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ALMANAC 1992, by Jeff Napier & Another Company SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY _____________________________________________________________ For the 1980 Winter Olympics, ABC-TV laid over 50 miles of electrical wires on Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid site. They had continuous trouble with beavers, raccoons, and other creatures chewing up the delicious wires. _____________________________________________________________ The US government was funding a secret project to make a rocket capable of traveling between planets. Its mode of locomotion was unique. It was to be loaded with 2000 atomic bombs. To launch, it would explode the bombs in series. For some reason, the project was dropped. _____________________________________________________________ If we were to attempt manned exploration of the nearest star system to earth with the same kind of rocket that we used to get to the moon at its top speed of 25,000 miles per hour, it would take 1 billion years to get there. _____________________________________________________________ At Xerox Corporation, they have two full-time anthropologists who study the interface between modern people and their copying machines. Their great discovery: People will avoid reading the instructions that come with copying machines until all other avenues of figuring out how to work them fail. _____________________________________________________________ The pressure of wind storms blowing against mountain ranges actually causes changes in the speed of the earth's rotation. _____________________________________________________________ Io, one of the moons of Jupiter has spit out a huge cloud from a volcano that is much bigger than Jupiter itself. _____________________________________________________________ If we could blow up the moon, or grab it and sink it in the Pacific ocean, according to one scientist, the axis of the earth's rotation would shift and the seasons would even out. Winters and summers would be the same, sort of like California. The only problem with this idea, is the public is used to the moon. Poems would have to be rewritten, songs would have to be sung differently to account for no moon. _____________________________________________________________ How big is an atom? Take the width of a human hair and divide it by two, then divide that by two, then divide that by two, and so on, until you have reduced each half by half a total of 20 times. That will be the width of a typical atom - roughly 1 millionth the thickness of a human hair. Now, just for fun, divide the width of the atom in half 13 times and you will have the width of its nucleus. _____________________________________________________________ If you like turning wrenches, you might be interested to note that the largest nuts made weigh almost 6 tons each and have a threading of 25-inches per thread. (that's not 25 threads per inch). You need a 52 inch wrench to turn them. They hold a large forging press together. _____________________________________________________________ The familiar Einsteinian formula of E=Mc2 was actually L/MV2 as he first proposed it. Two years later he corrected it to the form we know now. _____________________________________________________________ I've tried to get to the bottom of toilets. Who invented them? Thomas Crapper, probably the original inventor of the flush toilet, went on to create several improvements, but they have not all caught on. It seems that it has been reinvented a few times. In another account, Sir John Harrington, is said to be the inventor. This may be why it is sometimes called the john. One version had no handle, it flushed whenever the seat was lifted. _____________________________________________________________ New era torture devices: One is an item worn by the reluctant prisoner like a lifesaver, but it is the opposite. It is like a blood pressure cuff, but it goes around the stomach region. Slowly the pressure in the cuff is increased until the prisoner is highly motivated to talk. The other is a drug that makes the prisoner extremely agitated and hyperactive. _____________________________________________________________ In 1949, the temperature in part of Portugal soared to 158 degrees F for a couple of minutes. No one knows why. _____________________________________________________________ All the information in this database is reliably calculated from or based on what others have written. However, you may wish to conduct your own research to make absolutely sure of the facts. _____________________________________________________________ A flexible mirror has been invented for therapists, fashion consultants and health centers which can be bent laterally to help heavy people imagine themselves looking slimmer. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists have discovered that the level of oceans in the Northern Hemisphere falls about 8 inches every spring. Interestingly, the water in the Southern Hemisphere does not rise accordingly. _____________________________________________________________ The earth circles the sun at 66,000 miles per hour, roughly 86 times faster than the speed of sound through air, roughly 1/10000 of the speed of light. In one year, the earth's total movement around the sun is about 84% of the distance light moves in one second. _____________________________________________________________ The sun is 93 million miles away from us. This is approximately 1/60,000 of a light-year. Approximately 9 light-minutes. The moon at 1/4 million miles distance, is 1.25 light-seconds away. _____________________________________________________________ The sun is a little less than 1 million miles in diameter. _____________________________________________________________ A light-second is 190,259 miles. _____________________________________________________________ The heat of an arc welder is about 10,000 degrees F., which is about the same as the surface of the sun. In fact, that is where the energy for the welder came from. The gasoline, coal, oil or whatever is burned to get the electricity for the arc was formed through the decomposition of dinosaurs and plants that originally grew in the sunlight. _____________________________________________________________ Due to meteors and cosmic dust, the earth gains about as much mass as Ford Van every day. _____________________________________________________________ As you might know, the inside of the earth is very hot. Under the solid crust of the earth rock is liquid, but beneath that it is mostly solid iron because of the tremendous pressure of gravity. Scientists believe the core is still getting hotter, not cooling, due to decay of radioactive elements. