Futility Closet is a blog, podcast, and database started in 2005 by editorial manager and publishing journalist Greg Ross. As of February 2021 the database totaled over 11,000 items. They range over the fields of history, literature, language, art, philosophy, and

recreational mathematics Recreational mathematics is mathematics carried out for recreation (entertainment) rather than as a strictly research and application-based professional activity or as a part of a student's formal education. Although it is not necessarily limited ...

. The associated ''Futility Closet Podcast'' was a weekly podcast hosted by Greg and his wife Sharon Ross. It presented curious and little-known events and people from history, and posed logical puzzles.

History

In January 2005, Greg Ross started the Futility Closet website, an online wunderkammer of trivia, quotations, mathematical curiosities, chess problems, and other diversions. The site has spawned two printed collections, and continues to be updated daily.

Gary Antonick Gary Antonick ( ; born February 11, 1963) is an American journalist and recreational mathematician who for many years wrote a puzzle-based column called "Numberplay" for the New York Times. Education and career Antonick has a BS in Engineering fro ...

of the ''New York Times Numberplay blog described the first book as "the literary equivalent of

Trader Joe's Trader Joe's is an American chain of grocery stores headquartered in Monrovia, California. The chain has over 569 stores across the United States. The first Trader Joe's store was opened in 1967 by founder Joe Coulombe in Pasadena, California ...

Tempting

Trail Mix Trail mix or scroggin is a type of snack mix, typically a combination of granola, dried fruit, nuts, and sometimes candy, developed as a food to be taken along on hikes. Trail mix is considered a great snack food for hikes, because it is lig ...

". Futility Closet has sometimes been a conduit or used to popularize results by

John H. Conway John Horton Conway (26 December 1937 – 11 April 2020) was an English people, English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to ...

Richard K. Guy Richard Kenneth Guy (30 September 1916 – 9 March 2020) was a British mathematician. He was a professor in the Department of Mathematics at the University of Calgary. He is known for his work in number theory, geometry, recreational mathemati ...

Lee Sallows Lee Cecil Fletcher Sallows (born April 30, 1944) is a British electronics engineer known for his contributions to recreational mathematics. He is particularly noted as the inventor of golygons, self-enumerating sentences, and geomagic squares. ...

, Solomon W. Golomb, and many other well-known mathematicians when they dabbled in recreational mathematics. Puzzles from Futility Closet have frequently been featured in the

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

puzzle section and the New York Times blog. Futility Closet was recommended by the Honduran newspaper '' La Tribuna''. Its puzzles and paradoxes have been cited by ''

El País ''El País'' (; ) is a Spanish-language daily newspaper in Spain. ''El País'' is based in the capital city of Madrid and it is owned by the Spanish media conglomerate PRISA. It is the second most circulated daily newspaper in Spain . ''El Pa ...

'' and ''

Il Post ''Il Post'' is an Italian on-line daily newspaper, founded and directed in 2010 by Luca Sofri. The editorial staff includes journalists Arianna Cavallo, Francesco Costa, Luca Misculin, Elena Zacchetti, Giulia Balducci and Emanuele Menietti, as w ...

''.

Podcast

In March 2014 Futility Closet launched a thirty-minute weekly podcast hosted by Greg and Sharon Ross. A typical episode lasts thirty minutes and consists of three segments: first the week's core topic, typically a curious story from history; second, listener mail; third, a

lateral thinking puzzle Situation puzzles are often referred to as minute mysteries, lateral thinking puzzles or "yes/no" puzzles. Situation puzzles are usually played in a group, with one person hosting the puzzle and the others asking questions which can only be ans ...

, posed by one of the hosts for the other to solve. Some episodes depart from this format, for instance by presenting several short items or open questions culled from research, or by presenting several puzzles in lieu of other content. Many earlier episodes include an advertisement. Most episodes also include a reference to Sasha, the Futility Closet cat until the cat died in 2020. On the November 15, 2021, podcast Sharon announced the podcast would be ending at the end of November.

Content and sources

The podcast has a wide scope and is not restricted to any particular era, but most episodes concern colorful personalities and strange events from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Victorian oddities are a mainstay of the show, as are unexplained mysteries,

forteana Charles Hoy Fort (August 6, 1874 – May 3, 1932) was an American writer and researcher who specialized in anomalous phenomena. The terms "Fortean" and "Forteana" are sometimes used to characterize various such phenomena. Fort's books sold w ...

, hoaxes and impostors, sensational murders, remarkable animals, and the adventures of mariners, aviators, and explorers. Subjects are often prompted by listener suggestions. Some content has been sourced directly from Wikipedia without attribution.

Music

The podcast's opening theme is an instrumental bass composition, "Fallen Star", which was written and performed by Doug Ross, brother of Greg. Doug Ross also supplies the bass riffs that punctuate the transitions between episode segments.

Reception

''The Futility Closet Podcast'' has been praised by James Harkin of ''

No Such Thing as a Fish ''No Such Thing as a Fish'' is a weekly British podcast series produced and presented by the researchers behind the BBC Two panel game ''QI''. In the podcast each of the researchers, collectively known as "The ''QI'' Elves", present their favour ...

,'' and by economist

Tim Harford Timothy Douglas Harford (born 27 September 1973) is an English economic journalist who lives in Oxford. Harford is the author of four economics books and writes his long-running ''Financial Times'' column, "The Undercover Economist", syndic ...

. Joshua Gelernter of ''

The Weekly Standard ''The Weekly Standard'' was an American neoconservative political magazine of news, analysis and commentary, published 48 times per year. Originally edited by founders Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, the ''Standard'' had been described as a "red ...

'' described Futility Closet as "one of the most interesting websites on the internet." Michael Förtsch of '' Wired.de'' named the Futility Closet Podcast as one of seven podcasts to make you smarter. The podcast was praised by Colin Patrick of ''

Mental Floss ''Mental Floss'' (stylized as ''mental_floss'') is an online magazine and its related American digital, print, and e-commerce media company focused on millennials. It is owned by Minute Media and based in New York City, United States. mentalflos ...

'', by Jennifer K. Bauer of ''Inland360.com'', and by Kayla Matthews of ''Makeuseof.com'', who praised Greg Ross's scrupulous research. ''

Gizmodo ''Gizmodo'' ( ) is a design, technology, science and science fiction website. It was originally launched as part of the Gawker Media network run by Nick Denton, and runs on the Kinja platform. ''Gizmodo'' also includes the subsite ''io9'', whic ...

s Robbie Gonzalez praised the site's lateral thinking puzzles. Futility Closet was praised by Steve Dodson of the linguistics blog ''Languagehat'', and was cited by the linguist

Ben Yagoda Ben Yagoda (born 22 February 1954) is an American writer and educator. He is a professor of journalism and English at the University of Delaware. Early life Born in New York City to Louis Yagoda (1909-1990), a labor mediator and arbitrator with ...

at the ''Lingua Franca'' blog. ''Futility Closet's'' segment on the Canadian candy boycott was featured on

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

Support

At the time of its launch, the podcast was supported chiefly by advertisements and one-time donations. By the end of 2014 a

Patreon Patreon (, ) is a membership platform that provides business tools for content creators to run a subscription service. It helps creators and artists earn a monthly income by providing rewards and perks to their subscribers. Patreon charges a co ...

campaign had been established.

References

External links

* {{podcast platform links 2014 podcast debuts Audio podcasts History podcasts American blogs News aggregators American podcasts