Name Sense
A 1936 poser by British puzzle maven Hubert Phillips:
A man I met in Fleet Street yesterday told me the following anecdote:
‘I met yesterday (he said) a friend of mine whom I had not seen since I was at Oxford. That was some years ago and we had not, during all that time, had any communication with one another. Nor had we at Oxford any friends or acquaintances in common.
‘I was delighted to see my friend, nevertheless. “I suppose,” I said, “that lots of things have happened to you.”
‘”Why, yes,” was the answer. “I am married now and this is my little girl.”
‘I looked at the child — a pretty little thing of about six. “And what is your name, my dear,” I asked her. “Margaret,” was the reply. “Aha,” said I, “the same name as your mother’s.”‘
How did the speaker know?
Weight Watchers
The Habeas Corpus Act of 1679 is a landmark in English law, permitting a prisoner to challenge the lawfulness of his detention. But Parliament passed it through an absurd miscount:
Lord Grey and Lord Norris were named to be the tellers: Lord Norris, being a man subject to vapours, was not at all times attentive to what he was doing: so, a very fat lord coming in, Lord Grey counted him as ten, as a jest at first: but seeing Lord Norris had not observed it, he went on with this misreckoning of ten: so it was reported that they that were for the Bill were in the majority, though indeed it went for the other side: and by this means the Bill passed.
That account, by contemporary historian Gilbert Burnet, is borne out by the session minutes. The act remains on the statute book to this day.
In a Word
scripturient
adj. having a desire for writing or authorship
Theory and Practice
In 1982 Richard Feynman and his friend Tom Van Sant met in Geneva and decided to visit the physics lab at CERN. “There was a giant machine that was going to be rolled into the line of the particle accelerator,” Van Sant remembered later. “The machine was maybe the size of a two-story building, on tracks, with lights and bulbs and dials and scaffolds all around, with men climbing all over it.
“Feynman said, ‘What experiment is this?’
“The director said, ‘Why, this is an experiment to test the charge-change something-or-other under such-and-such circumstances.’ But he stopped suddenly, and he said, ‘I forgot! This is your theory of charge-change, Dr. Feynman! This is an experiment to demonstrate, if we can, your theory of 15 years ago, called so-and-so.’ He was a little embarrassed at having forgotten it.
“Feynman looked at this big machine, and he said, ‘How much does this cost?’ The man said, ‘Thirty-seven million dollars,’ or whatever it was.
“And Feynman said, ‘You don’t trust me?'”
(Quoted in Christopher Sykes, No Ordinary Genius, 1994.)
Pick’s Theorem
Georg Alexander Pick found a useful way to determine the area of a simple polygon with integer coordinates. If i is the number of lattice points in the interior and b is the number of lattice points on the boundary, then the area is given by
There are 40 lattice points in the interior of the figure above and 12 on the boundary, so its area is 40 + 12/2 – 1 = 45.
(Thanks, Pål.)
Mother’s Milk
How do you feed newborn pigs when the mother has died or when they are so small or numerous that they may be crushed at feeding time? In 1961 Cora Lee Brown found a unique solution:
One of the important objects of this invention is the provision of a pig feeder designed in the form and size of an actual sow so as to simulate as much as possible the nursing environment afforded by the real animal and to thereby create a natural atmosphere for cultivating the natural eating habits and conditions of the newborn pigs.
In field tests Brown’s invention reduced the mortality rate of newborn pigs. It even plays a recording of the actual sounds of a sow at feeding time, “which operates on predetermined time schedules and is synchronized with the regulated supply of feed to the feeding tank.”
“The Twenty-Third Psaum”
The Lord is my Shepherd; my wants are a’ kent; the pasture I lie on is growthie and green.
I follow by the lip o’ the watirs o’ Peace.
He heals and sterklie hauds my saul: and airts me, for his ain name’s sake, in a’ the fit-roads o’ his holiness.
Aye, and though I bude gang throwe the howe whaur the deid-shadows fa’, I’se fear nae skaith nor ill, for that yersel is aye aside me; yere rod and yere cruik they defend me.
My table ye hae plenish’t afore the een o’ my faes; my heid ye hae chrystit wi’ oyle; my cup is teemin fu’!
And certes, tenderness and mercie sal be my fa’ to the end o’ my days; and syne I’se bide i’ the hoose o’ the Lord, for evir and evir mair!
— William Wye Smith, The New Testament in Braid Scots, 1904
Relatively Speaking
The Pont Neuf is the oldest bridge across the Seine.
Pont neuf means “new bridge.”
Last Words
On Dec. 6, 1917, an overnight express train bearing 300 passengers was approaching Halifax, Nova Scotia, when an unexpected message arrived by telegraph:
“Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.”
The train stopped safely before the burning French cargo ship Mont-Blanc erupted with the force of 2.9 kilotons of TNT, the largest manmade explosion before the advent of nuclear weapons.
The blast killed 2,000 residents, including train dispatcher Vince Coleman. He had remained at work in the telegraph office, sending warnings, until the end.