AMPERSAND (&)

Have you ever said the word “ampersand” and the person you’re talking to has no idea what you’re talking about? Or are you the person who has no idea what the crazy person saying “ampersand” is talking about? Well I’m here to clear up any confusion. The ampersand is a logogram, which represents the word “and”. A logogram is a picture or symbol, which represents a word, the most famous logograms being Egyptian hieroglyphics.

So where did this wacky little symbol & come from? Well you see, the word “and” in Latin is “et”. Through time the word “et” evolved into the symbol & as shown below:

In some modern fonts, the origins of the ampersand symbol can still be seen. Like in the Trebuchet MS version seen here: &

Okay, so that takes care of the symbol &, but where does that silly word “ampersand” come from? The word “ampersand” is derived from the phrase “and per se and”, with “per se” meaning “by itself”. In the glorious days of yesteryear, whenever kids recited the alphabet, they added “per se” to any letter that could itself be a word (such as A, I, and &, which was added at the end of the alphabet at the time). So if you replace the first “and” in the phrase “and per se and” with the symbol for “and” while throwing in an equal sign for good measure you get “& by itself = and”. Feel free to read that again if it doesn’t make sense. It took me about a dozen times before it sunk in. Got it?

“& by itself = and” = “and per se and” = “ampersand”

Now here’s something I learned a few years ago, and I still think about it every time I see it. In the credits of a movie, if there is more than one screenwriter and they are separated by an &, it means that they worked together on the screenplay. If they are separated by the word “and” it means they worked separately, usually involving the studio passing around the draft to get it reworked. You’ll never look at the screenwriters’ credit the same way ever again.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

TROODON

For this Teach Me Something Tuesday I wanted to talk about dinosaurs, because I’m all about dinosaurs. Did you know I was a Geology and Biology major in college because I wanted to be a paleontologist? Of course you did. Because you write down everything I tell you about myself in your Craig Journal and study it nightly. At first I was going to talk about one of the popular species like Tyrannosaurus Rex or Velociraptor, but then figured that wouldn’t be much of a new learning experience for you. So I’m going to teach you about Troodons, because seriously, who ever heard of these guys?

The Troodon was discovered in 1855 and was one of the first dinosaurs discovered in North America. Their fossils can be found stretching from Montana, through Alberta and all the way up to Alaska, and they lived 65 million years ago at the very end of the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth. The word “troodon” (pronounced: trow-odon) stems from a Greek word meaning “wounding tooth” because of its tooth’s deep serrations, which suggests an omnivorous (both plants and animals) diet. The Troodon was relatively small, averaging about two meters from head to tail, one meter tall, and weighing about 130 pounds. Just so you know, this is about twice the size of Velociraptors.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “What is Craig smoking? I saw Jurassic Park! Velociraptors are a lot bigger than that! He must mean Troodons were half the size of Velociraptors, not twice the size. Boy, it’s a shame someone so cute could be so stupid.” To which I point out that while Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park, used the correct size of Velocirators in his book, Steven Spielberg decided to make them 6 feet tall instead of 1.5 feet tall, because seriously, 1.5 tall dinosaurs aren’t all that threatening. Coincidentally, in 1993 (the year Jurassic Park came out in theaters) the Utahraptor was discovered in (you guessed it!) Connecticut. Just kidding. Utah. And the Utahraptor was 6 feet tall, just like the Jurassic Park raptors! So Steven Spielberg is even cooler than you originally thought.

What’s so special about the Troodon, you ask? Well for one, they have one of the largest brains relative to their body mass than any other dinosaur, and paleontologists theorize that they were the most intelligent dinosaurs in history and had an intelligence comparable to modern day birds. Troodons also have the most forward facing eyes of any other dinosaur, which means that it had slightly binocular vision and depth perception, a trait only found in what are considered “higher” animals (like some of us!). They also had long slender fingers, ideal for grasping prey and giving “over there” directions.

