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Navin Kabra Profile picture
@NGKabra
Sep 18, 2020 • 6 tweets • 2 min read • Read on X
It's Friday afternoon, and everyone is too serious, so let's have some fun.

How many of these obvious questions can you answer?

Q1: How many gallons can a 10-gallon hat hold?

(Answer in next tweet)
Answer to Q1: ¾ gallon only. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cowboy_ha…
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Another one?
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Q2: In what country were Panama hats first made?
Answer to Q2: Ecuador

Apparently, the hats were shipped to Europe / North America via the isthmus of Panama, hence the name.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_hat
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Want more?
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Q3: Where did the game of Chinese Checkers originate?
Answer to Q3: Chinese Checkers is neither Chinese nor is it a variation of Checkers. It originated in Germany and was given this name by American entrepreneurs as a marketing scheme en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_c…

Q4: The canary islands are named for which animal?
Answer to Q4: Ok fine. Multiple people guessed correctly that it is the dog because Islas Canarias = Island of the Dogs.

Let's see if the sports fans show up in this thread:

Q5: From what animal's gut is catgut extracted to make tennis rackets?
Answer to Q5: Catgut usually comes from the intestines of sheep. Or as @zyx21985125 says, goats. Sometimes pigs as @ZaleelInsaan says. Or horses, mules, donkeys.

You'd have gotten it right if you'd said anything other than cat. (It is probably short for cattlegut.)

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More from @NGKabra

Navin Kabra Profile picture
Mar 4
What the hell?! This is the most insane science I've heard of.

In this procedure, surgeons remove a patient's tooth+bone, drill a hole in it and put a lens, and then they IMPLANT THE TOOTH IN THE PATIENT'S CORNEA!?

What?!

The more I looked into this, the more insane it is. 🧵
I had so many questions...

Is this some bizarre evil scientist Nazi experiment? Nope. It's a procedure invented in the 1960s and is performed every year in several locations around the world.

Including Sankara Nethralaya in India. 🧵
Why the hell are they putting a tooth in someone's eye?!

There are patients where normal corneal transplants fail (repeatedly) because the patient's immune system rejects the transplanted cornea.

This is rare, but in such cases, a tooth is the only thing that works well. 🧵
Read 12 tweets
Navin Kabra Profile picture
Feb 20
Tall Quantum Claims: Microsoft has a breathless (but difficult to understand) press release about a new quantum computing chip which makes it appear as though they've solved Quantum Computing. This isn't true, but the science of the claims is fascinating 🧵
We don't know for sure if Microsoft have (so far) invented a new type of material (topoconductor) which allows a new type of qubit (Majorana zero modes) that could revolutionize QC. But let me give a high-level explanation of what's being claimed and why it could be a big deal 🧵
This is a rather complex topic: I'll have to explain bits, qubits, why error correction is so important in qubits, Majorana particles and how qubits based on them help with the error correction problem 🧵
Read 28 tweets
Navin Kabra Profile picture
Dec 14, 2024
I recently found out that Akbar's wife, popularly (but mistakenly) known as Jodhabai, was an accomplished international trader and her business problems possibly resulted in changing the fate of India: ensuring the British colonized India instead of Portugal 1/36
So, this is the story of how a Hindu queen's Muslim ship, carrying Hajj pilgrims in Christian waters patrolled by the Portuguese armada resulted in changing the course of Indian History. (Sorry can't find the original source of for this wonderful sentence) 2/36
But first, what do I mean by "mistakenly known as Jodhabai"?

The name of Akbar's wife, mother of Salim (aka Jahangir), was not Jodhabai. Women of the Mughal harem were referred to by their birth place (or place where they were "first viewed with affection by the Emperor") 3/36
Read 44 tweets
Navin Kabra Profile picture
Jul 15, 2024
Who are Indians descended from? Aryans from Europe? Dravidians who've been "here" forever? The Indus valley civilization?

A controversial question for 150+ years, but now we have DNA evidence that answers these questions with a high degree of certainty.

🧵 Image
The controversy originated with the (now discredited) "Aryan Invasion Theory" which began as a respectable theory of how Indian, European, and Persian languages all have a common ancestry: but was quickly adopted by racist white Europeans
It started in late 17xx when William Jones, a linguistic scholar, was appointed a judge of the Bengal Supreme Court. He came to India and noticed striking the similarities between Sanskrit, Persian, Gothic, Greek, Latin.
Read 42 tweets
Navin Kabra Profile picture
Jun 21, 2024
Devanagari is an extremely elegant script. But this was never explained to us in school.

A thread on the awesomeness that is devanagari.

Let's start with the things that my teachers did *not* teach me in school:
Why do both श and ष exist? (The difference in pronunciation was never explained) Why do ङ and ञ exist?

What is ऋ? Is it pronounced “ri” or “ru”, and in any case, why does it even exist if री and रु exist?
Much later in life, when I understood the meaning of the rows and columns in Devanagari, everything fell into place and I saw the beauty and elegance of it all.
Read 17 tweets
Navin Kabra Profile picture
Dec 13, 2023
Ever wondered why "sin" (of trigonometry) is called "sin"? Today, I decided to find out, and the history is fascinating. It comes from the Sanskrit word for bowstring which somehow got translated to the Latin word for the "pallu" of a toga.

Follow me down this rabbit hole 🧵
Let's start with this wonderful image I received from a friend on WhatsApp (source unknown). Here, you can clearly see why "tan" is called "tan". But what about "sin"?

If you think of the solid yellow arc as a bow, then the solid blue line (sine) is the bowstring 🧵 Image
jīvá (जीवा) the Sanskrit word for bowstring is the name given to sin by Aryabhata the inventor¹ of the sine and cosine functions.

How do you get from there to a toga? A series of interesting accidents

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¹ Ok fine, discoverer 🧵
Read 7 tweets

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