The Straight Dope 09/02/2005

The Straight Dope -- By Cecil Adams
http://www.straightdope.com

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THE STRAIGHT DOPE 09/02/2005

Dear Cecil:

I recently watched a karate/tae kwon do demonstration of
breaking boards, and once again I wondered: What is the
important part in making the board (or brick) break? Is
it the speed with which the martial artist moves his
hands/feet/elbows, according to the laws of physics,
meaning every other trained sportsman who achieved that
same speed could do the same? Or is it mostly
concentration, summoning of chi, etc, as martial artists
claim? --Constanze W., Germany

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Cecil replies:

Considering what an exercise in participatory science
this turned out to be, you might guess I started by
consulting ancient masters and visiting martial arts
shrines to get a handle on the subject. Nah. I googled
it. Topping the results was a paper promisingly entitled
"The Physics of Karate Strikes" by Jon Chananie at the
University of Virginia. On enquiry I learned that Jon, a
good fellow who's now a UVA law student, had been an
undergraduate writing in the short-lived e-pub Journal of
How Things Work, a venue that didn't inspire the same
confidence as, say, the Acta Gynecologica Scandinavica.
Then again, other JOHTW articles included "How a Cruise
Missile Works" and "Crafty Connie's Hot Glue Gun
Experience," so I figured, hey, maybe this guy's OK.

He was. Jon had done his homework . . .

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/050902.html

STAFF REPORT

Dear Straight Dope:

For many a year now, since I've been living in the great
green mountains of Vermont, the voyage home to (or up
from, for my parents) upstate New York always took us
through Whitehall, NY. Whitehall, it seems, has a small
billboard and museum dedicated to the fact that it was
"the birthplace of the U.S. Navy" It seems odd, I admit,
that the U.S. Navy would be born in a narrow portion of
the Hudson River--or perhaps Lake George--some 200 miles
from the coast, but if the Navy were "born" during the
American Revolution this does make some sense. However,
my dear mother, who hails from Marblehead, MA, vehemently
and at times almost violently claims, with "official
backing" (and perhaps a hint of bias), that her home town
is, in fact, the birthplace of the U.S. Navy. Rather than
continue to put up with these competing claims, I put it
to you: Where was the U.S. Navy born and why do
Whitehall, NY and Marblehead, MA both make a claim to
this event? --b

SDSTAFF Tom replies:

Isn't it wonderful when chambers of commerce set out to
establish the historical primacy of their towns? Let's
review the claims.

Whitehall (then known as Skenesborough), lies in a valley
along the East Bay of Lake Champlain where it flows into
Lake Champlain's South Bay. From there Lake Champlain
flows north to Canada. As that part of Lake Champlain is
a short portage from the upper Hudson River, this was the
standard route for travel (and invasion) between New York
and Lower Canada (now Quebec) for many decades.

In 1775, General Benedict Arnold led a small army to
Lower Canada where . . .

For more, see: 
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/musnavy.html

STRAIGHT DOPE CLASSIC - 01/09/1987

Dear Cecil: 

Why do outhouses have half-moons on their doors? Perhaps
it's related to the great high school custom of
"mooning"? --Joyce K., Seattle  

Cecil replies:  

This is no time for buffoonery, Joyce.   Level with me: you've
never actually seen an outhouse with a half-moon cut into
the door, have you? Neither have I, despite several
decades of camping trips. I'll bet the same goes for just
about everybody else.   The idea that outhouses always
have moons on them has been perpetuated largely by
several generations of cartoonists (e.g., Al Capp),
probably none of whom ever saw one either.  The only
reference I can find to the practice is in Eric Sloane's
The Little Red Schoolhouse: A Sketchbook of Early
American Education.  Discussing 18th- and 19th-century
schoolhouses, Eric writes:  

For more, see:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_382.html

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