These unique characteristics led paleontologist Dale Russell and others to theorize that if dinosaurs hadn’t been wiped out by Noah’s flood the Chicxulub meteorite (the one that hit the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico) Troodons would have been readily equipped to evolve into advanced humanoids called Dinosauroids. People are quick to point out that this model is too anthropomorphic and fantastical, and had dinosaurs been allowed to advance, they would have retained their horizontal posture and evolved along similar lines as birds. It’s also pretty conceited, because must all intelligent life have human appearance? Frankly, if I were intelligent I’d want to look like Optimus Prime.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

PENCILS

Today we’re going to talk about the wild and exciting world of pencils! Wait! No! Come back! I promise I’ll make it amusing. Did you know that the word pencil comes from the Latin word “pencillus” which means “little tail”? Like, what the fuck? And did you know I got duped into taking Latin in college because it was called “Medieval Studies 101″ but then in itty bitty (which is approximately 15% smaller than teeny weeny) fine print it said “also see: Latin 101″ and on the first day of class all ready to learn about Knights and Wizards and Catapults, the professor was like: “To truly appreciate Medieval culture, you must first understand the marvelous language of Latin.” and I was like: “Say what?”

So anyway, the first pencils were used in Rome and were thin lead sticks. It wasn’t until the 1600’s when a huge graphite deposit was found in England that people started making pencils using graphite instead of lead. Since graphite is a lot softer than lead, it needed to be wrapped in something to keep it together, so it was usually wrapped in string or sheepskin to keep it from falling apart. This is the point of the post where I was going to say that they also make condoms out of sheepskin and warn you that while they do prevent pregnancy, they don’t prevent transmission of sexually transmitted diseases, but then I looked it up and it turns out that sheepskin condoms are made out of lamb intestines. Apparently lamb intestines aren’t sexy, and would ruin all marketing opportunities. Evidently the phrase “sheepskin” is orgasmic. Bah, Bah, Black Sheep indeed.

An Italian couple named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti are credited with inventing the first wood encased pencil, used primarily for their carpentry business. Originally the wood was hollowed out and the graphite was inserted, but it didn’t take long for people to realize it was easier to cut the wood in half, and then glue it back together to encase the graphite, which is the same method used to this day. The wood-encased pencil spread throughout Europe, being manufactured primarily in England and Germany. Due to the Napoleonic wars in the early 1800’s, imports of graphite and pencils to France were ceased because no one liked them. This amuses me because I bet Napoleon had a very little tail, if you know what I mean. So France had to manufacture their own pencils by stretching their comparatively smaller supply of graphite by adding clay.

The primary wood used in pencil manufacturing is called Incense-Cedar, and is used because it is relatively soft, allowing it to be sharpened without splintering, and has a pretty smell (and who doesn’t love a fine smelling wood?). The tradition of pencils being painted yellow was started in 1890 by the Austro-Hungarian company L & C Hardtmuth Company and is thought to be inspired by the Austro-Hungarian flag which is simply yellow and black. Supposedly these pencils were of the highest quality, so other pencil companies painted their pencils yellow in the hopes of being associated with the high quality of the L & C pencils. And as they say: imitation is the highest form of plagiarism.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

THE DODO BIRD

People often call me a “dodo” and I’m like: “What does that mean?” So I look it up, and apparently “dodo” stems from the Portuguese word “doido”, which means “crazy”. And then I’m like: “That’s not very nice!” So to make myself feel better, I look up other translations, and I learn that the word “dodo” also stems from the Dutch word “dodaers”, which means “fat ass”. And then I go back to my cubicle and cry and cry and cry. Or they could just be referring to the bird of that name, which is often pigeonholed as being stupid. So either way, I lose.

The dodo is was a bird native to the island Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. The island was first visited by the Portuguese (who didn’t settle there) in the early 1500’s and then by the Dutch (who did settle there) in the late 1500’s. Oh yeah, the island was also visited by Arabs and Malays as early as the 900’s, but they’re not white enough, so history just pats them on the head and says “good job”. So that’s why we don’t know if the word “dodo” stems from the Portuguese word for “crazy” or the Dutch word for “fat ass”. Either way, the dodo is going to have some severe inadequacy issues to deal with. Oh, maybe that’s why people call me a “dodo”?

