True or false? Is it true that it is possible to build 4 or 8 equilateral triangles from six identical matches without breaking them?
(a) yes, possible, 4 and 8 triangles.
(b) only 4.
(c) only 8.
(d) no.
The answer will be published soon
November 12, 2022
True or false? Is it true that the sand cat (Felis margarita) that lives in the Sahara and the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula, never drinks water?
In principle, yes. They satisfy their moisture requirements from their prey but may drink water if it is available. The sand cats are carnivorous; their diet includes gerbils and other small rodents, snakes, lizards, birds, spiders, and insects.
June 9, 2022
From “Descriptio Terrae Sanctae” (“Description of the Holy Land”) by Burchard Of Mount Sion (second half of XIII century):
…There is also another fruit, called paradise apples, a very fine fruit. It grows like a bunch of grapes, having many grains. This bunch is sometimes as big as a good-sized basket, and sometimes has sixty or more grains. These grains are as thick as a hen’s egg… The rind one throws away, but one takes out the fruit and eats it; and its taste is very sweet, like fine butter and honey from the comb. These grains have no seed in them, but are eatable throughout… The tree lasts but a short time — two years at the most — and then straightway withers; but when it begins to wither, another tree straightway sprouts from its root, and does even as the former tree did…
Here’s the question: What are these “paradise apples”, that the author wrote about?
The answer is: Banana!
Here’s the full quotation, with which it’s much easier to understand that the fruit the author described is… a banana!
…There is also another fruit, called paradise apples, a very fine fruit. It grows like a bunch of grapes, having many grains. This bunch is sometimes as big as a good-sized basket, and sometimes has sixty or more grains. These grains are oblong in shape, sometimes six fingers long, and as thick as a hen’s egg. They have a thick rind, like the pod of a bean, but of a delicate yellow colour. The rind one throws away, but one takes out the fruit and eats it; and its taste is very sweet, like fine butter and honey from the comb. These grains have no seed in them, but are eatable throughout. This fruit takes more than one year to grow. The tree also lasts but a short time — two years at the most — and then straightway withers; but when it begins to wither, another tree straightway sprouts from its root, and does even as the former tree did. The leaves of this tree are as long as the height of a man, and are so wide that with two of them a man can cover his whole body…
From “Descriptio Terrae Sanctae” (“Description of the Holy Land”) by Burchard Of Mount Sion (second half of XIII century).
Burchard Of Mount Sion (XIII century) was a monk of the Dominican Order, native either of Strasburg or Magdeburg. In his travel to the East, he visited Egypt and Syria. He is said to have passed the last years of his life at the monastery of Mount Sion in Jerusalem. The date of his death is unknown.
October 5, 2021
In his column in the July 1980 issue of Scientific American, Martin Gardner, American popular mathematics and popular science writer, gives the following one-dimensional chess variant:
From left to right: White King, Knight, Rook, two empty squares, Black Rook, Knight, King.
The King and Rook move as usual, and the knight moves exactly two squares, and may jump over a piece doing that. White plays first: Can he win?
The answer is: Yes, the white can ensure a win, by starting with the knight from b to d, and choosing carefully his next steps based on the black’s counter-moves. If the white plays correctly, the black player can’t win, no matter what he does, but any white’s mistake can lead to a draw or even losing the game. Read the full analysis of white’s way to win in the following article: Dimensions: One-Dimensional Chess.
August 16, 2021
True or false? There is a fear (phobia) of palindromes (a word, phrase, or sequence that reads the same backward as forward, like ‘radar’, ‘rotor’, ‘Anna’, ‘wow’, or ‘No lemon, no melon’) that is called ‘Aibohphobia’, which by itself is a palindrome?
The answer is: False, no such phobia exists. However, unofficially and humorously, the word ‘Aibohphobia’ does exist. It’s a nonce word and indeed it means an irrational fear of palindromes. Another similarly humorous word, ailihphilia, means love, or fetish, of palindromes.
Can you connect the dots by drawing four straight, continuous lines that pass through each of the nine dots, and never lifting the pencil from the paper?
True or false? The main part of the first computer mouse was made of wood.
The answer is: Absolute truth! In 1970, an American researcher and inventor Douglas Karl Engelbart received a US #3541541 patent for an “X-Y position indicator for display” consisting of a wooden case with two metal wheels. Later, this device was nicknamed “mouse” because of the tail-looked cord coming out of its back.
True or false? The total number of chromosomes in the somatic (nonsexual) cells of the domestic bull (Bos Taurus) is half that in humans, namely 23.
The answer is: Nonsense! Normally, somatic cells always have a paired number of chromosomes (one set from the father and one from the mother)! Specifically, the domestic bull (Bos Taurus) has 60 chromosomes.
January 22, 2020
True or false? A genius Austrian female physicist and radiochemist, received in 1922 an official position as an associate professor at the University of Berlin (for the first time in history). The topic of her inaugural lecture, Cosmic Physics, was reported as Cosmetic Physics in the press since it was thought to be more plausible for a female Docent!
The answer is: Absolute truth and a historical fact! The title of the first lecture of Associate Professor Lise Meitner Cosmic Physics was turned by the press into Cosmetic Physics!
