Peace and Quiet

https://www.google.com/patents/US208672

Ohio inventor Philip Clover came up with a dramatic way to discourage body snatchers in 1878: a “coffin torpedo.” Basically a live cartridge is attached to the body by hidden wires so that “any attempt to remove the body after burial will cause the … injury or death of the desecrator of the grave”:

The trigger-wires are secured to the arms, legs, or other portion of the body of the corpse in such manner as to induce to the tripping of the trigger should any attempt be made to withdraw the body from the casket. The torpedo is loaded … just prior to the final closing of the casket.

“The torpedo may be placed in variable positions within the casket, and properly concealed by the trimmings of the casket or the apparel of the corpse.” Clover points out that there’s no need to protect the weapon from the elements — by the time it ceases to work, “the body would be of no use to robbers.”

| Death · Technology

Podcast Episode 154: Spared by a Volcano

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cyparis.jpg

The worst volcanic disaster of the 20th century struck Martinique in 1902, killing 30,000 people in the scenic town of Saint-Pierre. But rescuers found one man alive — a 27-year-old laborer in a dungeon-like jail cell. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll meet Ludger Sylbaris, who P.T. Barnum called “The Only Living Object That Survived in the Silent City of Death.”

We’ll also address some Indian uncles and puzzle over a gruesome hike.

See full show notes …

| History · Oddities · Podcast

An End in Sight

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Euwe_1935.jpg

Write down a 0:

0

Now mentally “flip” this string in binary, exchanging 0s and 1s, and append this new string to the existing one:

0 1

Keep this up and you’ll get a growing string of 0s and 1s:

0 1 1 0
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1
0 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 0
…

This is the Thue–Morse sequence, named after two of its discoverers, Axel Thue and Marston Morse. One interesting property of the sequence is that, no matter how far it’s extended, it contains no “cubes,” no instances in which some nonempty string occurs three times in a row. For example, the last line above contains both 11 and 00 but no instance of 111 or 000. (It also contains 1001 twice in a row, but not three times.)

Max Euwe, the Dutch mathematician who was world chess champion from 1935 to 1937, used this principle to show that chess was not a finite game. Under the rules at the time, a chess game would end in a draw if a sequence of moves (with all pieces in the same positions) were played three times in a row. Euwe used the Thue-Morse sequence to show that this need never happen: If 0 represents one set of moves, and 1 represents another, and each set leaves the board position unchanged, then the Thue-Morse sequence shows that two players might step through these routines forever without ever playing one three times in a row.

Modern chess rules have dropped the threefold sequence provision. Instead a draw results when the same board position occurs three times, or when 50 successive moves occur without a capture or a pawn move. Both of these rules limit a game to a finite length (although one player must actually claim the draw).

(Thanks, Pål.)

| Science & Math

Unquote

la rochefoucauld

More maxims of François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680):

  • “Fortune shews our Virtues and Vices, as Light does Objects.”
  • “‘Tis never more difficult to speak well than when we are ashamed of our Silence.”
  • “Since great Men can neither bestow Health of Body, nor Peace of Mind, we certainly pay too dear for all else they can.”
  • “Our Wisdom is no less at Fortune’s Mercy than our Wealth.”
  • “The Desire of appearing Persons of Ability often prevents our being so.”
  • “There are some Faults, which when well-managed make a greater Figure than Virtue itself.”
  • “We like better to see those on whom we confer Benefits, than those from whom we receive them.”
  • “We should not be much concerned about Faults we have the Courage to own.”
  • “In the Adversity of our Friends, we always find something that don’t displease us.”
  • “Misers mistake Gold for their Good; whereas ’tis only a Means for attaining it.”
  • “When our Merit declines our Taste declines.”
  • “There is near as much Ability requisite to know how to make use of good Advice, as to know how to act for one’s self.”
  • “We had rather speak ill of ourselves than not speak at all.”
  • “We give up our Interest sooner than our Taste.”
  • “We forgive as long as we love.”