The dodo is was a flightless bird who’s lineage stems from that of the modern pigeon, which is a flightfull bird, generally in the direction of my head. Did anyone else know that dodos were a meter tall and weighed up to 50 pounds? Liar. That’s a lot bigger than I pictured in my head. Not that I picture dodos in my head when I should be working, and not crying.

Dodos, like most animals evolving in isolated areas, don’t didn’t have an innate fear of humans, so when humans came to the island, the dodos were all like: “Hey guys! Let’s get this party started!” and the humans were like: “Sure thing! There’s only one catch: you’re the party!” And when hungry white guys are coming at you with machetes, you finally start to envy your flightfull kin even though they have to live in New York City, which is uber-expensive and the subways always uber-suck.

Dodos are commonly used as an example of extinct species because their demise occurred during recorded human history and is attributed to human activity. Even if the humans didn’t kill them all, the pigs, dogs, and other animals that they brought along with them certainly didn’t help. For many years the dodo was regarded as being extremely stupid. This was the human’s way of saying: “We didn’t kill the dodos! They were so stupid! They practically killed themselves!” Because sometimes we need to lie to ourselves to make us feel better. After all, if shiploads of humans unloaded on an island full of adorable kitty cats instead, people might be calling me “pussy” instead of “dodo”.

Oh wait.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

URANUS

That’s right! Today we’re going to talk about Uranus. Now quit your giggling and focus! This will be a serious discussion of your anus Uranus.

Greek Mythology

So you guys know how Zeus is the father of all the other gods, right? Wrong. Kronos was Zeus’ father. So Kronos was the father of all the other gods, right? Wrong again! Man, you suck at this game. Uranus was Kronos’ father. Uranus, considered Father Sky, got it on with Gaia, considered Mother Earth, and made lots of babies which were divided into three groups: the Titans (your average gods), the Hecatonchires (one-hundred armed), and the Cyclops (one-eyed). Gaia eventually turned on Uranus (like all women do) and had their son Kronos (one of the Titans) kill Uranus, which he did by castrating him and casting his testicles into the sea. Then a little kid with a wiffleball bat came and hit Uranus over the head. Okay fine, I made up that last part, but it seemed fitting. I mean, what other humiliation must a man named Uranus endure besides having his balls cut off?

Uranus is enormous!

Not only is Uranus an unfortunately-named god, it is also the unfortunately-named seventh planet from the Sun. It’s the third largest (behind Jupiter and Saturn) and fourth most massive (behind Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune) planet in the Solar System.

QUESTION: Based on the information above, is Uranus more dense or less dense than Neptune?

IF YOU ANSWERED:

MORE DENSE: No, you moron! Larger volume and less mass makes Uranus less denser than Neptune! Geez! Don’t you know anything? How could anyone be so stupid? Why don’t you just kill yourself?!

LESS DENSE: What do you want? A medal? It was a simple question! Douchebag.

Uranus was discovered in the shower. Okay fine, enough with the Uranus jokes. Uranus was discovered on March 13, 1781 by Sir William Herschel. Uranus was the first planet discovered in what can be considered modern times using modern equipment. Although it’s visible to the naked eye, it was not classified as a planet by ancient astronomers due to it’s dimness. Herschel named the planet “Georgium Sidus” after the King of England at the time, King George III. The Berlin astronomer Johann Elert Bode later named the new planet Uranus. He thought since in Greek mythology, Saturn is the father of Jupiter, the new planet should be named after the father of Saturn since it follows the planets outward progression.

Like the other gas planets, Uranus is composed of mostly hydrogen and helium, but it also has a high percentage of atmospheric ices such as water, ammonia, and methane (cow farts), and is considered an “ice giant”, with the lowest atmospheric temperatures in the Solar System, reaching as low as -371° Fahrenheit (-224° Celsius). Uranus also has 27 moons that are all named after characters from the works of (the highly over-rated) Shakespeare and Alexander Pope (who?), unlike most of the other moons in the Solar System which are given names from antiquity.

