An Antic Disposition

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Eldnar Randle: Did he know?

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Eldnar Randle was born in Delano, California in 1892 and died in 1973 in Oregon.  For most of his working years he was an auto mechanic. But he shared a distinction shared by only 1 in over 700,000 Americans. Any guesses? A clue:  Look closely at his name.

Yes, Eldnar Randle was given a palindromic name. It reads the same backwards and forwards. This phenomenon is quite rare. A search of the 88 million names in the Social Security Master Death File (SSMDF) shows only 119 cases, including:

  • Leon Noel (many examples)
  • Welles Sellew
  • Grey Yerg
  • Ekard Drake
  • Ronoel Leonor
  • Rello Oller
  • Nilrah Harlin
  • Nella Allen
  • Revilo Oliver
  • Ronnoc Connor
  • Folke Eklof
  • Marlys Sylram
  • Elah Hale
  • Gnal Lang
  • Lemar Ramel
  • Ecallaw Wallace
  • Rednal Lander
  • Ellen Nelle
  • Oirolf Florio
  • Italo Olati

The question that came to mind was, how many of these were intentional, picked by the parents specifically to be palindromes, and which ones were just pure chance? Given names are often picked to honor some relative, often a parent or grandparent. Picking an unusual name, never used in the family before, probably has a story behind it. Some of the names certainly look a bit far-fetched. Ecallaw Wallace? But others sound quite natural, like Nella Allen. And Eldnar Randle? It is hard to tell. Looking at the 1900 census I  see his father was a farm laborer and his mother a housewife. Both were literate. None of the other children had unusual names. But somehow he received the invented named “Eldnar.”

Riew Weir? No, I don’t think that would have worked.

Are there any other examples of world play in names that it is worth looking for among the 88 million names in the SSMDF?  Anagrams?  Something else?

The Duel: A curious mathematical puzzle

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Captain Galaxy and Commander Glarcon are locked in mortal combat.   Each mans a battle tank armed with N photonic missiles which move at the speed of light.   They move toward each other at constant velocity=v on a 1-dimensional track, unable to stop or reverse direction.  Assume v << c.  The probability of scoring a kill with a missile is described by a function f(d) which monotonically increases from 0 to 1 as the distance between the tanks decreases from infinity to 0.  If the distance closes to 0 and no missiles are fired, both tanks are destroyed in the collision.    Assume each combatant attempts to maximize their own probability of survival.

Note that this is not strictly a zero-sum game, since it is possible for neither player to survive.  But it is impossible for both to survive.

The state of the game is thus described by three variables:

  • d=distance between the players
  • N1= number of own missiles remaining
  • N2= number of opponent’s missiles remaining

A strategy S(d,N1,N2) would describe a combatant’ actions (shoot or don’t shoot) for all possible states.

  1. If each player has exactly one missile what is the optimal strategy?  Clearly, if the first player shoots and misses, the 2nd will win by waiting for d to approach 0 and then make a last minute shot.
  2. What if each player has exactly two missiles?
  3. What if each player has N missiles?

It may simplify the problem to assume f(d) is proportionate to 1/d or 1/d^2 and then solve the general case.