Know-It-All

In order for a god to be all-knowing, he must know even the fact of his own omniscience. But can he do this? He may know the totality of facts constituting the world; call this Y. But in order to know that he has mastered Y, he must also know that “There are no facts unknown to me” — and this is beyond Y.

It seems impossible that a god (or anyone) could ever be sure that nothing exists beyond his ken. “It makes no sense to imagine [a god] arriving at this limit, peering beyond it (at what?), and satisfying himself no further facts exist,” writes philosopher Roland Puccetti. But without this certainty he cannot be sure of his own omniscience, and so does not know everything.

A theist might argue that his god has created all the facts in existence. But an omniscient god would have to be sure of even this — that he is the sole creator, and that there are no facts unknown to him. And how could he come to this knowledge?

(Roland Puccetti, “Is Omniscience Possible?”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1963)

| Religion

Higher Education

Proper technique for examining an undergraduate, from a letter from Lewis Carroll to Henrietta and Edwin Dodgson, Jan. 31, 1855:

It is the most important point, you know, that the tutor should be dignified and at a distance from the pupil, and that the pupil should be as much as possible degraded.

Otherwise, you know, they are not humble enough.

So I sit at the further end of the room; outside the door (which is shut) sits the scout; outside the outer door (also shut) sits the sub-scout: half-way downstairs sits the sub-sub-scout; and down in the yard sits the pupil.

The questions are shouted from one to the other, and the answers come back in the same way — it is rather confusing till you are well used to it. The lecture goes on something like this:–

Tutor. What is twice three?

Scout. What’s a rice tree?

Sub-Scout. When is ice free?

Sub-sub-Scout. What’s a nice fee?

Pupil (timidly). Half a guinea!

Sub-sub-Scout. Can’t forge any!

Sub-Scout. Ho for Jinny!

Scout. Don’t be a ninny!

Tutor (looks offended, but tries another question). Divide a hundred by twelve!

Scout. Provide wonderful bells!

Sub-Scout. Go ride under it yourself!

Sub-sub-Scout. Deride the dunder-headed elf!

Pupil (surprised). Who do you mean?

Sub-sub-Scout. Doings between!

Sub-Scout. Blue is the screen!

Scout. Soup-tureen!

“And so the lecture proceeds. Such is Life.”

| Humor · Society

Vision and Taste

http://www.google.com/patents/US5202707

One way to look wise is to sit on the corner of your desk, chew on the stem of your glasses, and gaze ruminatively into the middle distance. But this can grow tedious as you wait for people to notice you. This improvement, suggested in 1990 by Adam S. Halbridge, might help:

It is believed that many adult wearers of eyeglasses … would enjoy having a desirable flavor imparted to them when they chew or suck upon the ends of the temple arms. … [M]any younger children and teen-agers … would also enjoy having a desirable flavor imparted to them if they chew on the temple arms of their sunglasses.

He proposes adding a chewable cap to each arm — flavored like cinnamon, jalapeno, licorice, or taffy for grownups, fruit or candy for children.

| Technology

Metabolism

It’s a very odd thing —
As odd as can be —
That whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.;
Porridge and apples,
Mince, muffins and mutton,
Jam, junket, jumbles —
Not a rap, not a button
It matters; the moment
They’re out of her plate,
Though shared by Miss Butcher
And sour Mr. Bate;
Tiny and cheerful,
And neat as can be,
Whatever Miss T. eats
Turns into Miss T.

— Walter de la Mare

| Poems

Blood Sports

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fox_tossing_1719.jpg

Two bygone amusements that we’re well rid of:

In fox tossing, popular in the 17th century, foxes would be released into an arena in which slings were laid between pairs of participants. If a fox crossed a sling, they would fling it into the air, usually killing or severely injuring it. The highest toss won the contest.

In goose pulling, a live goose was tied by its feet to a rope stretched over a course, and each competitor would ride under it at full speed and try to pull off its head.

“This pastime is not one to be commended on the score of humanity,” noted Baily’s Magazine of Sports & Pastimes in 1902, “but it did something to test horsemanship; the goose we may be sure did not hang in a state of resigned quietude, and if the horseman had not a good seat he ran an excellent chance of coming a heavy cropper in his attempt to seize the writhing neck.”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Remington_-_A_Gander-Pull.jpg

| Entertainment · History

Upstanding

You can distinguish a raw egg from a hard-boiled one by spinning it.

The reason for this was puzzled out only in 2002 by mathematicians Keith Moffat of Cambridge University and Yatuka Shimomura of Keio University. Friction between the egg and the table produces a gyroscopic effect, and the egg trades some kinetic energy for potential energy, raising its center of gravity. The raw egg can’t do this because its runny interior lags behind the shell. Moffat wrote:

Place a hard-boiled egg on a table,
And spin it as fast as you’re able;
It will stand on one end
With vectorial blend
Of precession and spin that’s quite stable.

| Science & Math

“The Value of a New Point of View”

Sailing westward from the Island of Fata Morgana, I came upon Pierrot in his little white boat. We were old acquaintances, and I asked him if the gods were still using him kindly, and how things were looking on the Moon, his home.

‘I have been away from home for some time,’ he replied, but am just about to return. ‘Will you come with me?’

So I clambered into his little boat, and told my own ship to return to the Island of Fata Morgana. We sailed on and on, Pierrot enlivening the dim hours with his strange Moon-songs, until at last he brought the boat to anchor in a little bay, and I landed, for the first time, at the pale country of the Moon.

‘You know,’ I said to Pierrot, as we wandered among the fantastic green shadows, ‘I have always longed to visit the Moon. The World is so dull, now, and the Moon always seemed to us such a mad and merry place.’

Pierrot stared — ‘That is very strange! Up here we have always believed the reverse of that. And with good reason. Look for yourself!’ and he led me to the edge of the Moon; we peered over, and there, far below, was the great shining World, looking as big as ten Moons, and a hundred times madder and merrier.

‘Pierrot,’ I cried, ‘I have mis-judged the World! Good-bye, my friend!’ and I leaped into space.

I landed on the roof of the Headquarters of the Society for the Extension of Commercial Careers for Women.

— J.B. Priestley, Brief Diversions, 1922

| Society

Instant Romance

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wimpole_folly.JPG
Image: Wikimedia Commons

This will confuse archaeologists someday: In 1750 Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, commissioned a ruined medieval castle for the grounds of Wimpole Hall, his country house near Cambridge. The earl’s friend Lord Lyttleton described the project to architect Sanderson Miller:

[H]e wants no House or even Room in it, but mearly the Walls and Semblance of an Old castle to make an object from his house. At most he only desires to have a staircase carried up one of the Towers, and a leaded gallery half round it to stand in, and view the Prospect. It will have a fine Wood of Firrs for a backing behind it and will stand on an Eminence at a proper distance from his House. I ventured to promise that you should draw one for his Lordship that would be fitt for his Purpose. … I know that these works are an Amusement to you.

More than 30 sham ruins of castles and abbeys appeared in English landscape gardens in this period; Sanderson acquired a reputation as the “grand master of gothic.” Perhaps some of the ruins we ourselves have unearthed were planted there by ancient artists?

| Oddities