This week, Collected Wisdom plunges into the mists of antiquity to get to the bottom of a hot debate.
THE QUESTION
Jackie Phillips of Toronto wants to know when and where central heating was first used.
THE ANSWER
Derek Wilson of Port Moody, B.C., has been reading the book Constructing the Ancient World: Architectural Techniques of the Greeks and Romans by Carmelo G. Malacrino and tells us that it throws some interesting light on the subject.
Indeed it does. It tells us that a form of central heating was developed by the Romans "in the late Republican period," which would be between 145 and 30 BC.
According to the book, some sources credit L. Sergius Orata, a prosperous businessman famous for breeding oysters, with developing this method of heating, which was used in Roman baths and in the villas of the well-to-do.
"The system was relatively simple and based on the passage of warm air through spaces created below floors and along walls," the book says. "It came to be called a hypocaust from a technical term of Greek origin, hypocaustum, meaning 'heating from below.' "
Heat was produced by lighting a fire in a place called the praefurnium next to the area to be heated, causing the warm air to move under the floor and through pipes in the walls.
However, there's archeological evidence that an earlier form of underfloor heating found in Korea could predate the Roman model by about 1,000 years, and a hypocaust-type system unearthed in what is now Pakistan could have been used 2,000 years before the Roman system.
THE QUESTION
Karen Griffin of Vancouver has a query of interest to "office drones everywhere equipped with the standard desk phone with cord." How does that cord get so twisted when you never stand up and twirl around when talking on the phone?
THE ANSWER
CW has been doing extensive research on this (with help from Sandy Brown of Gibsons, B.C., and Rafi Arané of Toronto) and offers two possible explanations.
Let's assume you're right-handed. You pick up the handset with your right hand and then you transfer the receiver to your left, giving the cord half a twist. You then hang up using your left hand, keeping the handset facing away from you so that it fits back on the base. That's another half twist, making one whole twist in all. Do this a few times and your cord looks like a snake's honeymoon.
Now let's twist again. You pick up the handset with your left hand so you can use your right hand to dial. Then you move the handset to your right hand (half a twist) and also hang up with your right hand (another half twist). Voilà.
FURTHER NOTICE
In response to our item last week on why you won't see a left-handed violin player in a symphony orchestra, Henry Skoczylas of London, Ont., points out that star Canadian fiddler Ashley MacIsaac plays left-handed.
HELP WANTED
- Michael Conrad of Vancouver wonders why artists are permitted to sketch the accused in a courtroom but photographs are not allowed.
- Barrie Pederson of Toronto asks: Why, when a defendant in a criminal case pleads not guilty and then is found guilty, he is not charged with perjury?
- When people with a lifelong hearing impairment hear for the first time after surgery, do they have to learn a language from the beginning? asks Montreal’s Robert Landry.
Let's hear from you: If you can answer one of these questions (or have a question of your own), please e-mail wisdom@globeandmail.com . Please include your location and a daytime phone number.