Random knowledge

Seemingly ancient illustrations are given contemporary captions by Martin Archer to become “state-of-the-art 19th century humor.” Although the collection is no longer updated, there is an archive of all of the 445 cartoons published.

Martin Archer is the Former King of Norway; Mountaineer; Inventor of the fridge; Solo Round-the-World yachtsman; Ambassador to Prussia; Discoverer of the planet Neptune; Brain-Surgeon; Matador; Poet Laureate to Her Majesty; Veterinarian; Concert Pianist; World Champion Arm Wrestler and Ballroom Dancer;Marine Biologist; Stamp Collector; Cordon Bleu Chef and compulsive liar is the author of seventy-seven books, all of which topped the best-seller lists. Speaks nineteen languages, all but eighteen of them fluently. He spends most of his time on the west coast, living in the luxurious Daze Manor, performing vital research, having splendid adventures and behaving eccentricly.

The billions of microscopic critters that cloak your skin are a bit like fashionable threads. The ones you’re wearing today may be out by next season. That’s the implication of a new study, which identified more than 240 distinct microbes on the forearms of six healthy people.
The purpose of the study is to know whether certain skin microbes are connected to chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis and eczema, which would make the critters our skin’s version of a wardrobe malfunction.

The results appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 20, 2007 | vol. 104 | no. 8 | 2927-2932.

Via NG

The Lives of Others (original title in German: Das Leben der Anderen) is an Academy Award-winning German movie, marking the feature film debut of director/screenwriter Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. It won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, along with seven Deutscher Filmpreis awards including best film, best director, best screenplay, best actor and best supporting actor, after having set a new record with 11 nominations. It was also nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 64th Golden Globe Awards.

The thriller/drama is about the cultural scene of East Berlin, monitored by secret agents of the Stasi, the GDR’s secret police. It stars Ulrich Mühe as Stasi agent Gerd Wiesler, Ulrich Tukur as his chief officer Anton Grubitz, Sebastian Koch as the playwright Georg Dreyman, and Martina Gedeck as his lover Christa-Maria Sieland.

This movie is currently on screen in the Studios (Dutch link). It seems like a candidate for my All eyes list. Reviews here and here and of course the rotten tomatoes have something to say as well.

‘Juiced-up’ Sugar-Fueled Battery Could Power Portable Electronics from PhysOrg.com
Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say.

[...]

Definition
Amicable numbers are two integers so related that the sum of the proper divisors of the one is equal to the other, unity being considered as a proper divisor but not the number itself.

Explanation
What is a proper divisor ? First a divisor of a positive integer n, also called a factor of n, is an integer which evenly divides n without leaving a remainder. Examples : 7 is a divisor of 42 (42 divided by 7 equals 6); -5 is a divisor of 30 (30 devided by -5 equals -6). A positive divisor of n which is different from n is called a proper divisor (or also called an aliquot part) of n. Examples : 7 is a proper divisor of 42, but -5 is not a proper devisor of 30.

(220,284)
The pair (220,284) is the smallest pair of amicable numbers. Let us check if 220 and 284 are amicable numbers. The proper divisors of 220 are 1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55 and 110, of which the sum is 284. The proper divisors of 284 are 1, 2, 4, 71, and 142, of which the sum is 220. Check !

Faits divers
If a number equals the sum of its own proper divisors, it is called a perfect number. Example : 6. The positive divisors of 6 are 1, 2 and 3 and 1+2+3 equals 6. The next perfect number is 28. A list can be found here. More about perfect numbers in a future post.

As you already know a proper divisor is also called an alequot part. Now an aliquot sequence is a recursive sequence in which each term is the sum of the proper divisors of the previous term. A simple example. Let’s start with 25. The proper divisors of 25 are 1 and 5, of which the sum is 6. The proper divisors of 6 are 1, 2 and 3 as we already showed. So the aliquot sequence is 25,6,6,6,… Clearly when you reach a perfect number, the sequence continues indefinitely with this perfect number. We say that a perfect number has a repeating aliquot sequence of period 1. An amicable number has of course a repeating aliquot sequence of period 2 (try e.g. 284). If the period equals 4 or more, than we call these numbers sociable (there are no known sequences of period 3).

Further reading

• MathWorld has a good introductory article on amicable pairs.
• A good 2003 survey on current status of Amicable number mathematics can be found here (pdf). A bit harder than the previous article.
• And the Aliquot page is certainly another good starting point.

According to the Washington Post:

Rorschach Theatre is proof that limited resources do not stymie great talents,
any more than big budgets can squeeze works of genius from mediocre minds.

