On several occasions, mathematician Maria Agnesi (1718-1799) arrived in her study to discover that a vexing problem had been solved for her — and, eerily, solved in her own handwriting.
Agnesi was a somnambulist. In her sleep she would walk to the study, make a light, and solve a problem that she had left incomplete.
Then she’d return to bed with no memory of what she’d done.
Why doth a pussy cat prefer,
When dozing, drowsy, on the sill,
To purr and purr and purr and purr
Instead of merely keeping still?
With nodding head and folded paws,
She keeps it up without a cause.
Why doth she flaunt her lofty tail
In such a stiff right-angled pose?
If lax and limp she let it trail
‘Twould seem more restful, Goodness knows!
When strolling ‘neath the chairs or bed,
She lets it bump above her head.
Why doth she suddenly refrain
From anything she’s busied in
And start to wash, with might and main,
Most any place upon her skin?
Why doth she pick that special spot,
Not seeing if it’s soiled or not?
Why doth she never seem to care
To come directly when you call,
But makes approach from here and there,
Or sidles half around the wall?
Though doors are opened at her mew,
You often have to push her through.
Why doth she this? Why doth she that?
I seek for cause–I yearn for clews;
The subject of the pussy cat
Doth endlessly inspire the mews.
Why doth a pussy cat? Ah, me,
I haven’t got the least idee.
– Burges Johnson, in Harper’s Monthly Magazine, May 1909
A man drives 1 mile to the top of a hill at 15 mph. How fast must he drive 1 mile down the other side to average 30 mph for the 2-mile trip?
“Nothing valuable can be lost by taking time.” — Abraham Lincoln
Sailors can navigate Venezuela’s Lake Maracaibo easily at night — the sky is lit with almost continuous lightning 150 nights a year. The flashes are visible for hundreds of miles, but there is no thunder.
No one knows what causes it.
What’s unusual about this game by Joseph Blackburne, apart from its characteristic brilliance?
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Nf6 4.Bg5 Be7 5.Bxf6 Bxf6 6.Nf3 O-O 7.Bd3 Nc6 8.e5 Be7 9.h4 f6 10.Ng5 fxg5 11.Bxh7+ Kxh7 12.hxg5 Kg8
13.Rh8+ Kxh8 14.Qh5+ Kg8 15.g6 Rf5 16.Qh7+ Kf8 17.Qh8#
“Move for move I played it exactly in the same way twice in one week, once at Hastings and once at Eastbourne, in the year 1894.”
clinomania
n. an excessive desire to stay in bed
“The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.” — Samuel Johnson
– Attributed (tenuously) to the Marylebone Cricket Club. See Amputee Cricket.
Most Exalted Sir,–
It is with most habitually devout expressions of my sensitive respect that I approach the clemency of your masterful position with the self-dispraising utterance of my esteem, and the also forgotten-by-myself assurance that in my own mind I shall be freed from the assumption that I am asking unpardonable donations if I assert that I desire a short respite from my exertions; indeed, a fortnight’s holiday, as I am suffering from three boils, as per margin. I have the honorable delight of subscribing myself your exalted reverence’s servitor.
– Jonabol Panjamjaub
– An Indian clerk’s request for a holiday, quoted in William Shepard Walsh, Handy-Book of Literary Curiosities, 1892
“In addition to the regalement of the ear from the charm of style to his communication, the eye is gratified by a rough but graphic illustration of the three boils.”
That’s a caricature of Arturo Toscanini by Enrico Caruso.
There are many tales of the conductor’s astonishing musical memory. A clarinetist once approached him just before a performance and said that he would be unable to play because the E-natural key on his instrument was broken.
Toscanini concentrated for a short time and said, “It’s all right. You don’t have an E natural tonight.”
