Mixed Motives

In a democracy, a voter might reasonably choose to vote in their own interests or to vote for their idea of the common good. This divergence can spell trouble. Suppose voters are choosing between two options, A and B. A is in the interests of 40 percent of the electorate, and B is in the interests of the remaining 60 percent. Now suppose that 80 percent of voters believe that B is for the common good, and 20 percent believe that A is for the common good. And suppose that these beliefs are independent of interests — that is, believers in A and believers in B are spread evenly through the electorate. Finally, suppose that voters for whom A is in their interests vote according to interest while voters for whom B is in their interests vote according to their idea of the common good.

The result is that 52 percent of voters (all A-interest voters and 20 percent of B-interest voters) will vote for A, which wins the day, “even though it is in the minority interest, and believed by just 20% of the population to be in the common good,” notes philosopher Jonathan Wolff. The scenario in this example may be unlikely, but “the key assumption is that morally motivated individuals can make a mistake about what morality requires. … [W]e cannot rely on any assurances that democratic decision-making reveals either the majority interest or the common good.”

(Jonathan Wolff, “Democratic Voting and the Mixed-Motivation Problem,” Analysis 54:4 [October 1994], 193-196.)

| Society

In a Word

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hector_cloud_from_Gunn_Point.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

daymark
n. a mark to help navigators to find their way

nimbiferous
adj. bringing storms or showers

kenspeckle
adj. easily recognizable, conspicuous

onymous
adj. having a name

During World War II, pilots in northern Australia noted that an enormous thunderstorm formed daily between September and March on the Tiwi Islands in the Northern Territory. Regularly reaching heights of 20 kilometers, “Hector the Convector” is one of the world’s largest thunderstorms, an object of concentrated study by meteorologists, and a relative oddity — a cloud with a name.

| Language · Oddities

War and Peace

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The swans of Ypres were well known to practically nearly every battalion which tasted the fighting in the Ypres salient. In June 1915 the shelling of this area was particularly severe, but the small family of swans, which lived in the moat below the ramparts of the stricken city, glided placidly on the water and survived this and the terrible bombardments of the subsequent three years. Great was the excitement among our troops when, in 1917, the swans began nesting operations. On one occasion a German shell fell within a short distance of the nest, but the bird which was then sitting took no notice, except that, for a moment, she fluttered from the concussion. The triumph of the parent birds came when, during the fearful fighting of the third battle for the city, two cygnets were hatched.

— Hugh Steuart Gladstone, Birds and the War, 1919

| History

Einstein’s Sink

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_Wasbak.jpg
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This antique sink has been in use by the physics faculty of Leiden University since 1920, the year that Albert Einstein was made professor by special appointment.

It stood originally in the large lecture room of the old Kamerlingh Onnes Laboratory, and it accompanied the department to the Leiden Bioscience park in 1977.

In more than a century of use, it’s earned its renown: Its users also include Paul Ehrenfest, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, Albert Fert, and Brian Schmidt.

In 2015, when it became clear that sink would not accompany the department to a new science campus in 2025, a petition to “save the sink” received 197 signatures in a month. The faculty board agreed to move it to a lecture room in the new Oort building.

See Something Else.

| History · Science & Math

Arcaicam Esperantom

In 1969, linguist Manuel Halvelik created an “archaic” version of Esperanto, so that Ivanhoe (for example) could seem suitably “old” in translation. Here’s the Lord’s Prayer in standard Esperanto:

Patro nia, kiu estas en Ĉielo,
Estu sanktigita Cia Nomo.
Venu Cia regno,
Plenumiĝu Cia volo
Kiel en Ĉielo, tiel ankaŭ sur Tero.
Al ni donu hodiaŭ panon nian ĉiutagan,
Kaj al ni pardonu niajn pekojn
Kiel ankaŭ ni tiujn, kiuj kontraŭ ni pekas, pardonas.
Kaj nin ne konduku en tenton
Sed nin liberigu el malbono.
Amen.

