The Final Exam

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“The Ten Commandments should be treated like an examination. Only six need to be attempted.” So said Bertrand Russell, allegedly.

“I have a variant,” wrote J.E. Littlewood. “As a Pure mathematician I can’t be expected to do the Applied ones. Interpreting No. 1 to mean what it says in logic, I should be prepared to do the Pure ones. No. 2 is a sitter, No. 3 would take some initial caution, but worth it with the reward of full marks. It is good mental hygiene to take Sunday off, and I could throw in this Applied question. Nos. 5 to 10 are applied. Actually my parents are dead so No. 6 is a walk-over. And I should be disappointed if I didn’t get full marks on the applied 9 and 10.”

| Religion

“A Strange Bird”

Yesterday, at about five o’clock in the afternoon, when the daily labours in this mine were over, and all the workmen were together awaiting their supper, we saw coming through the air, from the side of the ternera, a gigantic bird, which at first sight we took for one of the clouds then partially darkening the atmosphere, supposing it to have been separated from the rest by the wind. Its course was from north-west to south-east; its flight rapid and in a straight line. As it was passing a short distance above our heads we could mark the strange formation of its body. Its immense wings were clothed with a grayish plumage, its monstrous head was like that of a locust, its eyes were wide open and shone like burning coals; it seemed to be covered with something resembling the thick and stout bristles of a boar, while on its body, elongated like that of a serpent, we could only see brilliant scales, which clashed together with a metallic sound as the strange animal turned its body in its flight.

— “Copiapo (Chili) paper,” quoted in The Zoologist, July 1868

| Oddities

A World Away

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The Tematangi atoll in French Polynesia is on the opposite side of the world from Mecca.

This makes the qibla, or Muslim direction of prayer, strangely sensitive in this region. Muslims on neighboring islands who are praying toward Mecca may find themselves facing in markedly different directions.

| Religion

Crazy Like a Fox

When bootlegger George Remus shot his wife in Cincinnati’s Eden Park in 1927, he claimed temporary insanity and a jury found him not guilty.

When the prosecution then insisted he be committed to an institution, he declared he was sane — as they themselves had just argued. An appeals court set him free.

“The decision is so farcical, such a joke,” he said, “that it makes a sane person laugh.”

| Society

Sugar and Spice

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Excerpts from the essays of 19th-century schoolboys, from Caroline Bigelow Le Row’s English as She Is Taught, 1887:

“Girls are very stuckup and dignefied in their maner and behaveyour. They think more of dress than anything and like to play with dowls and rags. They cry if they see a cow in afar distance and are afraid of guns. They stay at home all the time and go to Church every Sunday. They are al-ways sick. They are al-ways funy and making fun of boys hands and they say how dirty. They cant play marbels. I pity them poor things. They make fun of boys and then turn round and love them. I dont beleave they ever kiled a cat or any thing. They look out every nite and say oh ant the moon lovely. Thir is one thing I have not told and that is they always now their lessons bettern boys.”

“Timidity is a disease very prevelent among our American women. It is thought by them to be an ornament to their charms. How many young women faint by the sudden appearance of a rat from its hideing place! Oh! they do declare it’s impossible to live where these dreadful creatures make their homes they ask Ma cant she and wont she please to try to secure some remedy so they can be destroyed. You will see the young ladies leap up over stones and steps of great height so as to escape the barks of the dog, if they are walking with a friend of the male kind they will cling to the masculine arm and beseach him to walk so that she might loose sight of that horrible creature known as a dog.”

| Society

Transmutation

Discovered by Zoran Radisavljevic — this set of 36 chemical elements:

HYDROGEN XENON BARIUM TANTALUM BORON PRASEODYMIUM IRIDIUM HASSIUM PLUTONIUM THALLIUM GERMANIUM SCANDIUM THULIUM EINSTEINIUM ERBIUM CADMIUM BERYLLIUM TIN ACTINIUM SEABORGIUM CARBON FLUORINE INDIUM OSMIUM NITROGEN POTASSIUM LEAD PROTACTINIUM SILICON LUTETIUM RHENIUM MERCURY ARGON NEODYMIUM PLATINUM THORIUM

… can be anagrammed into another set of 36 elements:

LANTHANUM OXYGEN TERBIUM RADON SAMARIUM DYSPROSIUM IODINE BOHRIUM ALUMINIUM CHROMIUM PALLADIUM TUNGSTEN LITHIUM CAESIUM DUBNIUM MEITNERIUM NIOBIUM YTTERBIUM GALLIUM ARSENIC IRON SODIUM NOBELIUM FRANCIUM ASTATINE STRONTIUM COPPER GADOLINIUM YTTRIUM SELENIUM CURIUM CHLORINE PROMETHIUM GOLD URANIUM ANTIMONY

UPDATE: Mike Keith discovered a “doubly true” transmutation in 1999 — this list:

HYDROGEN ZIRCONIUM TIN OXYGEN RHENIUM PLATINUM TELLURIUM TERBIUM NOBELIUM CHROMIUM IRON COBALT CARBON ALUMINUM RUTHENIUM SILICON YTTERBIUM HAFNIUM SODIUM SELENIUM CERIUM MANGANESE OSMIUM URANIUM NICKEL PRASEODYMIUM ERBIUM VANADIUM THALLIUM PLUTONIUM

… can be rearranged to spell:

NITROGEN ZINC RHODIUM HELIUM ARGON NEPTUNIUM BERYLLIUM BROMINE LUTETIUM BORON CALCIUM THORIUM NIOBIUM LANTHANUM MERCURY FLUORINE BISMUTH ACTINIUM SILVER CESIUM NEODYMIUM MAGNESIUM XENON SAMARIUM SCANDIUM EUROPIUM BERKELIUM PALLADIUM ANTIMONY THULIUM

And in this case, the equality still holds if you replace each element with its atomic number.

(Thanks, Tony.)

| Language

“Singular Case of Odoriferous Emanations”

In the 34th Volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of Turin (1830) Dr. Speranza of Parma relates the case of an individual whose left fore arm emitted an odor of Amber, or of Benzoin, or Balsam of Peru. The odoriferous emanations were sometimes so strong that they filled the whole of the large room in which the Doctor conducted his experiments upon this personage, whom he suspected at first of some charlatanry, but of whose sincerity he was soon convinced. He was a man of thirty four years of age, of a robust constitution, (having, until that time enjoyed constant health) agreeable eyes, expressive features, dark thick hair, a ruddy countenance, muscles prominent,–a man of ardent feelings and quick penetration; to whom nature had been liberal in her endowments. It did not appear that electricity had any part in the production of this singular phenomenon. An attack of bilious fever, in the course of two months, destroyed the cause, and the effect did not return after his recovery.

— American Journal of Science, August 1832

| Oddities