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AN IDLER'S MISCELLANY OF COMPENDIOUS AMUSEMENTS

 * About
 * Blog
 * Podcast
 * Contact


TRIVIA


MISC

 * Vatican City has 2.27 popes per square kilometer.
 * Skylab was fined for littering.
 * Five-syllable rhyming words in English: vocabulary, constabulary
 * 8767122 + 3287682 = 876712328768
 * “We die only once, and for such a long time!” — Molière

Above is the only known film footage of Mark Twain, shot at Twain’s Connecticut
home in 1909. The women are thought to be his daughters Clara and Jean.

August 9, 2024August 8, 2024 | Language · Literature · Quotations · Science &
Math · Technology · Trivia


MISC

 * It’s illegal to enter the Houses of Parliament wearing a suit of armor,
   according to a 1313 statute.
 * “All things in moderation” is an immoderate policy.
 * If a prime number is made up entirely of 1s (e.g., 11), then the number of
   its digits is prime.
 * The word CARBON is itself made up of element symbols (Ca, Rb, O, N). (Dmitri
   Borgmann)
 * Interior decorator Nicholas Haslam: “All it comes down to is making a setting
   in which people look prettier.”

07/17/2024 UPDATE: Several readers point out, correctly, that carbon is hardly
the only elemental “chemical word” — indeed, some elements can be spelled in
multiple ways. I’ve assembled this list from multiple contributions:

ArSeNiC ArSeNIC
AsTaTiNe
BiSmUTh BISmUTh
CArBON CaRbON
CoPPEr COPPEr
IrON
KrYPtON
NeON
OGaNeSSON OGaNEsSON
PHoSPHoRuS PHOSPHoRuS PHOsPHoRuS PHoSPHORus PHOSPHORuS PHOsPHORuS
SiLiCoN SiLiCON SILiCON SILiCoN
SiLvEr SILvEr
TeNNeSSINe TeNNEsSiNe TeNNEsSINe
TiN
XeNON XeNoN

TiN is even a valid compound, titanium nitride.

Of these Borgmann had found arsenic, carbon, iron, neon, phosphorus, silicon,
and xenon when he wrote in 1974, “surely the most unusual is CARBON which can be
factored into elements not including itself.” But that property wasn’t unique
even within his limited list, as can be seen above.

Many thanks to readers Gareth McCaughan, Catalin Voinescu, and Eric Harshbarger
for writing in about this.

July 17, 2024July 17, 2024 | Language · Quotations · Science & Math · Trivia


AND SO ON

Seinfeld began and ended with the same line.

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024 | Entertainment · Trivia


NAMESAKES

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The color fuchsia is named after the flower of that name, which was named after
16th-century German botanist Leonhart Fuchs. And Fuchs is German for fox. So the
color is named after a plant named after a man named after an animal.

The color orange is named after the fruit, rather than the other way around.

Canaries are named after the Canary Islands, rather than the other way around.

04/20/2024 UPDATE: The Canary Islands in turn derive their name from the Latin
name Canariae Insulae, “islands of the dogs.” Pliny the Elder records that the
islands contained “vast multitudes of dogs of very large size.” So animal ->
islands -> bird. (Thanks, Bob, Randy, Derek, and Sam.)

And chartreuse is named after the French liqueur of that color, which is named
after the Grand Chartreuse order of monks that created it in the eponymous
Chartreuse Mountains. Mountains -> monastery -> beverage -> color. (Thanks,
John.)

April 20, 2024April 20, 2024 | Language · Trivia


MISC

 * Fletcher Christian’s first son was named Thursday October Christian.
 * SLICES OF BREAD = DESCRIBES LOAF (Dean Mayer)
 * 16384 = 163 × (8 – 4)
 * Of the 46 U.S. presidents to date, 16 have had no middle name.
 * “It is ill arguing against the use of anything from its abuse.” — Elizabeth
   I, in Walter Scott’s Kenilworth

Star Trek costume designer William Ware Theiss offered the Theiss Theory of
Titillation: “The degree to which a costume is considered sexy is directly
proportional to how accident-prone it appears to be.”

(Thanks, Michael.)

February 2, 2024February 1, 2024 | Entertainment · Language · Quotations ·
Science & Math · Trivia


FOR THE RECORD

The most names ever held by a historical royal belonged to Don Alfonso de Borbón
y Borbón (1866-1934), a great-great-grandson of Charles III of Spain, reflecting
a trend favored by Spanish royalty in the 19th century.