What makes Uranus so special?

Uranus is the only planet in the Solar System that’s rotational axis is on its side, rather than up and down, so Uranus rotates like a rolling ball rather than a spinning top. This also means that Uranus’ rings (it has thirteen of them) are vertical, rather than horizontal, giving the planet a bullseye appearance when viewed head on. Now ask me how hard it is not to make an Uranus joke when I just used the word bullseye. So. Very. Hard.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

WORMHOLES

Did you know that wormholes get their name from the following analogy: If a fly is on an apple and wants to get to the other side, it has to fly around it. If a worm is on an apple and wants to get to the other side, it can dig through it. Hence: Wormhole. Personally I think a quick spray of Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloroethane (DDT) would clear that problem right up. And maybe give apple eaters all over the world three heads. How cool would that be?

0 (Bugs) + 3 (Heads) = ∞ - Y Wins; Y = Bugs; I know you’re jealous of my infinity symbol.

There is no observational evidence that wormholes actually exist. Instead, wormholes are physical solutions used in general relativity, which is that Einstein business about gravity and space and time and spacetime, which is apparently one word now. How come people don’t tell me these things? Anyway, there are two main types of wormholes: Intra-universe and Inter-universe. Intra-universe wormholes connect two places in the same universe, while Inter-universe wormholes connect a place in one universe with a place in another universe.

Wait a second, last time I checked there was only one universe. Please hold.

Okay, I’m back. So apparently there is this theory that says there are multiple universes called the “Many Worlds Interpretation”. This theory says that it solves every physical paradox in the world by theorizing that different rules apply in different universes, so what may apply in one universe, may not necessarily apply in other universes, so basically anything is possible based on which universe you’re in. If you ask me, that’s taking the easy way out of actually solving problems. But then again, what do I know? When people call me “Einstein”, it’s usually said in a not-so-nice voice.

Back to Wormholes:

Wormholes are comprised of two mouths joined by a single (really deep) throat. By traveling through a wormhole, you are able to travel faster than light, but you aren’t actually traveling faster than light. For instance, if light challenges you to a race where you both start and end at the same positions (which also happen to be the mouths of a single connected wormhole) but only you know about the wormhole, you would get to the end faster than light, because you would use the wormhole, and light would go around the wormhole, taking longer to get to the end. So essentially you traveled faster than light, but never surpassed the speed of light while traveling through the wormhole. So basically you cheated, and you’ll be stripped of your medal. Ass.

What about time travel? I need to fix my mistakes!

Okay, so there’s this phenomenon called “time dilation”, which is when a clock identical to your’s appears to be ticking at a slower rate. It’s not really ticking slower than your clock, it’s just ticking slower relative to your clock. Here we go with that “relativity” business again. I’m just going to assume that these people know what they’re talking about, but it has to do with travel speeds and inertia and other stuff that makes my brain hurt. Anyway, you can create time dilation by accelerating one mouth of a wormhole for a period of time, then bring it back down to normal speed. The clock inside the mouth of the wormhole will be ticking at a slower rate than the clock on the outside of the wormhole. And since the mouths of the wormhole are connected in space and time you can hypothetically step into the wormhole’s mouth that is ticking at a slower rate and come out of the other end in a time prior to the time you stepped into the wormhole’s mouth.

I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Okay, let me try that again. (Because you totally care about the inner-workings of time travel.) Say for instance that you are standing outside a wormhole and you begin accelerating the wormhole’s mouth at 12:00 PM. You keep accelerating the wormhole’s mouth until your clock outside the wormhole reads 12:30 PM. However, due to time dilation, the clock inside the wormhole’s mouth is ticking slower and reads 12:15 PM. Now you step into the wormhole’s mouth at 12:30 your time, and since the wormhole’s mouths are connected in time, you come out of the other end of the wormhole at 12:15 PM. Voila! Time travel.

NOW TELL ME SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW.

