A Shy Pen

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Button_Gwinnett_Signature.svg

Button Gwinnett was a relatively obscure member of the Continental Congress when he signed the Declaration of Independence in August 1776. Nine months later he was killed in a duel.

That makes his signature one of the most valuable in the world, comparable to those of Julius Caesar and William Shakespeare. Only 51 examples exist. This January it was discovered that he’d signed a Wolverhampton marriage register in 1757, five years before departing England for America. That autograph was valued at £500,000.

| History

Quick Thinking

‘It wasn’t so very late, only a quarter of twelve.’

‘How dare you sit there and and tell me that lie? I was awake when you came in, and looked at my watch, it was three o’clock.’

‘Well, arn’t three a quarter of twelve?’

— James Baird McClure, ed., Entertaining Anecdotes From Every Available Source, 1879

| Humor

Creeping Laurels

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_James_Pye_by_Samuel_James_Arnold.jpg

English historian Robert Blake called Henry James Pye “the worst poet laureate in English history with the possible exception of Alfred Austin.” That’s low praise indeed: Austin’s Randolph: A Tale of Polish Grief purportedly sold 17 copies; he is remembered for the stirringly titled “Go Away, Death” and for a breast fixation in which poetic mammaries open doors and plough the brine.

Elevated probably as a political favor, Pye was roundly criticized for his birthday odes, which were set to music by the court composer. “It is said that the words were often drowned by the instruments,” noted William Forbes Gray. “Certainly, it was a consummation to be devoutly wished”:

God of our fathers rise,
And through the thund’ring skies
Thy vengeance urge
In awful justice red,
By thy dread arrows sped,
But guard our Monarch’s head,
God save great George.

To the loud trumpet’s throat
To the shrill clarion’s note,
Now jocund sing.
From every open foe,
From every traitor’s blow,
Virtue defend his brow,
God guard our King!

Pye once said he would “rather be thought a good Englishman than the best poet or the greatest scholar that ever wrote.” In The Joy of Bad Verse, Nicholas Parsons observes that Pye’s epic Alfred was then “a credit to his sense of patriotism.”

| Poems

Stormy Seas

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nimitz_and_Halsey_1943.jpg

On Oct. 25, 1944, during battle in the Philippine Sea, Chester Nimitz sent this message to William Halsey, asking for his location:

TURKEY TROTS TO WATER GG FROM CINCPAC ACTION COM THIRD FLEET INFO COMINCH CTF SEVENTY-SEVEN X WHERE IS RPT WHERE IS TASK FORCE THIRTY FOUR RR THE WORLD WONDERS

The language before GG and after RR is nonsense added to discourage cryptanalysis. Unfortunately, Halsey’s radio officer neglected to remove the trailing phrase, and Halsey read:

Where is, repeat, where is Task Force Thirty Four? The world wonders.

“I was stunned as if I had been struck in the face,” Halsey wrote later. “The paper rattled in my hands, I snatched off my cap, threw it on the deck, and shouted something I am ashamed to remember.” Furious at Nimitz’ “gratuitous insult,” he delayed an hour before rejoining the battle. He learned the truth only weeks later.

(Thanks, Ankit.)

| History

One More Try

http://books.google.com/books?id=FjYDAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&rview=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

A perpetual-motion scheme by William Congreve. A, B, and C are three horizontal rollers fixed in a frame. They’re surrounded by a continuous band of sponge, a, and that’s surrounded by a chain of weights, b. Immerse the whole thing partially in a cistern. The sponge on the left will absorb water by capillary action, say from x to y; the sponge on the right will not (because the weights squeeze it out!). “The band will begin to move in the direction A B; and as it moves downwards, the accumulation of water will continue to rise, and thereby carry on a constant motion.”

From Henry Dircks, Perpetuum Mobile; or, Search for Self-Motive Power, 1861.

| Science & Math

Can Do

http://books.google.com/books?id=dOtLAAAAIAAJ&source=gbs_navlinks_s

In 1921, chemists at Arthur D. Little Inc. reduced 100 pounds of sows’ ears to glue, converted it to gelatin, forced it into fine strands, and wove these into a purse “of the sort which ladies of great estate carried in medieval days — their gold coin in one end and their silver coin in the other.”

“We made this silk purse from a sow’s ear because we wanted to, because it might serve as an example to clients who come to us with their ambitions or their troubles, and also as a contribution to philosophy,” they reported. “Things that everybody thinks he knows only because he has learned the words that say it, are poisons to progress.”

| Science & Math

Limerick

“I must leave here,” said Lady De Vere,
“For these damp airs don’t suit me, I fear.”
Said her friend: “Goodness me!
If they don’t agree
With your system, why eat pears, my dear?”

— Anonymous

| Poems

Yellow Peril

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=kesMAAAAEBAJ

David Agulnik’s “banana protective device,” patented in 2003, is intended “for storing and transporting a banana carefully.” The hinged cover is padded “to allow the user to carry the banana in a safe manner so that it remains fresh and is protected from becoming bruised.”

“I understand the inventor of the bagpipes was inspired when he saw a man carrying an indignant, asthmatic pig under his arm,” wrote Alfred Hitchcock. “Unfortunately, the man-made sound never equalled the purity of the sound achieved by the pig.”

| Technology