When Do Fish Sleep? (17 page)
In 1893, L & C Hardtmuth introduced their Koh-I-Noor at the Chicago World’s Colombian Exposition, and Americans responded favorably. Ever since, yellow has been synonymous with quality pencils.
Monika Reed, product manager at Berol USA, told
Imponderables
that although Berol and other manufacturers make pencils painted in a wide range of colors, yellow retains its great appeal. According to Bill MacMillan, executive vice president of the Pencil Makers Association, sales of yellow-painted pencils represent 75% of total sales in the United States.
Submitted by Robert M. Helfrich of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Thanks also to Beth Newman of Walnut Creek, California
.
If only we could blame our SAT scores on using #1 or #3 pencils! But it’s hard to find any other besides #2s anyway.
All-purpose pencils are manufactured in numbers one through four (with half sizes in between). The higher the number, the harder the pencil is. Although the numbers of pencils are not completely standardized, there is only slight variation among competitors.
The #2 pencil, by far the most popular all-purpose pencil, is considered medium soft (compared to the #1, which is soft; to #2.5, medium; to #3, medium hard; and to #4, hard). Pencils are made harder by increasing the clay content and made softer by increasing the graphite content of the lead.
Why do some administrators of standardized tests insist on #2 pencils? Because the degree of hardness is a happy compromise between more extreme alternatives. A hard pencil leaves marks that are often too light or too thin to register easily on mark-sensing machines. Too soft pencils, while leaving a dark mark, have a tendency to smudge and thus run into the spaces left for other answers.
Even some #2 pencils might not register easily on mark-sensing machines. For this reason, Berol has developed the Electronic® Scorer. According to Product Manager Monika Reed, “This pencil contains a special soft lead of high electric conductivity,” which eases the burden of today’s high-speed marking machines.
Unfortunately, even the Electronic Scorer doesn’t come with a guarantee of high marks, only accurately scored answers.
Submitted by Liz Stone of Mamaroneck, New York. Thanks also to John J. Clark of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Gail Lee of Los Angeles, California; William Lush of Stamford, Connecticut; and Jenny Bixler of Hanover, Pennsylvania
.
Why
Do Fish Eat Earthworms? Do They Crave Worms or Will Fish Eat Anything that Is Thrust upon Them?
We have to admit, earthworms wouldn’t be our first dining choice. What do fish see in worms that we don’t see (or taste)?
R. Bruce Gebhardt, of the North American Native Fishes Association, emphasizes that just about any bait can entice a fish if the presentation is proper. Human gourmets may prefer a colorful still life on white china, but fish prefer a moving target. And they are a little less finicky than humans:
A pickerel, for example, will attack a lure before it’s hit the water. It must instantly assess the size of the bait; if it’s a pine cone, it will worry about spitting it out after it is caught.
Most fish are attracted to food by sight, and prefer live bait. Fish are often attacking and testing as much as dining:
It is unnecessary to
completely
convince the fish that the bait is alive. Most fish encountering anything strange will mouth it or closely examine it as potential food; the less opportunity it’s liable to have, the more vigorously it will attack.
While the fisherman might think that every pull on his line means the fish finds his worm irresistible, the fish may well be nibbling the worm to determine the identity of the bait—by the time it finds out it has caught a worm, it’s too late: It is hooked.
Our Imponderable also assumes that fish may go out of their way to eat earthworms, but Gerry Carr, director of Species Research at the International Game Fish Association, assures us that given a choice, most fish will go after food native to their environment:
Nature is constituted in a way that everything has its place and is in ecological balance. Fish eat the foods that nature provides for them. The fly fisherman is acutely aware of this. He or she knows that trout, for example, at a certain time of year, seem to crave and feast on the type of nymphs that are hatching and falling into the water at that moment. Any other kind of artificial fly will not work, only the one that best imitates the hatch.
Of course, not all fish are that finicky. Catfish eat anything that stinks. Logical! Their purpose in nature is to clean up the bottom, eliminating dead, rotting carcasses that rob water of oxygen and might cause all the fish to die. Nature’s vacuum cleaner! And they survive because they have carved out or been given an ecological niche in the system that is not overly in competition with other species.
But why will worms attract even finicky fish? Carr continues:
Worms, actually, are probably more of a side-dish in the diets of some fishes, a sort of aperitif. Worms look tasty, so the fish eats them. I do not think fish go looking for worms, specifically, unless they have got their appetite whet up for them by an angler conveniently drowning them.
