science

Potrzebie

Potrzebie is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Potrzebie rather than just read about it. In short: Potrzebie (; Polish pronunciation: [pɔtˈʂɛbʲɛ], the dative/locative case form of the noun potrzeba, 'need') is a Polish word popularized by its non sequitur use as a running gag in the early issues of Mad not long after the comic book began in 1952. Origin Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman spotted the word printed in the Polish language section of a multi-languaged "Instructions for Use" sheet accompanying a bottle of aspi…

Key takeaways

Potrzebie belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Potrzebie to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Potrzebie from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Potrzebie (; Polish pronunciation: [pɔtˈʂɛbʲɛ], the dative/locative case form of the noun potrzeba, 'need') is a Polish word popularized by its non sequitur use as a running gag in the early issues of Mad not long after the comic book began in 1952.

Origin Mad editor Harvey Kurtzman spotted the word printed in the Polish language section of a multi-languaged "Instructions for Use" sheet accompanying a bottle of aspirin. Kurtzman, who was fascinated with words he found unusual, decided it would make an appropriate but meaningless background gag. After cutting the word out of the instruction sheet, he made copies and used rubber cement to paste "Potrzebie" randomly into the middle of Mad satires.

Appearances Potrzebie was first used in a story in Mad #11 (May 1954), where it was the exclamation of a character who spoke only in foreign languages and song lyrics, in "Murder the Story", a parody illustrated by Jack Davis. It was used again in Bernard Krigstein's "From Eternity Back to Here!" in Mad #12 (June 1954) on an airplane advertising banner. With the same type font, it reappeared in Jack Davis's "Book! Movie!" in Mad #13 (July 1954), pasted into a panel as the title of an abstract painting seen in the background. In the same issue the word appears as POTS-REBIE, emblazoned on a cauldron in which Robinson Crusoe is roasting a frankfurter. This piece reappeared in one of the earliest Mad paperbacks, Bedside Mad It was illustrated as a rebus in "Puzzle Pages!" in Mad #19 (January 1955). These stories, like others in Mad comics, were written by Harvey Kurtzman. Frequent repetition gave it the status of a catch phrase or in-joke among the readership which continues to the present day. In the first Mad Style Guide, edited by Bhob Stewart in 1994, the word was made available for display on T-shirts and other licensed Mad products. It also sees occasional use as a metasyntactic variable by hackers.

A typical appearance of the word is exemplified by the Mad version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (from Mad #43, December 1958), which begins:

"Whon thot Aprille swithin potrzebie, "The burgid prillie gives one heebie-jeebie.

System of measurement In issue 33, Mad published a partial table of the "Potrzebie System of Weights and Measures", developed by 19-year-old Donald E. Knuth, later a famed computer scientist. According to Knuth, the basis of this new revolutionary system is the potrzebie, which equals the thickness of Mad issue 26, or 2.2633484517438173216473 mm, although the eighth digit was mistakenly dropped and the thickness appeared as 2.263348517438173216473 mm in the MAD article. A standardization in terms of the wavelength of the red line of the emission spectrum of cadmium is also given, which if the 1927 definition of the Ångstrom is taken for the value of that wavelength, would equal 2.263347539605392 mm. Volume was measured in ngogn (equal to 1000 cubic potrzebies), mass in blintz (equal to the mass of 1 ngogn of halavah, which is "a form of pie [with] a specific gravity of 3.1416 and a specific heat of .31416"), and time in seven named units (decimal powers of the average Earth rotation, equal to 1 "clarke"). The system also features such units as whatmeworry, cowznofski, vreeble, hoo and hah. According to the "Date" system in Knuth's article, which substitutes a 10-clarke "mingo" for a month and a 100-clarke "cowznofski", for a year, the date of October 29, 2007, was originally rendered as "Cal 7, 201 C.M." (for Cowznofsko Madi, or "in the Cowznofski of MAD"). The dates are calculated from October 1, 1952, the date MAD was first published. Dates before this point are referred to, tongue-in-cheek, as "B.M." ("Before MAD.") Later Knuth preferred 0-origin indexing, so October 29, 2007 is now rendered as "Cal 6, 201 C.D." (for Cowznofsko Dimentii, with "mad" also translated into Latin). The ten "Mingoes" are: Tales (Tal.) Calculated (Cal.) To (To) Drive (Dri.) You (You) Humor (Hum.) In (In) A (A) Jugular (Jug.) Vein (Vei.) Google Calculator and WolframAlpha can both perform conversions from the potrzebie system to other units. WolframAlpha uses the originally printed value of a potrzebie, while Google Calculator appears to use a value rounded to 5 significant figures. As such, the two sites may not compute identical results.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Potrzebie

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Potrzebie claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Potrzebie before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Potrzebie ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Potrzebie

In research: Potrzebie appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Potrzebie in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Potrzebie is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1950s neologisms, 1952 quotations, Comedy catchphrases, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Potrzebie outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Potrzebie in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Potrzebie means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Potrzebie out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Potrzebie in simple terms?

Why does Potrzebie matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Potrzebie?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Potrzebie.