Rorschach Theatre performs at : The Sanctuary Theatre, Casa del Pueblo Methodist Church,1459 Columbia Road NW Columbia Heights, Washington DC.
Take also a look “behind the curtain” at the Rorschach Theatre blog!

The only function of economic forecasting is
to make astrology look respectable.

John Kenneth Galbraith

A heuristic is a replicable method or approach for directing one’s attention in learning, discovery, or problem-solving. It is originally derived from the Greek “heurisko” (εὑρίσκω), which means “I find”. (A form of the same verb is found in Archimedes’ famous exclamation “eureka!” – “I have found [it]!”) The term was introduced in the 4th century CE by Pappus of Alexandria. Heuristic is thus the art and science of discovery.

The mathematician George Pólya popularized heuristics in the mid–20th century, in his book How to Solve It. He learned mathematical proofs as a student but he did not know, nor was he taught, the ways mathematicians arrived at such proofs. How to Solve It is a collection of ideas about heuristics that he taught to mathematics students – ways of looking at problems and formulating solutions.

A heuristic is not the same as logic. Logic is traditionally defined as the art and science of reasoning. Principal topics in logic include: what propositions are, what concepts are, and what relationships between propositions that need to exist in order for one proposition to validly serve as the basis for inferring another. Heuristic is about how to steer your attention so that you find things that meet the criteria of logic. For example, how might you come up with a proposition that solves a certain problem? For example, if you are shown a geometry problem and are asked to find a formula to express the length of one line in it in terms of the lengths of other lines in the same diagram, heuristic would include the methods that you use to search for that formula. Logic would include the relationship between the formula and the other lines, and whether the proof for your answer really establishes that it’s right.

Heuristic relates to nearly every subject of human interest, because nearly everything that’s interesting in the world is, in some way or other, a needle in a haystack. For any man-made object of interest, just ask, “How did someone come up with that?” For example, how did anyone figure out how to make bread? If you look at wheat growing in the wild, it doesn’t exactly come with instructions. Another example: how did people first hit on the idea of the alphabet?

The Fuller brooch is a piece of 9th century Anglo-Saxon jewelry. It is a large disc made of hammered sheet silver inlaid with black niello and with a diameter of 11.4 cm. Its centre roundel is decorated with personifications of the five senses. In the centre is Sight with large staring oval eyes, surrounded by the other four senses, each in his own compartment. Taste has a hand in his mouth. Smell’s hands are behind his back, and he stands between two tall plants. Touch rubs his hands together. Hearing holds his hand to his ear. This is the earliest known representation of the five senses. The outer border consists of 16 small medallions decorated with human, bird, animal and plant motifs. The brooch is the earliest known personification of the five senses.
The Fuller brooch is on display in the British Museum.

Funambulism or tightrope walking is the art of walking along a thin wire or rope usually at a great height.

The Kicher Society had an article on the stilt-walking feats of Sylvain Dornon, a French baker (which is totally irrelevant), who walked from Paris to Moscow, a journey of 1,800 miles, on a pair of five-foot stilts. Even more impressive was Jean François Gravelet, aka Charles Blondin, who owed his celebrity and fortune to his idea of crossing the gorge below Niagara Falls on a tightrope, 1100 feet (335 m) long, 160 feet (50 m) above the water. This he accomplished, first in 1859, a number of times, always with different theatric variations: blindfold, in a sack, trundling a wheelbarrow, on stilts, carrying a man on his back, sitting down midway while he cooked and ate an omelette. Other famous funambulists include Philippe Petit, a French high wire artist who gained fame for his illegal walk between the former Twin Towers in New York City on August 7, 1974, the Flying Wallendas, famous for their Seven-Man Pyramid. And if you want to learn funanbulism yourself, here are the manuals. Good luck.

Victor I. Stoichita, Professor of the History of Modern and Contemporary Art at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, is the author of A Short History of the Shadow (Reaktion). In exploring the writings of Plato, Pliny, Leonardo, and Piaget, Stoichita explains how the shadow has always been integral to theories of art and knowledge, and investigates the complex psychological meanings we project into shadows. What an intriguing topic.

Read this interview in Cabinet Magazine

“Musei Wormiani Historia“, the frontispiece from the Museum Wormianum depicting Ole Worm’s cabinet of curiosities.

Ten thousand wonderful things : comprising whatever is marvellous and rare, curious, eccentric, and extraordinary, in all ages and nations …, an 1894 book by Edmund Fillingham King.

The queer, the quaint, the quizzical; a cabinet for the curious by Francis Henry Stauffer (1882).

