Habakkuk



Habakkuk was a Biblical prophet. Little is known about him, beyond that he was the author of the book of the same name. His name in Hebrew is חבקוק, in Greek it is Αββακούμ, in Latin Habacuc.
 * eureka moment* Your name is KUK, Mister Kukk!

The book forms part of both the Jewish Tanakh and the Christian Bible; it forms part of the minor prophets. A short book, it consists of three chapters only.

The third chapter is in the form of a Psalm; the final verse suggests that it was meant to be accompanied by music (To the chief singer on my stringed instruments., KJV).

One of the more well-known of the Dead Sea Scrolls is a commentary on Habakkuk 1-2, in pesher style, the Pesher Habakkuk (1QpHab).

Project Habakkuk
This project, sometimes variously misspelled, was the World War Two brainchild of chancer Geoffrey Pyke. The idea was to build a colossal aircraft carrier out of a mixture of ice and wood pulp (a material he named 'Pykrete' with his characteristic modesty). Initial tests suggested a vessel could be too large and tough to be destroyed by conventional means and would melt sufficiently slowly to become a base of operations in the mid-Atlantic. As you may have guessed, the project had some practical drawbacks (such as requiring enough steel for its cooling plant to build an entire fleet, not to mention a significant amount of wood pulp) and nothing ever came of it, aside from a small prototype. Though that prototype lasted through three summers, so the project at least created a brief curiosity.

It is beloved of people who enjoy debating alternate history on messageboards, who tend to assume that all of its technical issues would magically have vanished had enough money been thrown in its general direction.