Oldest mathematical puzzle • dating from 1650 B.C..

As I was going to St. Ives,
I met a man with seven wives.
Every wife had seven sacks,
and every sack had seven cats.
Kitten, cats, sacks and wives,
How many were going to St. Ives?

Most Refractory Substance • Tantalum carbide TaC_0.88 melting at 3,990° C.

- The Guiness Book of Records 1991

IDIOT, n.

A member of a large and powerful tribe whose influence in human affairs has always been dominant and controlling. The Idiot's activity is not confined to any special field of thought or action, but "pervades and regulates the whole." He has the last word in everything; his decision is unappealable. He sets the fashions and opinion of taste, dictates the limitations of speech and circumscribes conduct with a dead-line.

- Ambrose Bierce (The Devils Dictionary)