The Rescue

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“Boys, I had great presence of mind once. It was at a fire. An old man leaned out of a four-story building, calling for help. Everybody in the crowd below looked up, but nobody did anything. The ladders weren’t long enough. Nobody had any presence of mind–nobody but me. I came to the rescue. I yelled for a rope. When it came I threw the old man the end of it. He caught it, and I told him to tie it around his waist. He did so, and I pulled him down.”

— Mark Twain, in Albert Bigelow Paine, The Boy’s Life of Mark Twain, 1916

| Humor · Literature

First Aid

In 1950, Simon & Schuster published a new children’s book, Dr. Dan the Bandage Man. Publisher Richard Simon decided to include a few bandages with each copy as a publicity gimmick. He wired a friend at Johnson & Johnson:

PLEASE SHIP TWO MILLION BAND-AIDS IMMEDIATELY.

The friend wired back:

BAND-AIDS ON THE WAY. WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO YOU?

| Humor · Literature

Piecemeal

The following successful though illegal operation is reported by Professor A. Gloden in Sphinx, Volume VI, Number 7. In multiplying 6 2/3 by 4 4/5 a student first found the product of the integers, 6 × 4 = 24. He then reduced the fractions to the common denominator … and divided the product of the numerators 10 × 12 by the common denominator 15. The result 24 + 8 = 32 is correct.

In the same way he obtained the correct value of the product 9 3/5 × 2 2/4.

— “Curiosa,” Scripta Mathematica, October 1936

| Science & Math

Names Dropped

In his Night Thoughts (1953), Edmund Wilson lists these “anagrams on eminent authors”:

A! TIS SOME STALE THORN.
I ACHE RICH BALLADS, M!
I’M STAGY WHEN NEER.
LIVE MERMAN: HELL.
AWFUL KILLIN’, ERMA!
MAKZ ‘N NICE COMPOTE.

He gives no solutions. How many can you identify?

08/23/2023 UPDATE: Reader Jonathan Golding worked out the answers:

THOMAS STEARNS ELIOT
ARCHIBALD MACLEISH
ERNEST HEMINGWAY
HERMAN MELVILLE
WILLIAM FAULKNER
COMPTON MACKENZIE

Thanks, Jonathan!

| Language · Literature

Placebo Buttons

In most elevators installed since the early 1990s, the “close door” button has no effect. Otis Elevator engineers confirmed the fact to the Wall Street Journal in 2003.

Similarly, many office thermostats are dummies, designed to give workers the illusion of control. “You just get tired of dealing with them and you screw in a cheap thermostat,” said Illinois HVAC specialist Richard Dawson. “Guess what? They quit calling you.”

In 2004 the New York Times reported that more than 2,500 of the 3,250 “walk” buttons in New York intersections do nothing. “The city deactivated most of the pedestrian buttons long ago with the emergence of computer-controlled traffic signals, even as an unwitting public continued to push on.”

(Thanks, Tad.)

| Oddities

Saint and Spinner

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The situation is reminiscent of the two monks, Theophilus and Gottlieb, who are quarreling over whether one may engage in smoking and praying at the same time. Theophilus, an unbending ascetic, says no. Gottlieb, an easy-going smoker, says why not. They meet again some weeks later. Theophilus triumphantly reports, ‘I took the issue to the pope. I asked him point-blank “Is it permissible to smoke during prayer?” and he said “Absolutely not.”‘ Gottlieb protests: ‘That’s not what he said when I asked him.’ He smiles sheepishly. ‘Of course I did phrase the question a little differently. I asked him “Is it permissible to pray while I smoke?” and he said “Of course.”‘

— Leo Katz, Bad Acts and Guilty Minds, 1987

| Society

Alter Egos

A French diplomat, seeking to ingratiate himself with the patriotic Lord Palmerston, said, “If I were not a Frenchman, I should wish to be an Englishman.”

“If I were not an Englishman,” replied Palmerston, “I should wish to be an Englishman.”

At a London banquet, Winston Churchill was asked who he would most like to be.

He took his wife’s hand and said, “If I could not be who I am, I would most like to be Mrs. Churchill’s second husband.”

| Society

Checkered Doughnuts

toroidal magic square - from mathematical circles

Roll this magic square into a tube by joining the upper and lower edges, then join the ends of the tube. Every row, column, and diagonal on the resulting torus will add to 34.

toroidal chess problem, from petrovic, mathematics and chess

Bend this chessboard similarly into a torus, then mate in 4.

Hint: The solution comprises only two lines.

Click for Answer
| Puzzles · Science & Math

Stature

In 1968, Australian psychologist Paul R. Wilson took a visiting Englishman around to five different groups of Sydney students. He introduced the man differently to each group, and when the visitor had left, Wilson asked the students to estimate his height. Results:

  • “Mr. England, a student from Cambridge”: 5 feet 9.8 inches
  • “Mr. England, demonstrator in psychology from Cambridge”: 5 feet 10.39 inches
  • “Mr. England, lecturer in psychology from Cambridge”: 5 feet 10.86 inches
  • “Dr. England, senior lecturer from Cambridge”: 5 feet 11.57 inches
  • “Professor England from Cambridge”: 6 feet 0.32 inches

That’s an increase of 2.5 inches. “Wilson’s experiment suggests that extra inches are available to anyone who achieves increasing degrees of success, on campus or off,” reported Time. “But apparently the success must be of considerable dimension. For even when he was Professor England, the visitor’s estimated height still fell more than half an inch short of his actual height (6 ft. 1 in.).”

| Society