Did you know: Is a well-known logic problem named after a game show host‭?‬

Good grief, we’re almost halfway through the month of August!

You know what that means, right?

That means it’s time to start planning for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Okay, I’m just kidding.  That means it’s time to get out and enjoy what’s left of the summer, because in just over a month from now, summer will be over, and fall will be upon us.

This speed-up of time is really starting to get to me. How about you?

The only thing that anchors me in reality is this weekly dive into the trivia vault … which I am pleased to share with you right now.  Enjoy!

Did you know …

… the paint color “mummy brown” actually contained parts of mummies? The shade was popular during the 18th and 19th centuries, and it was made with ground-up remains of ancient Egyptians whose mummies had been unearthed. The supply of mummies dried up (see what I did there?) in the 1960s and production of the pigment stopped. (Boris Karloff and Brendan Fraser are probably happy “mummy brown” isn’t available any more.)

… a man’s wife cannot speak the same language he does in one African nation? The farming village of Ubang, in Nigeria, has two languages used – one by men, and one by women. This doesn’t mean there is no understanding, though. Men understand the language used by the women, and the women understand the men’s language. This is because boys grow up speaking women’s language, since they spend so much time with their mothers, and girls learn the language of the men by hanging around with them as well. At the age of maturity, however, the individual switches to the “correct” language in order to get along in Ubang society. (Gives a whole new meaning to “my wife doesn’t understand me,” doesn’t it?)

… a Japanese delicacy is actually poisonous? Fugu, or blowfish, is served at restaurants in Japan and Hong Kong, but diners are warned that they are eating the fish at their own risk. 

The blowfish contains deadly amounts of a poison known as tetrodotoxin, which is 500 times more deadly than cyanide. Yes, people do die each year from eating the fish, and yes, it continues to be a special delicacy anyway. (A meal to die for, I suppose.)

… man’s best friend is also a master manipulator? If you have or have had dogs, you already know this. But in 2017, a study found that dogs make so-called “puppy eyes” and other facial expressions when they know that humans are watching. Shelter dogs, especially, show this trait, as the “puppy eyes” go a long way toward getting humans to adopt them, more so than tail wagging. (That explains a lot.)

… a well-known problem in logic is named after a game show host? Suppose you are on a game show, in which you have a choice of three doors. One of the doors has a new car behind it, and the other two have goats. You pick door number one, and the host opens door number two to show you a goat. (It doesn’t really matter which door of the other two he opens, I just use two for this example.) You have a choice – do you keep door one, or switch to door three? 

This is called the Monty Hall Problem, named after Hall (1921-2017) who hosted the popular program Let’s Make a Deal for many years.

Getting back to the problem – do you switch? You might think that it makes no difference, as the odds of winning the car went from 1-in-3 to 1-in-2. But you actually have a better chance of winning the car if you switch than if you don’t. (You’ll have to consult someone who speaks math to explain the rest of it.)

… a name exists for the “space” from which a cartoon character pulls something he didn’t have earlier?

Say, for example, in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, Jerry the mouse swats Tom the cat over the head with a tennis racket he didn’t have a few seconds before. Where did the racket come from? Animators call this area “hammerspace.” (I loved Tom’s howls when Jerry did things like that!)

… a pig was once executed for murder? In 1386, the village of Fontenay-aux-Roses, France, held a trial for a pig. The pig was accused of attacking a baby and biting it so viciously that the baby died.

The pig was sent to jail and, after a trial in which it could not provide a solid defense of its actions, was found guilty and executed. (I guess the pig wasn’t about to squeal on itself.)

… a celebrated children’s show host always mentioned that he was feeding his fish? Fred Rogers (1928-2003), star of the classic Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, would always tell viewers when he was feeding his fish after he received a letter from a blind child asking him to do so. The child wanted to make sure the fish were all right.

… a large tea and a regular tea at a coffee shop are the same thing? Bear with me a moment. If you order “large tea” you get a large glass of tea. If you order “regular” you get a smaller glass. Both glasses use only one tea bag; the difference is how much water is added. (Hey, wait a minute …)

… people say “bless you” when you sneeze for a reason? Originally, it was from the Middle Ages, when a sneeze was often the first sign of bubonic plague. Offering the “bless you” was thought to invoke spiritual protection from plague germs. (It didn’t work, but they kept doing it.)

… supercooled helium defies gravity, just like its gaseous counterpart? If you take helium and cool it down to about 4.2 Kelvin (just above absolute zero), it becomes a liquid and stays in its container. But make it just a little cooler, say 2 Kelvin, it actually climbs out of the beaker against the pull of gravity. It’s called a superfluid at those temperatures. (It’s also called cold.)

Now … you know!

You can reach Jack Bagley at didyouknowcolumn@gmail.com