Imagine All the People

New York City as seen from space, Sept. 11, 2001.

The average age of the city’s dead was 40.

November 26, 2006November 24, 2010 | History · Society

Frances O’Connor

Born without arms, Frances O’Connor (1914-1982) was billed as a living Venus de Milo in popular sideshows, eating, drinking, and smoking a cigarette with her feet.

Gotcha

As a prank, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak sometimes buys uncut sheets of $2 bills from the U.S. Treasury and has them bound into booklets. Then, when buying small items, he’ll pull out a booklet and cut off a few bills with scissors.

This is perfectly legal, but it’s caused at least one alarmed inquiry by the Secret Service.

November 24, 2006November 24, 2010 | Hoaxes · Technology

No Hustle

The square dance is the official dance of 19 U.S. states.

November 24, 2006 | Trivia

Pella Katadesmos

Text of an ancient Macedonian scroll discovered in Greece in 1986:

On the formal wedding of [Theti]ma and Dionysophon I write a curse, and of all other wo[men], widows and virgins, but of Thetima in particular, and I entrust upon Makron and [the] demons that only whenever I dig out and unroll and re-read this, [then] may they wed Dionysophon, but not before; and may he never wed any woman but me; and may [I] grow old with Dionysophon, and no one else. I [am] your supplicant: Have mercy on [your dear one], dear demons, Dagina(?), for I am abandoned of all my dear ones. But please keep this for my sake so that these events do not happen and wretched Thetima perishes miserably and to me grant [ha]ppiness and bliss.

It would have been written in the 4th or 3rd century B.C.

November 24, 2006November 23, 2006 | History · Literature · Society

Fish Story

They laughed at William Beebe when the naturalist described a 6-foot glowing monster he’d encountered on a mile-deep dive in 1930. One colleague said he’d probably seen two fish swimming together.

Beebe got the last laugh four years later, when a fishing vessel pulled up one of these, a spiny, glowing creature that weighed more than 250 pounds. It’s known as “Beebe’s monster.”

November 23, 2006November 24, 2010 | Oddities

The Dymaxion Chronofile

Buckminster Fuller kept the most comprehensive diary in human history, recording practically everything that happened to him between 1915 and 1983.

The assembled journals take up 270 feet of shelf space.

November 23, 2006November 19, 2006 | Literature · Trivia

A Weighty Problem

“Here is a quaintly told problem in mechanics, which, despite its apparent simplicity, is said to have caused Lewis Carroll considerable disquietude,” writes Sam Loyd in his Cyclopedia of 5000 Puzzles, Tricks, and Conundrums (1914). He quotes Carroll:

If, to a rope, passed over a loose pulley, is suspended a ten-pound counter weight, which balances exactly with a monkey eating an apple, swinging at the other end, what would be the result if the monkey attempts to climb the rope?

“It is very curious to note the different views taken by good mathematicians,” Carroll noted. “Price says the weight goes up with increasing velocity. Both Clifton and Harcourt maintain that the weight goes up at the same rate of speed as the monkey; while Sampson says that it goes down.”

So which is it? Be warned, Loyd’s thinking is inconclusive.

	Select Click for Answer
Lewis Carroll’s monkey puzzle is about as paradoxical as a recent conundrum which is going the rounds, as to what is it that will go down a chimney down, but will not go up a chimney up? (Umbrella.) There are three possible consequences to select from in the monkey problem: The progress of climbing might have no effect whatever upon the equilibruim; it might cause the weight to fall, which would raise the monkey quicker than he wished, or it might raise the weight, which would be apt to give the monkey a tumble. From the standpoint of a guess, pure and simple, opinions were about evenly divided, so two out of three were wrong in their conclusions. From a theoretical and scientific point of view it is just as paradoxical as the umbrella conundrum, for if the monkey goes up he will go down, whereas if he goes down he will go up. The argument is based on Newton’s law that “action is equal to reaction.” The engine which moves a train is pulling itself along by the rails. Theoretically speaking, if there was no friction, a fly could not crawl up that rope without destroying the equilibrium, so that the rope would be drawn over the pully and the monkey end fall by a rapidly increasing momentum. And there he leaves it.

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