Please turn JavaScript on
Futility Closet icon

Futility Closet

Following Futility Closet's news feed is very easy. Subscribe using the "follow" button on the top right and if you want to, choose the updates by topic or tag.

We will deliver them to your inbox, your phone, or you can use follow.it like your own online RSS reader. You can unsubscribe whenever you want with one click.

Keep up to date with Futility Closet!

Futility Closet: Futility Closet

Is this your feed? Claim it!

Publisher:  Unclaimed!
Message frequency:  1.65 / day

Message History

Image: Wikimedia Commons

Origami can solve general cubic equations! The method was developed by Italian mathematician Margharita Piazolla Beloch, who in 1936 found a way to use


Read full story

In a 1962 nightmare, writer Thomas Meehan imagined having to introduce Uta Hagen to Yma Sumac, Ava Gardner, Abba Eban, Oona O’Neill, Ugo Betti, Ona Munson, Ida Lupino, the Aga Khan, Ira Wolfert, Ilya Ehrenburg, and Eva Gabor at a Greenwich Village cocktail party:<...


Read full story

Why does the slogan ‘Whatever is, always was to be’ seem to imply that nothing can be helped, where the obverse slogan ‘Whatever is, will always have been’ does not seem to imply this? We are not exercised by the notorious fact that when the horse has already escaped it is too late to shut the stable door. We are sometimes exercised by the idea that as the horse is either go...


Read full story

The Javan cucumber, Alsomitra macrocarpa, broadcasts its seeds on papery wings that can glide long distances. Some have been found on the decks of ships.

The unique design inspired aviation pioneer Igo Etrich to build an artificial flying wing, which he adapted into Germany’s first mass-produced military aeroplane.


Read full story

The interior of this map is white, but it appears to be suffused with a pale yellow. In fact the blue and orange coloring is confined to the border.

This “bleeding” effect was discovered by University of Sassari psychologist Baingio Pinna in 1987. It’s still being investigated.


Read full story