And here it is in “Old Esperanto”:

Patrom nosam, cuyu estas in Chielom,
Estu sanctiguitam Tuam Nomom.
Wenu Tuam Regnom,
Plenumizzu Tuam Wolom,
Cuyel in Chielom, ityel anquez sobrez Terom.
Nosid donu hodiez Panon nosan cheyutagan,
Ed nosid pardonu nosayn Pecoyn,
Cuyel anquez nos ityuyd cuyuy contrez nos pecait pardonaims.
Ed nosin ned conducu in Tentod,
Sed nosin liberigu ex Malbonom.
Amen.

Halvelik also devised slang and patois versions of the language — both are understandable by every reader, but they register as different styles. In translations of The Lord of the Rings, elves speak archaic language and hobbits speak patois.

| Language

Fore!

In 1962, a burnt golf ball arrived at the botanic gardens at Kew, in southwest London. The head of mycology, R.W.G. Dennis, may have rolled his eyes: The office had received another burnt golf ball 10 years earlier, which the submitter had claimed to be a “rare fungal species.” In that case the staff had got as far as trying to collect spores before they’d realized the hoax.

Twice provoked, Dennis responded in good humor. He published an article titled “A Remarkable New Genus of Phalloid in Lancashire and East Africa,” formally nominating it as a new species of fungus, “Golfballia ambusta,” and describing the specimens as “small, hard but elastic balls used in certain tribal rites of the Caledonians, which take place all season in enclosed paddocks with partially mown grass.” When a third burnt golf ball arrived in 1971, it was accepted into the collection, where all three balls now reside.

That creates a sort of Dadaist dilemma in mycology. By accepting the specimens and publishing a description, Dennis had arguably honored them as a genuine species. The precise definition of a fungus has varied somewhat over time; in publishing his article, Dennis may have been satirically questioning criteria that could accept a nonliving golf ball as a species. But what’s the solution? Some specialists have argued that fungi should be defined as “microorganisms studied by mycologists.” But in that case, points out mycologist Nathan Smith, we should be asking, “Who is a mycologist?”

| Hoaxes · Science & Math

Second Thoughts

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[I]magine the proud possessor of the aeroplane darting through the air at a speed of several hundred feet per second! It is the speed alone that sustains him. How is he ever going to stop? Once he slackens his speed, down he begins to fall. He may, indeed, increase the inclination of his aeroplane. Then he increases the resistance necessary to move it. Once he stops he falls a dead mass. How shall he reach the ground without destroying his delicate machinery? I do not think the most imaginative inventor has yet even put upon paper a demonstrative, successful way of meeting this difficulty.

— Simon Newcomb, “The Outlook for the Flying Machine,” Independent, Oct. 22, 1903

| History · Technology

Self-Reference

A problem from the October 1959 issue of Eureka, the journal of the Cambridge University Mathematical Society:

A. The total number of true statements in this problem is 0 or 1 or 3.
B. The total number of true statements in this problem is 1 or 2 or 3.
C. The total number of true statements in this problem (excluding this one) is 0 or 1 or 3.
D. The total number of true statements in this problem (excluding this one) is 1 or 2 or 3.

Which of these statements are true?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Caesura

On the afternoon of June 28, 1914, Stefan Zweig was on holiday in Baden, reading an essay in the Kurpark, while

the wind in the trees, the twittering of the birds and the music floating across from the park were at the same time part of my consciousness. I could clearly hear the melodies without being distracted, for the ear is so adaptable that a continuous noise, a roaring street, a rushing stream are quickly assimilated into one’s awareness; only an unexpected pause in the rhythm makes us prick our ears … Suddenly the music stopped in the middle of a bar. I didn’t know what piece they had played. I just sensed that the music had suddenly stopped. Instinctively, I looked up from my book. The crowd, too, which was strolling through the trees in a single flowing mass, seemed to change; it, too, paused abruptly in its motion to and fro. Something must have happened.

Word had just arrived that the archduke of Austria had been assassinated in Sarajevo.

(Quoted in Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers, 2013.)

| History