And “We sometimes lose People whom we regret more than we sorrow for; and others whom we are sorry for, yet don’t regret.”

| Quotations

Moo

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/cow-shoes-prohibition-1924/

This is clever — during Prohibition, moonshiners wore shoes that left hoofprints. From the St. Petersburg, Fla., Evening Independent, May 27, 1922:

A new method of evading prohibition agents was revealed here today by A.L. Allen, state prohibition enforcement director, who displayed what he called a ‘cow shoe’ as the latest thing from the haunts of moonshiners.

The cow shoe is a strip of metal to which is tacked a wooden block carved to resemble the hoof of a cow, which may be strapped to the human foot. A man shod with a pair of them would leave a trail resembling that of a cow.

“The shoe found was picked up near Port Tampa where a still was located some time ago. It will be sent to the prohibition department at Washington. Officers believe the inventor got his idea from a Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain shod his horse with shoes the imprint of which resembled those of a cow’s hoof.”

(Via Rare Historical Photos.)

| Crime · Oddities

Scene

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Boating_on_the_Thames_by_John_Lavery.jpeg

In a London paper, of the last week, is the following curious apology for a hasty accusation — ‘A paragraph in our last paper, rather precipitously accuses, with ingratitude, a gentleman who gave two-pence as a reward to a waterman for risking his life in saving a lady who had fallen in the River; but had the writer of that paragraph been acquainted with all the particulars, he probably would have suppressed his censure. — The lady to whom the accident happened was the gentleman’s wife.

— Public Advertiser, Aug. 20, 1790

| Society

Audition

https://pixabay.com/en/animal-avian-bird-feathers-nature-1851604/

Mozart’s expense book for May 27, 1784, contains a curious entry:

Starling bird. 34 kreutzer.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MozartStarlingTune.PNG

Das war schön!

He had bought a starling on that date, apparently after asking it to repeat the opening theme of the third movement of his Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K. 453, which he’d completed a few weeks earlier. The bird had held the first G rather long, and then sharped two Gs in the following measure, but Mozart’s exclamation (“That was beautiful!”) shows that he approved.

He kept the bird for three years, until its death on June 4, 1787, when he buried it in his backyard. Then he arranged a funeral for it in which his friends marched in a procession, sang hymns, and listened to the composer recite a poem. No other written records of the bird appear in his surviving writings, but maybe the two had become collaborators.

| Art

Equilibrium

Michael Grab balances rocks. He regards it as a combination of art, engineering, and contemplative spiritual practice combining patience, critical thinking, and problem solving. But the only “ingredients” in his sculptures are rocks and gravity — there’s no mortar, cement, or artificial support holding them together; any one of them can be toppled with a finger.

“The most fundamental element of balancing in a physical sense is finding some kind of ‘tripod’ for the rock to stand on. Every rock is covered in a variety of tiny to large indentations that can act as a tripod for the rock to stand upright, or in most orientations you can think of with other rocks. By paying close attention to the feeling of the rocks, you will start to feel even the smallest clicks as the notches of the rocks in contact are moving over one another.”

“There is nothing easy about it. It can frustrate me to my limits, and then I learn. Or it can reveal magic beyond words, and I learn. Sometimes the rock wins, but most of the time I win.”

| Art

False Glory

1956 olympic torch hoax

Sydney mayor Pat Hills had a trying day on Nov. 18, 1956. That year’s Olympic torch had been wending its way across Australia and was scheduled to arrive in town that evening, carried by former marathon champion Harry Dillon. Huge crowds lined the streets, perching on fences and climbing poles for a better view.

Presently a runner appeared, holding a torch aloft. He bounded up the steps and handed it to Hills, who started his welcome address and then stopped, realizing that the handle he was holding bore wet paint.

It turned out to be a chair leg surmounted by a plum pudding can. Students at the University of Sydney had organized the hoax to protest thoughtless reverence for the Olympic torch. “It was being treated as a god, whereas in fact it was originally invented by the Nazis for the Berlin Games in 1936,” said veterinary student Barry Larkin, who had melted into the crowd after handing the fake torch to Hills.

“Our friends from the university think things like that are funny,” Hill told the crowd. “I hope you are enjoying the joke.” He was lucky it hadn’t gone off as planned — the torch had originally contained a pair of burning underwear.

| Hoaxes