Did You Know?
The following are from The Handy
Science Answer Book (The Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Visible Ink
Press, 1994, 1-57859-012-4).
1. How much wood is used to make
a ton of paper?
One ton of a typical paper requires 2 cords of wood, 55,000 gallons of
water, 102 pounds of sulfur, 350 pounds
of lime, 289 pounds of clay, 1.2 tons of coal, 112 kilowatt hours of energy,
20 pounds of dye and other pigments,
108 pounds of starch, and some other ingredients.
2. What causes the sounds heard
in a seashell?
When a seashell is held to an ear
the sounds heard are ambient, soft sounds that have been resonated by the
shell's cavity. The extreme sensitivity of the human ear to sound is illustrated
by this effect.
3. What is the Guzman Prize?
It is a prize offered in France
in 1901 to the first person to make contact with beings from another planet.
Mars was excluded as being "too easy."
4. What was (perhaps) the world's
greatest scientific fraud?
It was the Piltdown man, a fake
human fossil "discovered" in a gravel formation in England in 1912. An
unknown person combined an ape jaw with fragments from a modern man so
skillfully that scientists argued over Piltdown man for about 40 years.
The forger filed the teeth in the ape jaw to give them the appearance of
a human wear pattern. Chemical tests in the 1950's showed the cranium and
jaw were of different ages.
5. Who was the first computer programmer?
According to historical accounts,
Lord Byron's daughter, Augusta Ada Byron, the Countess of Lovelace, was
the first person to write a program for Charles Babbage's (1792-1871) analytical
engine." This machine, never built, was to operate by means of punched
cards that could store partial answers that could later be retrieved for
additional operations. The programming language "Ada" was named in her
honor by the US Department of Defense. In modern times the honor goes to
Commodore Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) of the US Navy, who wrote the
first program for the Mark I computer.
6. How does rain affect television
reception from a satellite?
The microwave signals are absorbed
by rain and moisture and severe storms can reduce signals by as much as
10 decibels. Another problem with rain is an increase in noise due to its
inherent "noise" temperature, or the emission of waves due to molecular
agitation (heat). These emissions have a wide range of frequencies, some
of which are within the bandwidth for satellite reception.
7. How many of the medications used
today are derived from plants?
Less than 1% of the known 250,000
plant species have been tested for medical applications. Of these have
come 25% of our prescription medicines. The US Cancer Institute has identified
3000 plants from which anti-cancer drugs are or can be made, 70% of which
come from rain forests, which are also the source of many other drugs.
8. How is the date for Easter determined?
Easter falls on the first Sunday
after the first full moon that occurs on or after the vernal equinox, the
first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. It can be as early as March
22 and as late as April 25 (in 2000 it will be on April 23).
9. How can the temperature be determined
from the frequency of cricket chirps?
Count the number of cricket chirps in 14 seconds and add 40.
10. What are the definitions of
the four "Close Encounters?"
UFO expert J. Allen Hynek (1910-1986) developed the following scale:
First Kind- sighting of a UFO at close range with no physical evidence.
Second Kind- sighting of a UFO
at close range with some physical evidence such as a photograph or artifact.
Third Kind- sighting of an extraterrestrial being.
Fourth Kind- abduction by a UFO.