Jumbling the Unjumbled

DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM

PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER

ASTRONOMER:
When you rearrange the letters:
MOON STARER

DESPERATION:
When you rearrange the letters:
A ROPE ENDS IT

THE EYES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THEY SEE

GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE

THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS

ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY

ELECTION RESULTS:
When you rearrange the letters:
LIES – LET’S RECOUNT

SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS! NO MORE Z ‘S

A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
IM A DOT IN PLACE

THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE

ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE

AND FOR THE GRAND FINALE:
MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER

Million in One

Hullo! A post is indeed coming up after a long time, just don’t feel like posting during school days. Okay, so I had been asking these questions from a few people (4 to be precise), disclosed the answer, but not the concept. We’re just interested in the concept, not the answer, you see. So, here they are.

Q. Imagine that the earth is its current size (roughly 24,000 miles around) but that it is smooth like a ball instead of having mountains and valleys, or high and low planes, etc. Then imagine that we could tie a ribbon around the equator and pull it tight, so that all around the globe it is tight against the ground. Then imagine that we splice in, at some place, one additional yard of ribbon (36 inches), so it makes a little loop, at that point. But we don’t want a loop or any bulges or uneven places in the ribbon, so we go all around the globe pulling out the slack and making the ribbon so it is evenly near or off the ground the same distance everywhere. Will the ribbon then be very high off the ground or would it be raised up above the ground such a minute amount you wouldn’t even notice it. You just have to calculate that very height, viz. the distance of the ribbon fromthe earth now. Don’t read further if you wish to solve it on your own.

Here’s the solution:

This problem is essentially the question of how much a particular circle’s radius changes when you add 36 inches to its circumference, because the difference between (1) the distance from the center of the earth to the ribbon and (2) the center of the earth to the ground, will be the height above the ground that the ribbon would be if it were supported equally high all around the globe. Hence it is the difference between the length of the radius to the ribbon and the length of the radius to the ground.
Δ2ΠR is the difference in the circumference of the ribbon (on adding 36 inches of extra ribbon).
Therefore,
Δ2ΠR = 36
ΔR = 36/2Π = 5.72 inches
Approximately, 6 inches.

That means the ribbon will be almost six inches off the ground all the way around. That seems almost impossible to believe, but it is true. In fact, one can generalize the math to show that whenever you change the circumference of any circle, no matter how large or how small, by any amount, you will change the radius of that circle by a little less than 1/6 that amount. Adding (or subtracting) 36 inches to (or from) the circumference of a dime or the circumference of the universe changes the radius of either by just under 6 inches.

Q. If you had a sheet of paper, and folded it in half 50 times, how thick would it be?

Now this question, it was beyond calculations by me. Though I’ll tell you some facts about it before the answer.
Suppose that you start with an standard A4 sheet of paper – about 300 mm long, and about 0.05 mm thick. The first time you fold it in half, it becomes 150 mm long and 0.1 mm thick. The second fold takes it to 75 mm long and 0.2 mm thick. By the 8th fold (if you can get there), you have a blob of paper 1.25 mm long, but 12.8 mm thick. It’s now thicker than it is long, and, if you’re trying to bend it, seems to have the structural integrity of steel.

A typical claim, “No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times”, and as you stare sadly at your block of folded paper, you tend to agree.

The answer of the question is 100 million kilometres, which is about two thirds of the distance between the Sun and the Earth. If you get any way of calculating it, you’re most welcome to share.

Fix the Prefix

Almost all of you are aware of the letter “i” used as a prefix by Apple for all its gadgets. It seems kinda interesting, when you analyse the other letters being used at a prefix. So here is a stolen article which turned me on! The problem is, I just don’t get much time to write and create articles by myself. Oh come on, web is a medium to share & scatter stuff, so you have no right to blame me. Here you go.

The vowels…

A—A great start. Associated with excellence, “a” also has the ability to sound nonchalant. Like, “aPhone” or “aMac.” Its only downfall? For the grammar nazi in all of us, there can never be an, “aApple” or an, “aAardvark”—and when you start throwing n’s into the equation, the whole thing loses purpose.

E—Almost as overused as the “i” the “e” usually stands for electronic but to me it stands for boring, so, it’s out of the running.

O—”O” is an interesting choice. Shakespearean in nature, it immediately makes your gadget sound as if you’re lamenting it. “oPhone!” or, “oMouse!” can never be written without an exclamation point. Then there’s the Japanese prefix to things of greatness. (Otoro as fatty tuna; Ocha as green tea.) Then we start getting into the moral issues. Should we lament inanimate objects? Will some religious groups turn away from the “o” products? Consider that “o” also sort of stands for orgasm and you start dividing people. Oh, o, what will you get us into next?

