Odd and Even

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Well, it’s our old friend the mysterious pouch. Today the pouch contains a random quantity of marbles, and we’re going to withdraw a handful. But first, consider:

  • If the bag contains an even number of marbles, then we are equally likely to withdraw an even or an odd number. For instance, if it contains 4 marbles, then we are equally likely to withdraw 2 or 4 as 1 or 3.
  • But if the pouch contains an odd number of marbles, then we’re more likely to withdraw an odd number, as there’s one more way of choosing an odd number than an even number. For example, if the pouch contains 5 marbles then we’re more likely to draw 1, 3, or 5 than 2 or 4.

This is troubling. Without even opening the pouch we seem to have decided that, on balance, we’re more likely to withdraw an odd number of marbles than an even. Indeed, this seems to mean that handfuls in general are more commonly odd than even. How can this be?

| Science & Math

The Fateful L

Harry B. Partridge points out that most presidents whose names have contained a penultimate L — Ronald Reagan, Abraham Lincoln, James Garfield, Franklin Roosevelt, John Fitzgerald Kennedy — have died in office or survived an assassination attempt. He speculates that Gerald Ford survived because he was born Leslie Lynch King Jr., and that Theodore Roosevelt was divinely spared because THEO means God. (James Polk died three months after leaving office.)

Partridge also notes that a name with patronymic prefix (Mc, Fitz, etc.) is invariably fatal. To date there have been only two: William McKinley and John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

See Tecumseh’s Curse.

| History · Language · Oddities

Solitaire

In 1985, 61-year-old Oreste Lodi came up with a novel way to raid his own trust fund: He sued himself. In a suit filed in the Shasta County (Calif.) Superior Court, Lodi named himself as defendant, failed to answer the complaint, then asked that a default judgment be entered against himself.

When a judge threw out the case, he appealed to the Third Appellate District, filing briefs on both sides. Unfortunately, the appeals court called Lodi’s case “a slam-dunk frivolous complaint.”

“This result cannot be unfair to Mr. Lodi,” it noted. “Although it is true that, as plaintiff and appellant, he loses, it is equally true that, as defendant and respondent, he wins! It is hard to imagine a more evenhanded application of justice.”

| Society

Unquote

“Absolutely speaking, Do unto others as you would that they should do unto you is by no means a golden rule, but the best of current silver. An honest man would have but little occasion for it.” — Thoreau

| Quotations

Handfuls

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bi%C3%A1ng_(regular_script).svg
Images: Wikimedia Commons

Left: The Chinese character for biáng, a type of noodle from the Shaanxi province, requires 57 strokes to write.

Right: The Japanese character for “the appearance of a dragon in flight” requires 84 strokes.

The Japanese character includes three identical “cloud” characters, so it’s not as complex as it looks. Not so the biáng character — residents of Shaanxi have invented ditties to help them remember how to write it.

| Language

The Motor Hire

A puzzle from R.M. Abraham, Diversions & Pastimes, 1933:

Michael O’Bleary hired a motor-car at a cost of fifteen dollars to take him to Ballygoogly market and back again in the evening. When he got half-way on his outward journey he met a friend, gave him a lift to the market, and brought him back to the point where he picked him up in the morning. There was a dispute about the payment. How much should Michael charge his passenger for his share of the motor hire?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Molyneaux’s Problem

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In 1688, John Locke received a letter from scientist William Molyneaux posing a curious philosophical riddle: Suppose a blind man learned to identify a cube and a sphere by touch. If the shapes were then laid before him and his vision restored, could he identify them by sight alone?

Locke responded, “Your ingenious problem will deserve to be published to the world,” and he included a formulation of the problem in the second edition of the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

Three hundred years later, it’s still an open question. (Locke agreed with Molyneaux that the answer is probably no: “The blind man, at first sight, would not be able with certainty to say which was the globe, which the cube, whilst he only saw them; though he could unerringly name them by his touch, and certainly distinguish them by the difference of their figures felt.”)

| Science & Math

In a Word

semiopathy
n. the tendency to read humorously inappropriate meanings into signs

CROSS CHILDREN WALK. Don’t listen to their screams,
But watch the CAUTION MEN AT WORK. It seems
They’re making sure that all DEAF CHILDREN DRIVE
CAREFULLY. Now let us look alive,
And take TRUCKS TURNING (named for Captain Trucks,
Who turned here when he went out hunting ducks).
Here on a sign the advertising’s clear
(Though deer can’t tell the time) for WATCH FOR DEER.
At FREE MUNICIPAL PARKING let us pause,
And wonder who enslaved it, for what cause.
A DANGEROU is what we’ll hope to see:
DANGEROUS CROSSINGs certainly abound.
Now will they leap across from tree to tree,
Or buck the passing traffic on the ground?

— Ralph P. Boas Jr.

| Language · Poems

“Doppelgänger”

Entering the lonely house with my wife
I saw him for the first time
Peering furtively from behind a bush –
Blackness that moved,
A shape amid the shadows,
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Put him to flight forever –
I dared not
(For reasons that I failed to understand),
Though I knew I should act at once.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
He came, and I saw him crouching
Night after night.
Night after night
He came, and I saw him crouching,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone –
Though I knew I should act at once,
For reasons that I failed to understand
I dared not
Put him to flight forever.

A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Revealed in the ragged moon
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
A shape amid the shadows,
Blackness that moved.

Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him, for the first time,
Entering the lonely house with my wife.

— J.A. Lindon

| Language · Poems