Do Elephants Jump?

November 1, 2004
In this latest addition to his"Imponderables" series (which includes Do Penguins Have Knees? and When Do Fish Sleep?), Feldman answers about four score more fascinating questions that, as he puts it in a rather vivid analogy,"spring from dark corners like cockroaches in a crumb-filled kitchen." So do elephants jump? The answer is pretty easy to guess: elephants' legs and bones are not structured for jumping. Other questions provide more illuminating information: silver fillings don't rust because they contain more mercury than silver; Campbell's Alphabet Soup is sold only in North America; football's two-minute warning was invented to keep the game fair; pregnant women may get strange food cravings because hormonal changes affect their perception of taste. But obvious or arcane, Feldman's answers are consistently lively and entertaining. His collection is a good fit for trivia hounds on the go, as each of the brief q&a's take only a few minutes to read.