Even if worms aren’t native to a fish’s environment, they fulfill most of the prerequisites for a favorite fish fast food. The size and shape are good for eating, and the fact that worms are wiggling when alive or look like they are moving even when dead adds to their allure. Carr mentions that barracudas cannot resist any appropriately sized bait or lure that is long and slender or cigar-shaped and moving at the right speed. “But offering them a worm that just sits there would be tantamount to a human asking for jelly instead of ‘All-Fruit.’”
One other point needs to be stated. The popularity of earthworms as bait is undoubtedly enhanced by the cheapness, easy availability, and convenience of them. As Gebhardt put it, “It’s probably anglers’ convenience that has given earthworms their reputation for delectability rather than petitions signed by fish.”
Submitted by Roy Tucker of Budd Lake, New Jersey
.
Why
Are Stock Prices Generally Quoted in Eighths?
In
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and Other Imponderables
we discussed the derivation of our expression “two bits.” In Spain, a
bit
was one of the “pieces of eight,” an actual pieshaped slice of a peso. Two bits were one-quarter of a peso.
Spanish coins circulated freely in the New World before and during colonial times for at least two reasons. There weren’t enough native coins to go around, and Spanish gold and silver specie were negotiable just about anywhere in the world (like in the good old days when foreign nations sought American dollars) because they were backed by gold.
Was it a coincidence that two bits of a peso happened to equal two bits of a dollar? Not at all. Peter Eisenstadt, research associate at the New York Stock Exchange archives, told
Imponderables
that when U.S. currency was decimalized in 1785,
the U.S. silver dollar was established with a value equivalent to the Spanish silver peso. Though the official divisions of the dollar were in decimals, many continued to divide the new U.S. dollar into eighths and this practice was followed in securities trading.
Stocks were usually traded in eighths from the inception of securities trading in the United States in the 1790s. Eisenstadt believes that Americans simply borrowed the practice of quoting in eighths from the Europeans. As he notes, most early stockbrokers were part-timers, devoting most of their attention to the merchant trade, which had long quoted prices in eighths.
By the 1820s, stocks traded on the NYSE were universally quoted in eighths, but this was an informal arrangement; it became a requirement in 1885. The American and Pacific Stock Exchanges followed suit.
Although the history of our quoting stock prices in eighths makes historical sense, we don’t understand why the exchanges still maintain the practice. When a stock dips to near zero, prices now are quoted in sixteenths and even thirty-seconds of a dollar, forcing financial tycoons to rely on their memory of grade-school fractional tables when doing calculations. And what happens when someone wants to sell his one share of stock quoted at 48 3/8? Who gets the extra half-cent?
Wouldn’t it make more sense to quote all stocks in hundredths of a dollar? Why should two-dollar stocks have to rise or fall more than ten percent at a time when a 2% change in most stocks is considered significant? Roy Berces, of the Pacific Stock Exchange, acknowledges that our system is probably archaic, but sees no groundswell for changing tradition.
Submitted by E. B. Peschke of St. Charles, Missouri. Thanks also to John A. Bush of St. Louis, Missouri; Christopher Dondlinger of Longmont, Colorado; and Dave Klingensmith of Canal Fulton, Ohio
.
Not all socks are angled, of course. Tube socks are “angled” at 180 degrees. Tube socks are so named because they are a straight tube of fabric closed on one end by sewing. The tube sock is constructed by “full circular knitting” (i.e., the knitting head on the machine knits in a full circle).
A tube sock doesn’t contain a designated position for the heel, but more conventional socks do. Most socks are knitted with a feature called the “reciprocated heel.” Sid Smith, president and chief executive officer of the National Association of Hosiery Manufacturers, told
Imponderables
how the reciprocated heel is made:
Imagine a full circular knitting machine starting at the top of the sock and knitting in a complete circle all the way down the top of the sock, until it hits the point where the heel is to be knitted in. At this point, the machine automatically enters what is called the “reciprocated function.” Instead of knitting in a complete circle, it knits halfway to each side and then back again, until the heel portion is knitted in.
After this is completed, the machine automatically reverts to full circular knitting to finish the sock. This reciprocation is what causes the finished sock to be angled.
The 115-to 125-degree angle of the sock, then, is the result of, rather than the purpose of, the knitting process. The fabrics used for socks will give or stretch to conform to the contours of the foot. Since a 180-degree tube sock can fit comfortably on the human foot, there is no reason why a conventional sock won’t.
Submitted by Vernon K. Hurd of Colorado Springs, Colorado
.
No, there aren’t demons underground shooting BB pellets between the bars of the cattle guards. Cows are afraid to walk where their feet can’t get solid footing.
Our correspondent mentions that he has seen painted white strips used as cattle guards, presumably tricking cows into thinking that the unpainted area is a black hole. Cows are evidently as subject to phobias as cowboys and cowgirls.