#outer limits of engineering

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The tiniest semiauto pistol.  Magazine of about 5-6 [officially 7] 2.7mm bullets.  That's a smaller diameter than a friggin' BB.

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This led up to the mid-4th century BC innovations of "sixes", "sevens" and so on, even up to "thirteens" and, by the 3rd century BC, a "sixteen". This trend culminated with the tessarakonteres....

Ships of this type were depicted with up to three banks of oars, so that they were really just larger versions of the bireme and trireme with more than one rower per oar. From galleys used more recently, in the 17th and 18th centuries AD, it is known that the maximum number of men that can operate a single oar efficiently is eight.  A "sixteen" is one of the large galleys most frequently mentioned. This could have had two banks of oars on each side, with each oar operated by eight men. However, this theory still leaves the problem of the "forty" without a satisfactory explanation.

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I may make this an occasional series, posting about various flying aircraft carrier projects.  In any case, this one, the CL-1201, is too bizarre and too big not to post.

Those are airplanes under the wings. This was a Lockheed design study from the early 1970s.  The proposed plane would've been by far the largest plane ever built, would've been powered by turbofan engines and on-board nuclear reactors, would've been able to keep flying continuously for 41 days without refueling, would've used lift-jets to take off and land vertically, and would've carried an air-group of 22 fighters and a crew of 845.  

Follow the link for more details.