gnostek1 / 2Plot of Weierstrass function over the interval [ − 2, 2]. Like some other fractals , the function exhibits self-similarity : every zoom (red circle) is similar to the global plot.
01It's defined as an infinite sum of cosines with ever-increasing frequencies and shrinking amplitudes.
02Hermite called it a 'dreadful plague' in an 1893 letter to Stieltjes — mathematicians felt personally wronged.
03Before Weierstrass, the consensus was that continuous functions must be smooth almost everywhere — he ended that.
gnostek1 / 4A slab of pykrete
01Pykrete is 86% ice and 14% sawdust, yet it deflects rifle bullets without shattering.
02Project Habbakuk's planned carrier weighed 2 million tons — dwarfing every steel warship ever built.
03A small Pykrete block was demonstrated to Allied chiefs in a Quebec hotel bathtub in 1943.
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01Andrews swallowed 27 swords simultaneously, the highest count ever verified by Guinness.
02Each blade must pass the pharynx and travel the full length of the esophagus into the stomach.
03The act takes years of conditioning — early practitioners regularly perforated their own esophagi.
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01The border between Belgium and the Netherlands runs through houses, restaurants, and shops in Baarle-Hertog — marked by crosses on the floor.
02The municipality consists of 22 Belgian parcels inside the Netherlands, with 8 Dutch counter-enclaves inside those Belgian parcels.
03During WWII, the border's precise location determined which shops could stay open under German occupation — residents shifted furniture to the Belgian side.
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01Students witnessed Iamblichus levitate ten cubits, bathed in golden light, on two separate occasions.
02He systematized theurgy — divine ritual magic — as philosophically superior to mere intellectual contemplation.
03His commentary on Pythagoras described numerical mysticism as the architecture underlying all reality.
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01HeLa cells were mailed to labs globally within a year of harvest; Lacks died of the same cancer eight months after the biopsy.
02Her family learned the cells existed in 1973 — from a researcher who called asking for their DNA.
03A single gram of HeLa cells was sold commercially for around $25 in the 1950s; her estate received nothing.
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01Lorz rode in a car for miles 11 through 21, then jogged the final five to the finish line.
02Alice Roosevelt, daughter of President Theodore Roosevelt, had already placed the winner's laurels on Lorz's head.
03The actual winner, Thomas Hicks, was given strychnine and brandy by his handlers during the race as a stimulant.
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01Vincent Gigante fired the shot in the elevator lobby of 115 Central Park West.
02Costello survived, refused to name his shooter, and was effectively forced into retirement anyway.
03The note found in his pocket listed casino earnings — evidence used against him in tax court.
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01Parton's $1 million donation to Vanderbilt in April 2020 was credited in Moderna's early vaccine research acknowledgments.
02When Tennessee proposed a capitol statue of her, she personally requested the legislature withdraw the bill.
03She established the Imagination Library in 1995, which has since mailed over 200 million free books to children.