The Rite of Spring, commonly referred to by its original French title, Le Sacre du printemps (Russian: Весна священная) is a ballet with music by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. While the Russian title literally means “Sacred Spring”, the English title is based on the French title under which the work was premiered, although sacre is more precisely translated as “consecration”.

At the turn of the last century, serious music had reached the outer bounds of the tonal system and its future seemed in jeopardy. It took Stravinsky, in one bold and visionary gesture, to blast music into a wholly new realm of possibilities from which it would never return.

The 28-year old Stravinsky was the toast of Paris. In 1910, he had launched his career with the hugely successful Firebird, a delightful ballet with a fanciful story and gorgeous music in the grand and familiar style of Tchaikovsky. For the next season he wrote Petrouchka which, while more modern, was anchored in memorable folk tunes and offered a charming tale of intrigue among established Commedia del’Arte characters. It was with such wonderful memories firmly in mind that society audiences anticipated yet another fabulous but essentially traditional entertainment.

Like its predecessors, The Rite was commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballets Russes and was to be staged by Michel Fokine and choreographed by the legendary Vaslav Nijinski, the third triumphant crown of the most potent combination of music, art and dance that Europe had ever seen. But Stravinsky had other ideas. He would later say, “I was guided by no system; I wrote what I heard.” At the premiere, perhaps the most notorious of all time, it became immediately apparent that what he heard was without precedent.

The troupe’s conductor, Pierre Monteux, was introduced to the score when the composer played it for him on the piano. He recalled: “The very walls resounded as Stravinsky pounded away, occasionally stamping his feet and jumping up and down to accentuate the force of the music. Not that it needed such emphasis.” Monteux thought Stravinsky was “raving mad” and predicted the music would cause a scandal. He was wrong: it provoked a full-scale riot.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy is a series of three novels written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson primarily between 1969 and 1971. The trilogy is a satirical, postmodern, science fiction-influenced adventure story; a drug-, sex- and magic-laden trek through a number of conspiracy theories, both historical and imaginary, which hinge around the authors’ version of the Illuminati. The narrative often switches between third and first person perspectives and jumps around in time. It is thematically dense, covering topics like counterculture, numerology and Discordianism.

The trilogy comprises the books The Eye in the Pyramid, The Golden Apple and Leviathan. They were first published starting in September 1975, as three separate volumes, and in 1984 as an omnibus; they are now more commonly reprinted in the latter form. The trilogy won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award, designed to honor classic libertarian fiction, in 1986. The authors went on to create several works, both fiction and nonfiction, that further discussed the themes of the trilogy, but no direct sequels were produced. Illuminatus! has been adapted for the stage, and has influenced several modern writers, musicians and games-makers. The popularity of the word “fnord” and the 23 enigma can both be attributed to the trilogy. It remains a seminal work of conspiracy fiction, predating Foucault’s Pendulum and The Da Vinci Code by decades.

Great article at Wikipedia about these tremendous novels. I need an extra bookshelf…

P.S. Unfortunately Robert A. WIlson died recently.

Mr Spock, the fictional Vulcan famously logical and lacking in emotion, sacrificed himself for his comrades in the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan with the following words to Captain Kirk: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one…”

Now, revealing new research shows that people with damage to a key emotion-processing region of the brain also make moral decisions based on the greater good of the community, unclouded by concerns over harming an individual.

It is the first study to demonstrate how emotion impacts moral judgement and sheds light on why people often act out of respect for an individual rather than choosing to act in a more logical, utilitarian way. The findings could cause a rethink in how society determines a “moral good”, and challenge the 18th-century philosophies of Immanuel Kant and David Hume.

Via

Official site celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome (1957), which established the European Economic Community (EEC, now the EU). Features historical background and photos about the EU, basic facts, and a calendar of events in 2007 for anniversary celebrations (such as exhibitions, dance and theater performances, sporting events, conferences, and more).

There is also a quiz, but unfortunately this is not nicely designed. The rest of the site is quite interesting.

This expression comes from Ecclesiastes X.20 :

For a bird of the air shall carry the voice,
and that which hath wings shall tell the matter.

Julian Barnes reviews That Sweet Enemy: The French and the British from the Sun King to the Present by Robert Tombs and Isabelle Tombs:

Over the course of centuries, the French and the British have found many distracting differences to complain about in one another: French personal hygiene, British froideur, French frivolity, British joylessness. Britain was seen as “Carthage,” a place of boundless materialism, France as “Babylon,” a place of insatiable pleasure.

Reading this very interesting review I’ve decided to buy this book next weekend.

Today it’s World Poetry Day

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk :
‘Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness, -
That thou, light winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
(more…)