Wise Up!
Problem solving
By David Bruce
Athens NEWS Contributor
March 10, 2008
• Reading an ancient manuscript can be difficult. “The Archimedes Codex” contains a copy of the work of this ancient scientist. The handwritten copy was made in the 10th century, more than 1,000 years after the time of Archimedes. A couple of hundred years after the copy was made, a scribe named John Myronas took the pages apart, erased the text, then wrote new text — that of a prayer book — over the erased text of Archimedes. Using modern technology, the text of Archimedes can be read. The modern technology allows both sets of text — Archimedes’ work and the prayer book — to appear on a computer screen. The words of the prayer book appear in one color, and the ancient Greek words of Archimedes appear in another color. Translation of the text is fascinating to scholars, who have discovered that Archimedes used the mathematical concept of infinity centuries before the concept became widely used in mathematics in the 17th century.
• George Armstrong Custer was a problem-solver. On the banks of the Chickahominy River, he once listened for a while to his superior officers argue about the depth of the river, then he rode his horse into the river and determined exactly how deep the river was. He was also headstrong. He employed several Native American scouts before the Battle of the Little Bighorn. They advised him not to fight the Sioux because the Sioux outnumbered them, but he insisted on starting the battle. One of the Crow scouts then put on Native American clothing. When Mr. Custer asked the Crow scout why he had done that, the scout replied, “We are all going to die today, so I intend to meet the Great Spirit dressed as an Indian, not as a white man.” Mr. Custer was so angry that he fired all of the Native American scouts, and so none of them died in the battle.
• Ed Brown, a priest and cook at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center (and Hot Springs) in California, and Purple Gene have been friends for a long time. One of Purple Gene’s favorite stories about Ed is about the early, rigorous days of monastic training at Tassajara when students were very hungry as they adjusted to the strict vegetarian diet. Sometimes, students would raid the kitchen at night, so Ed was appointed to stop them. He used to sit on top of the refrigerator, with his legs held in lotus position and his hands clutching two knives. When a student attempted to raid the kitchen, Ed would scare them. However, soon a better solution for the problem was found. Founding Abbot Suzuki Roshi advised, “Take the lock off your mind — put it on the door!”
• In the 1930s, actors sometimes endorsed products, and they were promised one of whatever product they endorsed. However, very seldom did they get one of that product — either the product was not delivered, or someone stole the product before it reached the actor. Film actress Paulette Goddard learned quickly. She endorsed a large console radio, and after the advertisement photograph was taken, she said that she would take the radio now. The advertising man said, “You can’t have this one. We have to shoot it with some other actresses.” Ms. Goddard said, “I’m taking it now. Open the doors, boys.” The “boys” opened the doors, revealing a truck waiting outside. Ms. Goddard got her radio.
• When Matt Groening of “The Simpsons” and “Life in Hell” fame first went to Los Angeles after graduating from college, he lived in an apartment where he could barely pay the rent, and he had a neighbor downstairs who enjoyed playing his stereo at full volume. Mr. Groening tried various things to make the neighbor stop playing the stereo so loudly, including yelling, stomping his feet, and loudly playing his own stereo. All of these things were ineffective. Eventually, Mr. Groening was able to solve the problem by dropping a cinder block onto his floor. That got the downstairs tenant’s attention, and the downstairs tenant turned down his stereo.
• For a while, André Trocmé, Édouard Theis and Roger Darcissac, who all helped rescue Jews during the Holocaust, were imprisoned at the concentration camp of Saint-Paul d’Eyjeaux. There, they preached against the Vichy government, which was collaborating with the Nazis. Of course, they could not do this openly, so they devised a code. Instead of saying the name of Marshall Pétain, the collaborationist leader of the Vichy government, they used the name of Karl Marx. That way, their captors thought that they were denouncing Communism, while their hearers knew that they were denouncing the Vichy government.
• The great batter Ty Cobb was also respected as a base runner. When Connie Mack’s Philadelphia Athletics and Mr. Cobb’s Detroit Tigers were preparing for an important series, Mr. Mack went over strategy, discussing what to do against certain opposing players. At one point, he asked catcher Wally Shang, “Suppose that the Tigers were one run behind with Cobb on second base and you knew that he was going to steal on the next pitch. What would you do?” Mr. Shang replied, “I’d fake a throw to third, and then hold on to the ball and tag him as he came sliding into home plate.”
• Al Capp, the cartoonist of “Li’l Abner,” was a master at keeping his audience interested in his comic strip. He always made sure that the storylines of his comic strip ended on Wednesdays. That way, he had a few days to build up audience interest in a new storyline before the Sunday hiatus. Mr. Capp once explained, “If I ended one on a Saturday, millions of my readers would have nothing to worry about over the weekend and would forget me and turn to ‘Popeye.’”
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