What’s wrong with Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers? They are musketeers in name only. I believe that there is no mention of their using muskets in their adventures, or even mention of their having them. The first French unit of musketeers was formed in the 1622 by Louis XIII, creating the Mousquetaires de la Garde, and [more...]
Many of its visitors have described the Louis Tussaud Waxworks in Great Yarmouth as the worst waxworks museum in the world. Some of them have gone further and described it as the worst museum in the world. And yet, in some ways, that’s its charm. Louis Tussaud was the great grandson of Marie Tussaud, who established [more...]
If you worry about radon radiation, radio waves emitted by cellphones, potential risks of cancer from the fumes of hot cooking oil, and many other things, you may cringe at reading about dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO). You can at least be reassured that dihydrogen monoxide in pure form is not carcinogenic, but you will not be reassured [more...]
Tall bikes are bicycles with an extended frame that puts the rider’s seat more than two meters above the ground. They originated in the 1800s, a period when all kinds of bicycle variations were being explored. The Lamplighter’s Bicycle was a tall bike adapted for use by lamplighters, who would ride from lamp to lamp to [more...]
Those of us who live in frost-prone areas sometimes wake up to the sight of ice over the car windscreen. The unpleasant chore of de-icing the windscreen is best tacked systematically. You will need a plastic scraper (preferably ribbed on the back) plus some de-icer spray. First use the flat blade of the plastic scraper to [more...]
Great circle navigation is following the shortest route between two points on a sphere, the earth in this case. A great circle on any sphere is one that divides it in two equal halves: the equator, any longitudinal line through the poles, or any similar circle that has its center at the middle of the [more...]
If you live in Wyoming or Colorado, the answer is quite simple, since these two states are virtually rectangular, but how does one find the geographical center of an irregularly shaped area? In geometrical terms, that is the “centroid”. The centroid of a straight-edged polygon can be calculated by breaking it into smaller objects and using [more...]
In the United Kingdom, oxidane kills over five hundred people each year; in the United States it’s more than five thousand per year. The substance is so deadly because it can harm people in a variety of different ways. If liquid oxidane gets into the lungs it blocks the entry of oxygen into the blood, which [more...]
You have read all the classic books: Moby Dick, Two Years Before the Mast, Mutiny on the Bounty, The Sea Wolf, maybe Darwin’s The Vogage of the Beagle and even Cooleridge’s poem: The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and, of course, everything by Joseph Conrad and all the Captain Hornblower books. And maybe as a [more...]
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported in 2006 that graffiti artist Daniel Montano was jailed for five days for refusing to raise his right hand to take the oath. But, as they point out, his sentence was for showing disrespect for order in the court rather than for the position of his right hand. The U.S. Supreme [more...]
You wait ages for a bus, then three come along at once. It sounds like a joke, but there’s an element of truth to it. Imagine a busy bus route, with a service frequent enough that passengers arrive at the bus stop at random times rather than to meet a specific bus. Normally you don’t need [more...]
In the modern meaning of “sinister but adroit or dexterous”, there is nothing wrong, beyond the fact that wicked persons who are also clever should possibly be avoided. For lexicographers and others who remember their Latin, however, the question brings a snort and a smile or frown. Sinister and dexterous come directly from Latin. Adroit also [more...]
The obvious way to fight off the cold in winter is to pile on plenty of blankets, but it’s not always the ideal solution. Blankets can be too heavy, particularly if you sleep on your back (with your toes pointing upwards) with three or four blankets because it’s very cold. Also, blankets are not very [more...]
Defenestration is a fancy way to say someone was pushed out of a window or jumped voluntarily (self-defenestration). Fenestra is the Latin word for window. In both cases, the result is usually fatal and probably intended to be so, but that is not a condition for use of the word. Those familiar with the word immediately [more...]
Three terms—percentage, percentage point and basis point—are widely used in finance. Their meanings are different, and getting them mixed up can lead to an expensive mistake. A percentage is a way of expressing a ratio as parts per hundred. Five parts per hundred can be written as 20%. To convert any ratio to a percentage, simply [more...]
One could, of course, argue about which English novel has the most memorable opening and closing lines, but since the novel has sold more than 200 million copies and is the most printed original English book, it is safe to say that the greatest number of persons have had a chance to remember the lines: “It [more...]
Dr Joseph Guillotin may have instigated the guillotine, but he did not invent it. The good doctor (1738-1814) taught anatomy, physiology and pathology at the university in Paris for five years. He was a leading Freemason, reputedly acquainted with Voltaire. In 1784, together with Benjamin Franklin and others, he was a member of the commission [more...]
There are no rules until they are broken. The idea behind this phrase is that the boundaries of acceptable behavior are complex and subtle, and cannot be codified by a simple set of rules. Therefore it’s best to start out with a set of general expectations backed up by a few rules, and to add [more...]
Isinglass is the name of two quite different things: a gelatinous substance obtained by cleaning and drying the air bladders of certain fish, used in the clarification of wines and beers and in making jellies, etc. These days, gelatin is mainly produced from other animal sources. the mineral mica, a silicate containing potassium and aluminum that [more...]
Albert Einstein’s theory is known as the Theory of Relativity because its core principle is that the speed of light in a vacuum is always the same, relative to the observer. This is totally unlike the speed of anything else. If you are driving along the motorway at 100km/hr and the car in the next lane [more...]