So Much for Entropy

This is rather amazing. Arrange a deck of cards in this order, top to bottom:

A♣, 8♥, 5♠, 4♦, J♣, 2♥, 9♠, 3♦, 7♣, Q♥, K♠, 6♦, 10♣,
A♥, 8♠, 5♦, 4♣, J♥, 2♠, 9♦, 3♣, 7♥, Q♠, K♦, 6♣, 10♥,
A♠, 8♦, 5♣, 4♥, J♠, 2♦, 9♣, 3♥, 7♠, Q♦, K♣, 6♥, 10♠,
A♦, 8♣, 5♥, 4♠, J♦, 2♣, 9♥, 3♠, 7♦, Q♣, K♥, 6♠, 10♦

Now:

  1. Cut the deck and complete the cut. Do this as many times as you like.
  2. Deal cards face down one at a time, stopping whenever you have a substantial pile.
  3. Riffle-shuffle the two packs back together again.

Despite all this, you’ll find that the resulting deck is made up of 13 successive quartets of four suits–and four consecutive straights, ace through king.

The reasons for this are fairly complex, so I’ll just call it magic. You’ll find a full analysis in Julian Havil’s Impossible? Surprising Solutions to Counterintuitive Conundrums (2008).

| Science & Math

Sea Legs

Commandant Louis Joseph Lahure has a singular distinction in military history — he defeated a navy on horseback.

Occupying Holland in January 1795, the French continental army learned that the mighty Dutch navy had been frozen into the ice around Texel Island. So Lahure and 128 men simply rode up to it and demanded surrender. No shots were fired.

| History

A Three-Toed Tree Toad’s Ode

http://www.flickr.com/photos/93965446@N00/5938467
Image: Flickr

A he-toad loved a she-toad
That lived high in a tree.
She was a two-toed tree toad
But a three-toed toad was he.

The three-toed tree toad tried to win
The she-toad’s nuptial nod,
For the three-toed tree toad loved the road
The two-toed tree toad trod.

Hard as the three-toed tree toad tried,
He could not reach her limb.
From her tree-toad bower, with her V-toe power
The she-toad vetoed him.

— Anonymous

| Language · Poems

Editorializing

A marble-cutter, inscribing the words,–‘Lord, she was thine’ upon a tombstone, found that he had not figured his spaces correctly and he reached the end of the stone one letter short. The epitaph therefore read:

‘Lord, she was thin.’

— Frederic William Unger, Epitaphs, 1904

| Death · Humor

Calendar Trouble

In Macedonian, Listopad means October.
In Polish and Slovenian, Listopad means November.

In Czech, Srpen means August.
In Croatian, Srpanj means July.

In Croatian, Rujan means September.
In Czech, Říjen means October.

In Polish, Lipiec means July.
In Croatian, Lipanj means June.

In Polish, Kwiecień means April.
In Czech, Květen means May.

| Language

The Great Beer Flood

London faced a surreal emergency on Oct. 17, 1814, when a giant beer vat ruptured in a St. Giles brewery. The resulting wave collapsed the neighboring vats, and 323,000 golden gallons poured into the West End.

“All at once, I found myself borne onward with great velocity by a torrent, which burst upon me so suddenly as almost to deprive me of breath,” wrote a correspondent to the London Knickerbocker. “A roar, as of falling buildings at a distance, and suffocating fumes, were in my ears and nostrils.”

The flood filled neighboring basements and causing several tenements to collapse. In all, eight people were killed — “by drowning, injury, poisoning by porter fumes, or drunkenness.”

American disasters are sweeter but less stimulating.

| Oddities

Right and Wrong

Brother Jacques Percher, “a very excellent man of the old time,” had a painting made for his chapel showing that good is the very opposite of evil. At one side was a picture of an angel, with the words “Read the right side and you will be saved.” Under that was this inscription:

Delicias fuge, ne frangaris crimine, verum
Coelica tu quaeras, ne male dispereas,
Respicias tua, non cujusvis quaerito gesta
Carpere, sed laudes, nec preme veridicos.
Judicio fore te praesentem conspice toto
Tempore, nec Christum, te rogo, despicias:
Salvificum pete, nec secteris daemonia; Christum
Dilige, nequaquam tu mala concupito.

Shun pleasures of the flesh, lest you be broken by crime; seek the things of heaven, lest your end be an evil one; consider your own deeds, and do not seek to slander someone else’s, but praise them, and do not suppress those who speak the truth; always realize that you must stand before a judgment; I beg you, do not despise Christ, seek him who gives salvation, and do not follow the devil; love Christ, and do not lust at all after evil.

At the other side was a picture of the devil with the words “Read the wrong side and you will be damned.” Here the first inscription was reversed word for word, producing an entirely different meaning:

Concupito mala tu, nequaquam dilige Christum,
Daemonia secteris, nec pete salvificum;
Despicias, rogo te, Christum, nec tempore toto
Conspice praesentem te fore judicio:
Veridicos preme, nec laudes, sed carpere gesta
Quaerito cujusvis, non tua respicias,
Dispereas male, nec quaeras tu coelica; verum
Crimine frangaris, ne fuge delicias.

Lust after evil, and do not at all love Christ; you follow the devil, do not seek him who gives salvation; despise Christ, I beg you, and realize that never will you stand before a judgment; suppress those who speak the truth, and do not praise the deeds of anyone, but seek to slander them; do not consider your own; let your end be an evil one, do not seek the things of heaven; let yourself be broken by crime, do not shun pleasures of the flesh.

“It must have taken the brother a long time to compose this,” writes George Wakeman, “but he probably did it with a holy purpose, and as a recreation from more onerous duties.”

See also A Bilingual Palindrome.

| Language · Religion