failing like never before

27Aug/090

Maximum Cow Capacity

This sign (a sort of precursor to modern speed limits and bridge maximum carrying capacity signs) hanging over a foot bridge, located next to Greenback Lane and spanning the American River in Folsom, California (Google Maps link), has always amused me. Based upon my scant knowledge of Folsom and Sacramento, I would estimate that the sign and the bridge are about 100 years old. During those days, $25 dollars would have been considered a fairly substantial sum.

Although I have always tried to obey the speed limit (walking speed)  while crossing the bridge, I have noticed that most other cyclists pay no attention to the sign and that no one seems to be enforcing the speed limit across the bridge. Housing developments have sprung up in the area surronding the foot bridge during the past hundred years and I doubt that anyone has driven cattle across it in at least four decades. Nevertheless the sign still stands to amuse all those who happen to look up as they walk across the bridge.

And for those who can't be bothered to click on the picture and experience the slightly tacky yet cool lightbox effects, here is what it reads:

$5 FINE FOR DRIVING OVER
THIS BRIDGE FASTER THEN A WALK
$25 FOR DRIVING MORE THAN
20 HEAD OF HORSES, 50 HEAD OF CATTLE
OR 200 SHEEP, HOGS OR GOATS
OVER THIS BRIDGE AT ONE TIME

24Apr/080

Throckmorton’s Sign

Sears and Zemansky's University Physics by Young and Freedman (12th edition) features some intriguing practice problems in it. Upon first glance, the problems seemed no stranger then those in my high school physics textbook (the author had a bit of a penguin fetish) but Young and Freedman's continual reference to a hypothetical cousin "Throckmorton" piqued my interest.

On page 197 of volume one of University Physics we find the following example problem:

At a family picnic you are appointed to push your obnoxious cousin Throckmorton in a swing. His weight is w ... you push Throcky...

...the second approach is far easier in this situation because Throcky...

Now, the first time I saw the name Throckmorton, I just thought that it was a funny name. But the authors keep using the name throughout the book, numerous times.

On page 495, we find the following problem on mechanical waves:

Your cousin Throckmorton is playing with the clothesline.

...write equations for the displacement as a function of time of Throckmorton's end of the clothesline...

I know that there are several more places in the previous chapters that reference "your cousin Throckmorton," but I really don't feel like scanning through several hundred pages just to find references to Throckmorton.

Eventually, I looked up the name Throckmorton, and found out that according to "Who Named It," Throckmorton's sign is "the position of the penis in relation to unilateral disease."

I can just imagine the authors of the book giggling like little school boys when they wrote these problems...