I think this a fun place to browse. I was looking for origin of "Prunes and Prisms" used by Dickens, and got a
pleasant surprise:
http://www.amsta.leeds.ac.uk/~pmt6jrp/personal/oldquotes.html

Help! Someone explain what's funny about this:
"At the age of seven, Carl Friedrich Gauss started elementary school, and his potential was noticed almost immediately.
Quoted in the MacTutor History of Mathematics archive "

I found this:
At the age of seven, Carl Friedrich Gauss started elementary school, and his potential was noticed almost immediately. His teacher, Büttner, and his assistant, Martin Bartels, were amazed when Gauss summed the integers from 1 to 100 instantly by spotting that the sum was 50 pairs of numbers each pair summing to 101.

And later I found that it is an in joke for students of Gauss, who developed a Theory of Potentials. Or something like that. Not many mathematicians are humorists.

I didn't get the impression that they were supposed to be funny. Now if the Gauss quote had been about Alessandro Volta…

I remember something from WWII about a de-Gaussing belt being put around ships' waterline as protection against floating mines triggered by magnetism or something in steel hull. That could be a type of potential.


Dear Faldage: Do you suppose Jean Harlow thougt "t" silent as in Harlow was funny? But Margot Asquith obviously did.

There was an area in Hampton Roads that was supposed to activate deGaussing cables built into the ship I was on. The cables on the ship were about a foot in diameter. I believe it was more a matter of ensuring the accuracy of magnetic direction indicating equipment than any protection against mines, but I could be wrong. I was never intimately involved with the process.

Degaussing equipment was installed in the hull of Navy ships and could be turned
on whenever the ship was in waters that might contain magnetic mines, usually ...
www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq21-1.htm

All major U.S. naval ports have a degaussing range through which ships must periodically pass to ensure their magnetic signature has been nullified (as a mine countermeasure). I've been through the San Diego degaussing range several times.

Dear JH: All steel has some magnetic properties. I know it is possible to make a magnet, e.g. by holding a steel of iron bar aligned with the magnetic field, and hitting the end with a hammer. I can imagine that the hull of a ship might become irregularly magnetized. Then a magnetic mine as ship passed would detect a fairly rapidly fluctuating magnetic field. Any chance that this is what the magnetic mine would be triggered by?

A steel-hulled ship is like a huge floating magnet with a large magnetic field surrounding it. As the ship moves through the water, this field also moves and adds to or subtracts from the Earth's magnetic field. Because of its distortion effects on the Earth’s magnetic field, the ship can act as a trigger device for magnetic sensitive ordnance or devices which are designed to detect these distortions. The degaussing system is installed aboard ship to reduce the ship's effect on the Earth's magnetic field. In order to accomplish this, the change in the Earth's field about the ship's hull is "canceled" by controlling the electric current flowing through degaussing coils wound in specific locations within the hull. This, in turn, reduces the possibility of detection by these magnetic sensitive ordnance or devices.

The ship's permanent magnetization is the source of the ship's permanent magnetic field. The process of building a ship in the Earth's magnetic field develops a certain amount of permanent magnetism in the ship. The ship's induced magnetization depends on the strength of the Earth's magnetic field and on the heading of the ship with respect to the inducing (Earth's) field.

Ok, maybe somebody can explain the use of degaussing in relation to television ??? I noticed in the Murphy Brown TV show that there was a big envelope kind of thing on a wall that said degausse. Wha's that al'bout?

Well, now. You don't want magnetic mines jumping up outta nowhere in your family room, now do you?

Dear wow: I searched for "TV degaussing" and got a very,very long text about TV monitors. Picture quality can be harmed by magnetic fields. Degaussing can prevent or correct this. But nothing about any hazard to the viewer from magnetic problems.

There are also degaussers specifically for magnetic tapes. The magnetic field of the degausser destroys (scrambles) the iron oxide elements which have become aligned in patterns to produce the intelligence on the tape. I guess if one can degauss something, one ought to be able to gauss it first, but I've never seen the term.

"I guess if one can degauss something, one ought to be able to gauss it first, but I've never seen the term."

If you found that term in use, would you be gruntled? Or maybe appointed?

Perhaps a gauss could be the electronic counterpart of
the opposite of an asp in the grass. (Not a reference to sweet Betsy)

Reminds me of the Jewish lady with a head-cold who kept a bunch of tissues down the fornt og her dress.

She was acused oif nurturing a viper in her bosom

But not Leda's swan in retro.

Aha! So that's what that button on my monitor does. I press it sometimes. The screen goes wobbly. I thought it was a game.

Dear dodyskin: I can remember getting the goofy image you mention, but can't remember what the purpose of the button was. But I'm sure it was not degaussing to improve image quality. Something about the type of signals presented to the monitor.

Dear Dr. Bill

On googling monitor degauss purpose I got this explanation, well actually I got 1,200 explanations but this will do:
Ever wonder what that "degauss" button on your monitor does besides make a buzzing noise and cause the screen to go crazy for a second? Though that's its main purpose, the degauss button has another useful feature. To understand it, you'll first need to know that the earth has natural magnetic fields. The magnetic charges from these fields can build up inside your monitor, causing a loss of color accuracy. Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma. If your monitor doesn't have a degauss button, fear not -- many new monitors automatically degauss themselves. If you have a flat-panel display, there is no degauss button because magnetism doesn't build up in flat screen displays.

This has all been fascinating to me--I have never heard of degaussing, either the process or the name. And, I wouldn't call my monitor new (5? years, I think), but if it has a degaussing button I don't know about it. There are 4 across the bottom that I've never touched and have no idea what they're for: the end ones have a 1 and a 2 above them, and the middle ones have left and right arrows.

the end ones have a 1 and a 2 above them, and the middle ones have left and right arrows.

Says it all really.

Seriously, the left and right arrows probably move the picture sideways on the screen and the other two probably control contrast and brightness.

Maybe there was a manual, but after 5 years....