Welcome to a new feature on Puntabulous called Teach Me Something Tuesdays! The tagline for my blog is “Good. Dorky. Fun”, but the other day I realized that I don’t really do enough to earn my dorky title. Yes, I talk about dorky things, but that’s easy. I don’t really go out of my way to bring you truly dorky entertainment. So the purpose of this feature is to exchange knowledge with my readers. I’ll do my best to teach you something in the science, history, or cultural fields that you may or may not know, and try to do so in a slightly amusing fashion. Then in the comments section, I will ask you to teach me something I don’t know. Just a quick blurb or fact that you find interesting. Let’s take a ride on the knowledge exchange train, shall we?

THE SPACE ELEVATOR

So did you guys know they want to build an elevator into Space? Now I know what you’re thinking: “What kind of music do they play in an elevator into Space?” I’m not positive, but I think it would be the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey, because how awesomely appropriate would that be? Like, so awesomely appropriate! But the song is only a minute and forty-three seconds long. And seeing as though the average time it would take the Space Elevator to move from Earth to Earth’s orbit is estimated to be around 18 hours, you’d have to listen to the song 617.14 times, which sounds shoot-me-in-the-head-fantastic. I mean, I suppose they could add more songs, but do you really think musical selection should be a priority? Can’t you, like, read a book instead? I kid, I kid. Listening to music is so much cooler than reading.

Moving on.

So what’s so good about having a Skyhook? (That’s another name for Space Elevator, which I think is a cooler name for it, but I wanted to ease you into whole Space Elevator idea, so I thought a more descriptive name would work better at first.) A Skyhook is an excellent idea because once it’s complete, it will be able to transport people and cargo into Earth’s orbit at a fraction of the cost of the conventional rocket propulsion. Think about it. How much does it cost to install a normal elevator in an average building? Fuck if I know! Now how much does it cost to maintain a normal elevator in an average building? Fuck if I know! But I’m sure it’s a hell of a lot cheaper. The same principal would apply to the Skyhook. You know how much rocket fuel you would save if you could launch rockets already in orbit rather than having to boost them up from the ground? Fuck if… wait, is that joke getting old?

Anyway.

The base station of these Skyhooks could either be mobile or stationary. Mobile base stations would be large oceanic (not to be confused with Oceanic Flight 815) vessels, which would help make the Skyhook more maneuverable, while the stationary base stations would be placed at the tops of mountains, which is beneficial because it would greatly decrease the amount of cable you would need to reach Earth’s orbit. So they both have their benefits. Kinda like flossing. If you do floss, you save your teeth. If you don’t floss, you don’t have deal with flossing, which is a major pain in the ass.

So what’s the hold-up?

In a word: Cable. Scientists are too busy watching Battlestar Galactica to work on making the damn thing. Wait, no, not that cable, the cable that connects the the base station with the orbital satellite. The cable required would have to have a large tensile strength to density ratio, meaning it needs to be really strong and really light. Like a feather, only stronger. Or like steel beam, only lighter. The most likely candidate for the Skyhook cable would be made of carbon (you know, that stuff diamonds are made out of) nanotubes, however further research (and more importantly money) is required to create a cable long enough that can manage to maintain it’s high tensile strength to density ratio.

Another issue that needs to be resolved is the design of the Skyhook elevators themselves. Unlike normal elevators with rotating cables, the Skyhook would have a stationary cable with a climbing elevator that would need to power itself up the cable, rather than being pulled up. Powering the elevators is another problem that hasn’t been resolved yet, and thinking about it hurts my brain so let’s move on.

The BIG Picture

Let’s face it, we’re going to run out of room on this little world called Earth. So eventually we’re gonna have to set up colonies on the Moon and Mars, and perhaps even beyond. That isn’t an assumption, that’s fact. The human population doubles every 50 years. Where are we going to put all these people? Unless you have a better solution, going to the Moon and Mars is the answer. The only way we can do this is to have a permanent, stable mechanism to get people and things into Space. So let’s make it happen, okay?

Now tell me something I don’t know.