U—There’s no “u” in team, and that might be its problem. “U” is very individualistic—it might work for things that imply you as part of the creation process—YouTube, for example—but what about the products you shouldn’t be touching? I can’t imagine the loss of life when products like the “uElectricFence” hit the market.

The Consonants…

B—Another letter that borders between existentialism and Shakespearean. It almost orders you to be the item you’re buying— a “bKeyboard” will just confuse us, as consumers. How can we be a keyboard? How is that possible? What is the company saying? Has it developed a piece of technology that will turn us into keyboards? Where could I get one? See? The whole thing doesn’t work.

C—”C” is a good one. First of all, it’s ripe with comedy, as there will be people who will wittily exclaim, “I cPhone”— and everyone will laugh so very hard. Secondly, you know those small personalized characters you make in the Wii called Mii’s? What if a piece of technology allowed you to carry them around with you as some sort of Wii ID? Now, in a world where “c” began our gadgets—that would be called the “cMii.” …Are you sold yet?

D, F— I’m going to have to strike these two from the competition as they’re far too reminiscent of my high school years for me to feel comfortable with them straddling my gadgets.

G— A strong letter—G is the kind of letter you can expect to protect you in a back alley. It won’t let any of the other letters push it around but it does have some negative connotations. A “gPhone” sounds like it should either have a gun (or a “gat”) somewhere inside of it, or like you’re a 1950’s pre-pubescent cartoon character (as in— “Gee, phone!”) I can see this letter succeeding in the rap world—not so much anywhere else.

H— H is sort of unlikable. You never really know what to do with it, it’s not pretty when pronounced and when you say it out loud it just sounds like a half-sneeze (“Aych!”)—it definitely doesn’t have C’s vavoom.

J, K — These two letters have unwittingly been dragged into the Internet world with the use of the terrible, “jk!!!” That said, “j” will always make people think of “joke” while “k” will always make people think of “kidding” and racism. Neither one will ever have a career starting gadget names.

L— Well, it just kind of sounds like lesbian, doesn’t it?

M— M rings of dissatisfaction. An “mMac” just kind of sounds lackluster—as if you have to think about it before you say it. It’s weak — and the weak don’t survive in this letter-eat-letter world.

N— The younger brother of M, it’s not only weaker than M, it seems like the poor man’s version of it. So, why use N where M has failed?

P— I’m going to take a wild guess and say that when gadgets go to Hell, the letter “p” is attached to them so that they are never purchased again. Sure some people might like P, some might even like to put P on people they care about—but when it’s this easy to make a potty joke with a letter, it’s not getting anywhere.

Q— Everything strange starts with Q. It truly is a letter belonging to the worlds of Edgar Allen Poe—I can see Q leading me to alternate universes, I can see Q teaching me magic, or sending me to space—I can also, unfortunately, see Q murdering me brutally in my sleep. Also, cheapening James Bond’s Q by attaching the name to mundane gadgets does you and the franchise no favors. Or favours, as Q would say.

R— The benefit is it sounds a little like “our”—the problem is if your gadget starts with a vowel, R will just destroy it. So, if you’ve got an apple that changes color, the R will take that apple, and make it a rApple—and that’s just not worth it.

S— The S is too sibilant. When you say your gadgets, you’ll just end up sounding like a gay man or someone from Portugal.

T— I live in San Francisco—the “t” has a completely different connotation here than it may in normal cities. Here it mostly means transsexual.

V— The V has already been experimented with—in fact, since video is becoming the Internet’s hot new thing, expect to see the V straddling a lot more gadgets.

W— There’s so much wrong with the W that it makes me sick. First of all—the lying. It’s called a double-u, but it obviously looks like a double-V—so, which is it? Secondly, it’s one of the most unimaginative letters in the alphabet. That’s like X calling itself a double-crooked-L or S calling itself a drunk J—it’s boring, it’s arrogant, and it’s just antisocial behavior on W’s part.

X— Too sexy.

Y—”Y” seems indecisive. First of all, its only a vowel sometimes—come on, make up your mind. Second of all, it’s a question—Y? And it seems to call into question anything you put after it, “yMonitor?” “yKeyboard?” In fact, not only will it make people doubt the gadgets (“That’s a good question! Why keyboard?”) but even our existence as a whole. After all, nothing quite hits the existential funny bone as a quietly spoken “Y?”

Z— Too reminiscent of sleep—you don’t want a “zPhone”—that just sounds like a roofie with a dial pad.

The alphabets are over dear.