Misc

  • Kurt Vonnegut managed the country’s first Saab dealership.
  • Max Born is Olivia Newton-John’s grandfather.
  • 19683 = 1 × (9 – 6)8 × 3
  • Before the advent of European settlers, it’s believed that no Native American had blood type B.
  • “Good taste is the worst vice ever invented.” — Edith Sitwell

The first recorded performance of Hamlet took place at sea, aboard the East India ship Red Dragon off the coast of Africa in 1607. Capt. William Keeling’s diary entry for Sept. 5 reads: “I sent the interpreter according to his desier abord the Hector whear he brooke fast and after came abord me wher we gave the tragedie of Hamlett.”

| Literature · Quotations · Science & Math · Trivia

Time and Motion

http://www.123rf.com/clipart-vector/watch_movement.html

It’s impossible to trisect an angle using a compass and a straightedge, but in 1947 Leo Moser showed how to do it with a pocketwatch. At noon align the watch’s hands with one side of the angle (above, XII), then wait until the minute hand has crossed to the other side (III). At that point the hour hand will have measured one-twelfth of the angle. Double that twice and you have your trisection.

“Now you can trisect an angle anytime, anyplace, for anyone who asks,” writes Underwood Dudley in A Budget of Trisections. “But no one ever will.”

| Science & Math

Misc

  • James Buchanan’s niece was his first lady.
  • FIVE THOUSAND is the highest number name with no repeated letters.
  • Ardmore, Tennessee, borders Ardmore, Alabama.
  • 9306 × 2013 = 3102 × 6039
  • “So that’s what hay looks like.” — Queen Mary

If God exists outside space and time, then how can he be omnipresent, present in all places at all times? If he exists within it, how could he have created it? How could a creation (or anything) take place outside time?

| History · Language · Oddities · Religion · Science & Math

Math Notes

2015 = 4 + 8 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 3 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 7 + 7 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 7 + 4 + 1 + 4 + 3 + 9 + 5 + 8 + 6 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 9 + 6 + 0 + 4 + 7 + 1 + 9 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 3 + 2 + 8 + 4 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 9 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 6 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 5 + 3 + 5 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 0 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 9 + 9 + 2 + 8 + 9 + 5 + 7 + 8 + 3 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 3 + 1 + 8 + 8 + 3 + 5 + 1 + 0 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 9 + 6 + 3 + 2 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 3 + 8 + 3 + 9 + 4 + 4 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 9 + 2 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 7 + 6 + 4 + 9 + 5 + 1 + 8 + 0 + 4 + 1 + 5 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 8 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 6 + 1 + 7 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 8 + 3 + 0 + 0 + 8 + 9 + 6 + 5 + 0 + 2 + 9 + 2 + 1 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 8 + 7 + 7 + 9 + 7 + 2 + 9 + 0 + 1 + 8 + 8 + 6 + 9 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 5 + 4 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 8 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 2 + 8 + 9 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 3 + 7 + 6 + 3 + 8 + 8 + 8 + 5 + 5 + 9 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 7 + 5 + 3 + 0 + 7 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 6 + 8 + 6 + 4 + 3 + 7 + 0 + 2 + 5 + 8 + 1 + 3 + 7 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 3 + 3 + 6 + 3 + 4 + 7 + 5 + 8 + 8 + 5 + 2 + 6 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 + 0 + 8 + 6 + 0 + 6 + 6 + 9 + 0 + 8 + 2 + 5 + 6 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 9 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 5 + 1 + 2 + 5 + 7 + 6 + 8 + 8 + 0 + 6 + 9 + 9 + 8 + 7 + 1 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 9 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 5 + 0 + 8 + 4 + 3 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 1 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 5 + 3 + 4 + 1 + 8 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 2 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 0 + 1 + 4 + 1 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 7 + 6 + 8 + 2 + 0 + 6 + 8 + 2 + 7 + 2 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 9 + 8 + 5 + 3 + 6 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 6 + 5 + 9 + 5 + 6 + 6 + 3 + 0 + 8 + 0 + 7 + 2 + 4 + 7 + 5 + 4 + 0 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 5 + 4 + 4 + 7 + 8 + 2 + 8 + 2 + 2 + 9 + 5 + 1 + 6 + 7 + 4 + 4 + 6 + 1 + 3 + 6 + 4 + 7 + 4 + 6 + 0 + 9 + 3 + 7 + 5

2015137 = 484933196777114074143958601296047191303238888328493788893417124636461282
535535197030813992895783308595683263188351090196322513839445959271157649518041540
183146596171102022830089650292177587797290188691282775436095410100384042181289460
837638885592477530746168643702581379873363475885265666608606690825611326960945242
512576880699871340946150843683152340103534181032663014193776820682723644342223985
362021659566308072475404600254478282295167446136474609375

(Thanks, Pablo.)

| Science & Math

Misc

  • Most Muppets are left-handed.
  • The largest prime number in the Bible is 22273 (Numbers 3:43).
  • SEE, HE, and IS are spelled identically in Morse code (ignoring spaces).
  • Maine is the only one-syllable state name.
  • “More things grow in the garden than the gardener sows.” — Spanish proverb

Fritz Zwicky referred to his colleagues at the Mount Wilson Observatory as “spherical bastards” because they were bastards whichever way one looked at them.

| Language · Science & Math · Trivia

In a Word

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

anserine
adj. of or resembling a goose

In 1936, Polish mathematician Stanislaw Mazur offered a live goose to the first person who could determine whether every Banach space has a Schauder basis. Thirty-seven years later, his Swedish colleague Per Enflo claimed the prize. The ceremony was broadcast throughout Poland. (Thanks, Jeremy.)

In the public gardens at Halifax, there is an eccentric goose that seems to manifest a genuine affection. Whenever a certain old gentleman, whose name we do not know, approaches the pond and calls ‘Bobby,’ the goose will leave the pond and sit beside him, and when he leaves to go home, will follow close at his feet, like a dog, to the gate, and sometimes into the street, when it has to be forcibly put back, to its manifest disgust, for it goes off to its native element twisting its tail with indignation, and giving vent to sundry discordant squeaks. The old gentleman says he has never fed it, or petted it in any way, which makes it more remarkable; but we are told by a frequenter of the gardens that about two or three years ago a man used to come there and feed this identical goose regularly, so we are inclined to think that it is a case of mistaken identity on the part of his gooseship. Anyway, it is an interesting question for ornithologists to solve, whether geese (supposed to be the most stupid of birds) have memory and can experience the sensation of gratitude.

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

| Language · Oddities · Science & Math

Math Notes

14 + 50 + 54 = 15 + 40 + 63 = 18 + 30 + 70 = 21 + 25 + 72
14 × 50 × 54 = 15 × 40 × 63 = 18 × 30 × 70 = 21 × 25 × 72

6 + 56 + 75 = 7 + 40 + 90 = 9 + 28 + 100 = 12 + 20 + 105
6 × 56 × 75 = 7 × 40 × 90 = 9 × 28 × 100 = 12 × 20 × 105

| Science & Math

Narcissus Prime

Repeat the string 1808010808 1560 times, and tack on a 1 the end:

tetradic prime

The resulting 15601-digit number is prime, and because it’s a palindrome made up of the digits 1, 8, and 0, it remains prime when read backward, upside down, or in a mirror.

Unrelated mirror curiosity: Outline the reflection of your head on the glass of a mirror, then back away. At any distance, the image continues to fill the outline (which is half the size of your head).

| Science & Math