The Calculus Diaries - Jennifer Ouellette [120]
41
“What’s your Erdős number?” in honor of mathematician Paul Erdős, replaces “What’s your sign?” as the pickup line of choice in math and science departments. Erdős is the Kevin Bacon of mathematics.
42
Ironically, the same cell phones Eagle is using to track social networks could be helping to spread one of the most virulent strains of Staphylococcus aureus, known as MRSA—a serious issue facing hospitals today because it is highly resistant to antibiotics. Turkish researchers tested the cell phones of many doctors and nurses in hospital operating rooms and intensive care units in Turkey. Almost 95 percent of those devices showed bacterial contamination, and only 10 percent of the staff regularly cleaned their cell phones.
43
The Swedish town of Halmstad has taken the concept of human-powered energy one step further: Residents may soon draw on excess heat from the local crematorium to stay warm in winter. Director Lennart Andersson came up with the idea after learning his facility was belching too much hot smoke into the atmosphere. “We realized that instead of all that heat just going up into the air, we could make use of it somehow,” he told the London Daily Telegraph in 2008.
44
William was way ahead of his time. Nine centuries later, Robert Cameron introduced the Drinking Man’s Diet in 1964. It was actually a treatise on controlling carbohydrates but emphasized that gin and vodka are low-carb libations and should be liberally enjoyed. It gave rise to the far sillier Martinis and Whipped Cream Diet.
45
According to my extremely thorough copyeditor, the legend that Ruth’s collapse and surgery for an abdominal abscess was directly caused by gorging on hot dogs apparently was invented by W. O. McGeehan. Others equally dubiously implicated a venereal disease. In retrospect, intestinal injury from bootleg Prohibition booze seems a more likely culprit. See Babe: The Legend Comes to Life, by Robert W. Creamer, pp. 289ff, plus the Wikipedia discussion and other sources.
46
Beverly Hills doctor Craig Alan Bittner took the “fat as fuel” concept literally. He converted discarded fat from his liposuction patients into biodiesel for his SUV. Fat fuel yields the same mileage as regular diesel, according to the National Biodiesel Board; some start-up biofuel companies mix beef tallow and pig lard with soybean oil and other vegetable sources for their biofuels. Bittner claimed his patients volunteered their discarded fat for fuel, but several former patients filed lawsuits charging that he removed too much fat, leaving them disfigured. (That SUV is a gas guzzler.) He also allegedly let his girlfriend perform surgeries without a medical license. Bittner left the country in 2008 for South America.
47
This is also why it’s a bad idea to cut calories too drastically or to exercise excessively. The body will think there is a famine and will further slow its metabolism to conserve fuel, packing on as much extra poundage as it can. In general, losing more than two pounds per week will trigger the body’s super-saver mode.
48
Maybe not subtle enough. In 1980, a man named Kenneth Swyers took that whole “soaring effect” a bit too literally. He tried to parachute onto the arch’s span and died in the attempt, garnering a posthumous Darwin Award for his effort.
49
In Galileo’s defense, the two curves are very similar. In fact, the chains or cables on a suspension bridge initially sag in a catenary shape and then settle into a parabolic curve as additional cables are added for extra stability.
50
A highlight of the park’s main terrace is a long bench shaped like a sea serpent. Legend has it that Gaudi used the shape of buttocks left by a naked workman sitting in wet clay to design the unusual curvature of the bench’s surface. Why the workman was sitting naked in wet clay to begin