Re: OT currency (was Re: Quoting styles (was Re: Antipassive?))

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From: "John Vertical" <johnvertical@...>
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2008 9:26 PM
To: <CONLANG@...>
Subject: Re: OT currency (was Re: Quoting styles (was Re: Antipassive?))

> - And what *is* the story about Isaac Newton & his cat flaps?!
>
> John Vertical
It was the comment about needing different size trays in your cash register
if you had different size banknotes that reminded me.  I don't remember the
story in detail, but the gist of it was as follows.  I have no idea if this
is true, but it was told to me that it was.

Sir Isaac Newton had a cat which liked keeping him company in his study, but
he was being interrupted too often by the cat wanting to come in/go out, so
he arranged to have suitably sized hole cut in the bottom of the door so
that the cat could come and go as it pleased.  This worked well.  At some
later point the cat had kittens, and so Sir Isaac sent for the carpenter
again to cut a second, smaller hole next to the larger, that the kittens
could also come and go freely like their mother.

So it fell to the carpenter to point out the greatest living mind of his
age, indeed one of the greatest minds ever, the simple fact that he had
overlooked. The small kittens would pass quite easily through the existing
larger hole...


P.