His full name was Alfonso María Isabel Francisco Eugenio Gabriel Pedro Sebastián
Pelayo Fernando Francisco de Paula Pío Miguel Rafael Juan José Joaquín Ana
Zacarias Elisabeth Simeón Tereso Pedro Pablo Tadeo Santiago Simón Lucas Juan
Mateo Andrés Bartolomé Ambrosio Geronimo Agustín Bernardo Candido Gerardo
Luis-Gonzaga Filomeno Camilo Cayetano Andrés-Avelino Bruno Joaquín-Picolimini
Felipe Luis-Rey-de-Francia Ricardo Esteban-Protomártir Genaro Nicolás
Estanislao-de-Koska Lorenzo Vicente Crisostomo Cristano Darío Ignacio
Francisco-Javier Francisco-de-Borja Higona Clemente Esteban-de-Hungría Ladislado
Enrique Ildefonso Hermenegildo Carlos-Borromeo Eduardo Francisco-Régis
Vicente-Ferrer Pascual Miguel-de-los-Santos Adriano Venancio Valentín Benito
José-Oriol Domingo Florencio Alfacio Benére Domingo-de-Silos Ramón Isidro Manuel
Antonio Todos-los-Santos de Borbón y Borbón.

December 3, 2023December 1, 2023 | History · Trivia


PEAK PERFORMANCE

This is fascinating if it’s true: Ten municipalities meet at the summit of Mount
Etna, producing a “decipoint” and one of the most complex arrangements of
political boundaries outside Antarctica.

I say “if it’s true” because, for such a striking fact, it’s surprisingly hard
to confirm. Many sources point to a blog post at Condé Nast Traveler by Jeopardy
champion Ken Jennings, but that cites no source.

On the other hand, no one else seems to doubt it, and this map by Patrick
McGranaghan won the American Geographical Society’s monthly map contest in
November 2017. Maybe I’m too skeptical?

09/21/2023 UPDATE: Wow, it seems to be true. The official website of the Parco
dell’Etna includes a map (PDF) showing the distribution of comuni metropolitani
around the peak. And the website of the Italian National Institute of Statistics
offers data files on statistical districts that can be opened using the desktop
version of Google Earth. Many thanks to readers Rob Miller and Ross Ogilvie for
looking into this.

September 20, 2023September 22, 2023 | Oddities · Trivia


REPUTATION

Image: Wikimedia Commons

The bird known as the red phalarope in North America is the grey phalarope in
England — it bears red plumage during its breeding season, but the British see
only its drab winter dress.

A poem by Lord Kennet, from my notes:

I live in hope some day to see
The crimson-necked phalarope;
(Or do I, rather, live in hope
To see the red-necked phalarope?)

June 29, 2022June 28, 2022 | Trivia


MISC

 * Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe all died on July 4.
 * Australia is wider than the moon.
 * NoNRePReSeNTaTiONaLiSm can be assembled from chemical symbols.
 * 1 × 56 – 1 – 7 = 15617
 * “‘Needless to say’ is, needless to say, needless to say.” — Enoch Haga

June 9, 2022June 8, 2022 | History · Language · Quotations · Science & Math ·
Trivia


THE BOTTOM LINE

In his 2008 book 100 Essential Things You Didn’t Know You Didn’t Know,
cosmologist John D. Barrow considers how long a straight line a typical HB
pencil could draw before the lead was exhausted.

A soft 2B pencil draws a line about 20 nanometers thick, and the diameter of a
carbon atom is 0.14 nanometers, so a pencil line is only about 143 atoms thick.
The pencil lead has a radius of about a millimeter, so its area is about π
square millimeters. If the pencil is 15 centimeters long, then it contains 150π
cubic millimeters of graphite.

Putting this together, if we draw a line 20 nanometers thick and 2 millimeters
wide, then the pencil contains enough graphite to continue for the surprising
distance L = 150π / 4 × 10-7 millimeters = 1,178 kilometers. “But I haven’t
tested this prediction!”

(Thanks, Larry.)

05/21/2022 RELATED: How much of a pencil’s lead is wasted in the sharpening?

(Thanks, Chris.)

May 21, 2022May 21, 2022 | Science & Math · Trivia


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