The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.]: A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. To which is added a small budget of interesting paradoxes, illusions, and marvelsPhin, John
History
The Seven Follies of Science [2nd ed.]: A popular account of the most famous scientific impossibilities and the attempts which have been made to solve them. To which is added a small budget of interesting paradoxes, illusions, and marvels
Phin, John
Geometry -- Famous problems; Scientific recreations
On calculating, it will be found that the twenty-fourth term of the
progression 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, etc., is 8,388,608, or $83,886.08, a sum
which is more than any horse, even the best Arabian, was ever sold for.
Had the price of the horse been fixed at the value of all the nails, the
sum would have been double the above price less the first term, or
$167,772.15.
A QUESTION OF POPULATION
The following note on the result of unrestrained propagation for one
hundred generations is taken from "Familiar Lectures on Scientific
Subjects," by Sir John F. W. Herschel:
For the benefit of those who discuss the subjects of population, war,
pestilence, famine, etc., it may be as well to mention that the number
of human beings living at the end of the hundredth generation,
commencing from a single pair, doubling at each generation (say in
thirty years), and allowing for each man, woman, and child, an average
space of four feet in height and one foot square, would form a vertical
column, having for its base the whole surface of the earth and sea
spread out into a plane, and for its height 3,674 times the sun's
distance from the earth! The number of human strata thus piled, one on
the other, would amount to 460,790,000,000,000.
In this connection the following facts in regard to the present
population of the globe may be of interest:
The present population of the entire globe is estimated by the best
statisticians at between fourteen and fifteen hundred millions of
persons. This number would easily find standing-room on one half of Long
Island, in the State of New York. If this entire population were to be
brought to the United States, we could easily give every man, woman, and
child, one acre and a half each, or a nice little farm of seven acres
and a half to every family, consisting of a man, his wife, and three
children.
This question has also an important bearing on the preservation of
animals which, in limited numbers, are harmless and even desirable. In
Australia, where the restraints on increase are slight, the rabbit soon
becomes not only a nuisance but a menace, and in this country the
migratory thrush or robin, as it is generally called, has been so
protected in some localities that it threatens to destroy the small
fruit industry.
HOW TO BECOME A MILLIONAIRE
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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