Rich Jensen

Consider the case of Hippasus…

According to legend, Hippasus (who lived in the 5th century BCE), was the student of Pythagoras (he of the Pythagorean Theorem).

Pythagoras believed that all numbers were rational, that is they could be expressed as the ratio of two other numbers (e.g. .5 = 1/2). Ironically, Hippasus used the Pythagorean Theorem to prove that the square root of 2 is irrational.

According to legend, Hippasus was drowned by his fellow Pythagoreans for asserting this (a variant is that the Pythagoreans wanted to keep the existence of irrational numbers secret, and drowned him for running his yap).

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippasus

Take some time looking at the proof that the square root of two is irrational. It’s quite ingenious.

The United States DOT annually estimates the number of miles driven by all Americans.

In 2010, Americans drove an estimated 2.996 trillion miles.

A light year is 5.879 trillion miles.

The distance from the sun to the next closest star (Proxima Centauri) is 4.2 light years or 24.69 trillion miles.

From 2002 to 2010, the total number of miles driven by Americans was 26.42 trillion miles, or more than the distance from the sun to its nearest neighbor.

Sources: http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/tvt.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light-year (light year length)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri (distance to Proxima Centauri, photo)

Jimmy Carter

Berry Gordy

Elvis Presley

Okay, here’s how this works: Berry Gordy Jr. is the son of Berry Gordy II. Berry Gordy II is the son of Berry Gordy I.

Berry Gordy I is the son of James Thomas Gordy and a slave.

James Thomas Gordy also had a son, James Jackson Gordy. James Jackson Gordy had a daughter named Bessie Lillian Gordy, and her son was the 39th president of the US.

James Thomas Gordy’s great-grandfather? Andreas Presley.

If you’re keeping score, that makes Carter & Gordy half-second cousins, while Carter and Gordy were sixth cousins of the King.

Source: http://www.wmji.com/common/motown/berry.html

Jacob Grimm is widely known for collaborating with his brother Wilhelm to publish a collection of children’s tales—several of which were considered to be a bit too spicy (and occasionally too violent) for children. Suitably toned down, they’ve become part of the furniture of childhood.

However, Grimm is famous in other circles for developing Grimm’s Law.

Grimm’s Law explained the change in German and Germanic languages over time, as compared primarily with Greek and Latin. An example is father (English), fater (German) and pater (Latin and Greek), another example foot (English), fuß (German), and peda (Latin). You can see that the ‘f’ in German and English is a ‘p’ in Latin and Greek. The ‘th’ in English is a ‘t’ in Latin, Greek, and German.

In some instances, the relationship is startlingly clear. The ‘-stan’ suffix common in central Asian country names is related to the English word ‘stand’.

These observed relationships and many others have allowed linguists to construct a fairly comprehensive (but hypothetical) dictionary for a language that was probably never written and hasn’t been spoken in thousands of years.

Sources: http://colfa.utsa.edu/drinka/pie/grimm.htm (explore this site for more information)
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:List_of_Proto-Indo-European_roots
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-stan
Also, take a look at the appendix of the American Heritage Dictionary for a deeper but still very accessible discussion of Proto-IndoEuropean.

This is only a theory:

There are horses and a stylized wagon wheel in the Teamsters logo because ‘team’-sters drove the teams of horses that hauled delivery wagons before cars and trucks.

Delivery wagons, as a general rule, did not have a seat for a driver. The driver or teamster would sit on one of the rear horses in the team and drive the horses from there.

Because most people are right handed by nature, and because (until recently) many lefties were ‘forced’ to become right handed, the typical teamster would sit on the left rear horse, so that he could reach all the horses on the team with his right or whip hand.

Being that he sat on the left rear horse, he preferred to ride on the right side of the road so he could see and stay clear of faster moving traffic on his left.

In 1792 Pennsylvania passed a law requiring all traffic to keep right, and thanks to Henry Ford and a few others, about two-thirds of the world is driving on the right side of the road today.

Sources: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1920427,00.html
http://www.indiana.edu/~primate/lspeak2.html#educators (forced conversion of left-handers)
Teamster logo property of Teamsters International

Meet Tony Burrows:

You probably don’t know him, but if you listen to any oldies station, you’ve heard him. You’ve heard him singing for Edison Lighthouse, White Plains, the Brotherhood of Man and The First Class.

