An Archive of Curious Facts for the Curious
While browsing findagrave.com earlier, I came across one of the gloomiest epitaphs I have ever seen. The headstone belongs to Henry Beck (1842-1899). Beck was born in Germany and died in the United States. He was buried in Mayville Cemetery (originally called the IOOF Cemetery) located in Mayville, Oregon. Here is the epitaph:Poorly born,Poorly lived;Poorly died;And […]
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Eubulides of Miletus (c. 400 BC), a philosopher of the Megarian school and a student of Euclid of Megara (not to be confused with Euclid of Alexandria who compiled the Elements of Euclid), posed the following paradox: You say you know your brother. Yet when your brother is hooded you are unable to identify him. […]
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We Regret the Error An Irish editor, apologizing for a rather serious blunder in his paper, said: “I never saw the manuscript till it was in print.” — The St Louis Republic [St. Louis, Missouri], April 28, 19011 The Will of a Virtuoso I, NICHOLAS GIMCRACK, being in sound health of mind, but in great weakness […]
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Image: DeviantArt by incolor16 The Swan Queen of the silent lake, Gliding majestic o’er the liquid court, Deep in the shadowy break, Where the imaginary water nymphs resort; Where fox-gloves hang their bells, And oaken-bowers their branches intertwine; And solitude in leafy covert dwells, That sanctuary, snowy queen, is thine. Few violate the state—the timid […]
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Image: The New Daily “[…] When two know it, how can it be a secret? And indeed with what justice can you expect secresy in me, that cannot be private to yourself?” — John, Marston, Parasitaster: Or, The Fawn, Act 3, Scene 1, 1604, quoted in Charles Wentworth Dilke, Old English Plays: Being a Selection […]
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Giving a quick inspection at the list of prime numbers, you’d notice that 2 is the first prime number. However, prepending any single decimal digit to it would not produce other primes, that is, 12, 22, 32, 42, 52, 62, 72, 82 and 92 are composite numbers. Likewise, the third prime number, 5, also shares […]
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Higgledy-piggledy Euclid Geometer Pained by the asking of “What is the use Studying the doctrines so Axiomatical?” Answered acutely, “Oh, Don’t be obtuse!” — Anthony Harrington
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Here is a creative match puzzle by Martin Gardner. Suppose that the four matches in the illustration above represent a cocktail glass. The objective of this puzzle is to remove the cherry from inside the glass without touching it. Also, you can only change the positions of two of the matches. The glass can either end […]
Read MoreA friend emailed me this amusing video earlier: It’s a “tutorial” on how to escape police using a duct tube. The premise may sound silly, but the execution of the trick is clever.
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Image: Trip Advisor Former MIT Physics ptofessor Anthony P. French received a short letter in 1982 from a writer in New Rochelle, New York. It went as follows: Being a safety minded individual I thought I would write you before experimenting on my own. Is it safe to mix Antipasto and Pasta together and could […]
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