlas of Fantasy, J.B. Post writes, “The quickest way to the Great Lake of Fire and Brimstone is by the Suicide Rail Road and the Duelist’s Rail Road. One can meander along the road but shortcuts are provided for liars, drunkards, gamblers, and perjurors. All, however, finally go ‘blip’ into the Great Lake.”

“Not shown is the road to Heaven called ‘the Path of Ennui.'”

December 4, 2018 | Art · Society

Memorable Numbers

In 1995 psychologists Marisca Milikowski and Jan Elshout tested 597 undergraduates to see which of the numbers 1-100 they found easiest and hardest to remember. The students were given 90 seconds to memorize an array of numbers from this range; after an hour’s interval they were given another 90 seconds to recall the numbers they’d seen.

The most successfully recalled numbers were 8, 1, 100, 2, 17, 5, 9, 10, 99, and 11, and the least 82, 56, 61, 94, 85, 45, 83, 59, 41, and 79. The most memorable categories seem to be single-digit numbers; “teen” numbers (10-19); doubled numbers such as 22 and 44; and numbers that appear in multiplication tables, such as 49 and 36.

Interestingly, when the experimenters asked the subjects to rate numbers subjectively as “good” or “bad,” all the numbers judged good belonged to one of these privileged categories, and none of the bad numbers did.

(Marisca Milikowski and Jan J. Elshout, “What Makes a Number Easy to Remember?” British Journal of Psychology 86 [November 1995], 537-47.)

December 4, 2018December 3, 2018 | Science & Math

For What It’s Worth

SWEATERDRESSES is typed entirely with the left hand, JOHNNY-JUMP-UP with the right. ANTISKEPTICISM alternates.

December 3, 2018 | Language · Trivia

Podcast Episode 227: The Christmas Tree Ship

herman schuenemann

In the late 1800s Chicago families bought their Christmas trees from the decks of schooners that had ferried them across Lake Michigan. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll meet Herman Schuenemann, known as “Captain Santa,” who brought Christmas to the city for 30 years until a fateful storm overtook him.

We’ll also peruse some possums and puzzle over a darkening phone.

See full show notes …

December 3, 2018December 10, 2018 | History · Podcast

Reflection

“All comfort must be based on discomfort. Man chooses when he wishes to be most joyful the very moment when the whole material universe is most sad.” — G.K. Chesterton, introduction to Dickens’ Christmas Books, 1907

December 2, 2018 | Society