Burrows and Edison Lighthouse charted with “Love Grows (where My Rosemary Goes)”, Burrows and White Plains charted with “My Baby Loves Love”, Burrows and the Brotherhood of Man charted with “United We Stand” and Burrows and First Class charted with “Beach Baby”.

In 1970, Burrows appeared on BBC’s Top of the Pops as the frontman for Brotherhood, White Plains and Edison Lighthouse…… all on the same night!

Burrows charted four top 40 hits for four different groups in the space of four months.

Source: http://www.popentertainment.com/burrows.htm
Photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Burrows
Love Grows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7UMZulD94s
My Baby Loves Love: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylgVb_ORv3E
United We Stand: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB3RBxnn98g (enjoy the outfits)
Beach Baby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii4ON7XHGCA

World’s largest waterfalls, by volume:

5: Willamette Falls, Oregon, USA, 30,849cfs annual average

4: Virginia Falls, Northwest Territory, Canada, 35,000cfs annual average

3: Victoria Falls, Zambia/Zimbabwe, 38,040cfs annual average (105,944cfs peak monthly average)

2. Iguaçu Falls, Brazil/Argentina, 61,660cfs annual average

1: Niagara Falls, New York, USA/Ontario, Canada, 200,400cfs annual average (including water that is now diverted to a power plant)

Honorable mention: Gavins Point Dam Spillway, Nebraska/South Dakota, USA, 160,000cfs

Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_waterfalls_by_flow_rate
http://missouri-news.org/news/gavins-point-dam-outflow-to-increase/6196
Photos property of their respective owners

This is about surveying—specifically, about a major surveying project with a lofty goal and some unexpected results.

In 1802, the East India Company authorized the “Great Trigonometric Survey.” Its aim was to define a meridian (north-south measuring line) and baseline (east-west measuring line) that could be used to survey all of India. Eventually this task would bankrupt the company. They thought it would take 5 years. It took over 60. When finished, the principal meridian was over 1,400 miles long.

By the 1830s, the surveyors had reached the foothills of the Himalayas and began to estimate the heights of the taller peaks. In 1847, one peak caught the attention of a surveyor because it appeared to be taller than Kangchenjunga, then believed to be the world’s tallest mountain. Averaging out a series of measurements and accounting for atmospheric distortion gave a height of 29,000 feet exactly, which was announced to be 29,002 feet to keep people from assuming the measurement was approximate.

These measurements were carried out anywhere from 108 to 140 miles away from the summit of Everest. The distance to Everest was calculated using trigonometry based on the angles and distances between the measuring points and the meridian. The elevations of the individual measuring points themselves were based on countless estimates of elevation performed during the survey of the meridian.

(Everest as seen from India)

In testimony to the accuracy of those hundreds of measurements, the estimated height of Everest using modern technology is only .1% higher than the 1857 estimate.

By the way, George Everest did not want this mountain named after him. He preferred the use of local names.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mt._Everest
Photo: http://www.viconyteas.com/directory/tea-encyclopedia/darjeeling-tea.html
Read More: The Great Arc

Ipswitch South Dakota, population 954, is not at first glance worth a second glance.

However, this small town is the birthplace of the Yellowstone Trail—the first planned transcontinental highway. Organized in 1912, by J.W. Parmley the Yellowstone Trail Association began as an effort to build a decent road from Ipswitch to Aberdeen, but rapidly expanded into proposal for a highway from Boston to Seattle. It was organized a few months before the more widely known Lincoln Highway.

This highway was built before gas taxes, state highway departments, or federal highway funds. It was signed and constructed primarily by local organizations and volunteers

There’s more: Ipswitch is also located on the last transcontinental railroad. The Milwaukee Road’s transcontinental line was not completed until 1909, after the Northern Pacific, Union Pacific, Western Pacific, Southern Pacific and Great Northern routes.

Sources:
Yellowstone Trail: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.W._Parmley
Milwaukee Road: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympian_Hiawatha#State-of-the-art_Heavyweight_Olympian

 main( ) {
printf("hello, world");
}

That’s the earliest form of this programmer meme. It comes from a 1974 Bell Labs memorandum Programming in C: A Tutorial by Brian Kernighan.

Other programmer memes include the use of ‘foo’ and ‘bar’ or ‘George’, ‘Paul’, ‘John’ and ‘Ringo’ as items in a list or array.

This tumblr account? Brief (200 word or less) tidbits on a variety of things—mostly as an exercise in disciplined writing.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hello_world_program