The curve is what we nowadays call a Lorentzian, which doesn’t have a cute story to go with it.
25 years ago I made up a sweatshirt with the curve on it, subtly altered to look like the “stickmen” in the movie The Blair Witch Project, and labeled it The Witch of Agnesi Project in lettering just like that on the poster.
I wore that sweatshirt to MIT and to science fiction conventions, and garnered not one commentor indication that anybody had gotten the joke.
You might appreciate the new Kicad T-shirt, then:
Resurrecting this zombie thread to say that I finally got the answer! My apartment complex maintenance guy said he’d once worked on street construction. I asked him about the witching signal thing. He said the term comes from “water witching.” Apparently there are devices that can detect if there are water pipes under the pavement. He said those pipes tend to be 36 inches below the surface and so warrant markings to caution the excavators. “No witching signal” means the detector didn’t sense any pipes below.
Mystery solved and ignorance fought. I really did learn a lot from all the responses, though, so a belated thank you!
Kids these days! Why, back in my youth, we could spray-paint graffiti in carolignian miniscule! We took pride in out graffitti! If they can’t use a video controller, they’ve got nuffing!
I’m so happy you got your answer @nelliebly .
It bugged me too.
Thanks for the update, I thought it was a lot more than 5 months ago!
Might have better luck with “Double, double, toil and trouble.” That will probably reveal that the info you got from your maintenance guy was just a cover story, and the coven really is down below.
Ha! Once I used that quote in a (high school) freshman English class, and one of my students laughed. I asked what was so funny, and he said, “Bubble, bubble, toilet trouble! Is that a commercial?”
Along with the goblins. Don’t forget the goblins:
She’s gone where the goblins go
Below, below, below
I can’t believe no one posted the greatest witching signal ever.
I remember when that was graffitied.
Was he suggesting that the markings were made by an actual dowser? Also, have they dug up those sidewalks?
The weirdest graffiti I ever saw was on a rock by a creek, which read, “Snakebite took my money”.
Not a clue what that meant.
No. He said the archaic term is used for modern devices that detect underground pipes, a little like divining rods were used by dowsers, aka water witchers, to (supposedly) detect underground water. I know two of the sidewalks that were marked were dug up and repaired. I haven’t been by the others for quite awhile, so I’m not sure.
Drink enough of them and you’ll find out!
Sounds like Napier had the right idea, if not the exact mechanism.