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists have recently deduced that it is hotter in the center of the earth than on the surface of the sun. _____________________________________________________________ If you dig a hole, it will be cooler in the hole than on the ground during a hot summer day. But, if you dig deep enough, it gets hotter due to heat radiating from the center of the earth. The temperature increases about 80 degrees Fahrenheit for each mile you dig down. _____________________________________________________________ Outer space officially begins at 50 miles above the ground. _____________________________________________________________ Of all the non-biodegradable trash buried in American landfills, 30% of it is disposable diapers. It takes 5 centuries for these to disintegrate. _____________________________________________________________ The US Navy is working on a "paperless ship." Since the navy does everything by the book, there are a lot of books, operating manuals, to be carried on a warship. If all this information is computerized, the weight reduction and therefore the speed, maneuverability and distance capability would increase dramatically. _____________________________________________________________ One major theory of the universe takes the Big Bang theory one step further. Astronomer Allan Sandage says that the universe did in fact originate as a single dense egg of matter that exploded. That is why all the galaxies are moving away from each other. It seems that this has been happening for about 15 billion years. (There has been life on earth for about 1.5 billion years.) But it won't go on expanding forever. Eventually the force of the expansion will be overcome by the gravity of all the matter in the universe, and will then reverse, at first slowly moving back together and then gaining speed, until finally all the universe will smash together in the middle again. And, then it will of course explode due to all the force, and start expanding again. According to Professor Sandage, we are about 15 billion years into an 80 billion year cycle that has happened over and over again, possibly thousands of times, possibly in a forever far beyond our powers of comprehension. Perhaps there have been earths before, with their civilizations, great inventions, great music, etc. _____________________________________________________________ If you put one pea-size piece of the sun within 100 miles of a human being, the radiation would kill that person immediately. _____________________________________________________________ In November 1960, the sun released a multi-million mile thick cloud of hydrogen that reached the earth two days later. This cloud interfered with the electronic equipment of the times, messing up teletype and radio communications and affecting house current in many neighborhoods around the world. If that cloud had happened in modern times (and a repeat performance is certainly possible) it could very seriously affect modern integrated circuitry throughout the world. _____________________________________________________________ For the first time, in 1959 through satellite photos, we were able to view the back side of the moon. It has made no difference to modern life. _____________________________________________________________ When samples taken from the moon by the Apollo 12 astronauts were brought back to earth, many tests were performed. In one test bacteria were exposed to the moon rocks. The bacteria mysteriously died. _____________________________________________________________ There is a particularly heavy star called +70 8247. You could not lift even a single cubic inch of this star off the floor since that little cube would weigh as much as 400 Toyotas. But +70 8247 is not a neutron star, which weighs in at a hefty 12 billion cars per square inch. _____________________________________________________________ Right now, there are 1800 thunderstorms happening throughout the world. _____________________________________________________________ There are 10 billion tons of gold mixed into ocean water. Go and get it! The only problem is that you have to sort it out. Since the ratio is 1 part gold to over 83 million parts water, you'll have do something fancy to get it. _____________________________________________________________ Gold is known for its flexibility. You can bend it or hammer it almost endlessly. An ounce of gold is about the size of a quarter and currently worth about $400. You can take that ounce and carefully stretch it into a tiny wire 35 miles long. _____________________________________________________________ 1/25 of the energy put out by a light bulb is light. The rest is heat. _____________________________________________________________ There is a novelty invention that has not received the honors (?) it may deserve. It is a custom-tuned cufflink that is always turned on. What does it do? It plays your favorite radio station. _____________________________________________________________ Now, I'm certainly not advocating nuclear submarines, but it is interesting to note that the USS Nautilus can run for over a year and thousands of miles on less than one pound of fuel. Too bad the fuel is radioactive uranium. _____________________________________________________________ The first vacuum cleaner was so huge it was drawn by a horse and parked on the street in front of a house. Then it's long hose was manipulated throughout the house to clean it up. _____________________________________________________________ In an experiment involving burying 28 miles of electrical wires in the ground, the US Navy discovered that they could create an antenna that can bounce radio signals off the earth's ionosphere and into the oceans, to effectively communicate with submarines. So they proposed to do this on a grand scale. In Project Sanguine, the Navy was all set to tear up 22,500 square miles woods in Wisconsin and Michigan to bury 6000 more miles of high-power electrical wires. Fortunately, informed protesters found several incidents of concern caused just by the little 28 mile system. It seems farmers were reporting ordinary wire fences had become charged. In ordinary homes near the installation, some people were getting shocked when they touched any plumbing, such as turning on a sink faucet. At first the Navy claimed these results were meaningless and wanted to proceed, but the protesters did manage to put a stop to the madness. _____________________________________________________________ A robot has been designed that can fight wars in place of soldiers. It is called the 'Fire Ant' and looks like a Honda 4-wheel ATV (All Terrain Vehicle) complete with fat tires, but painted in camouflage colors. On top, where normally a human driver would be seated, is a pile of electronic gear and a big gun. The computer-aided gun shoots a bullet powerful enough to penetrate and blow up a tank. The robot still has to be driven into position by radio control of a human operator a safe distance away from the action. The US army ordered 1000 of these robots to be shipped to Iraq for Operation Desert Storm, but the manufacturer couldn't get them ready in time. _____________________________________________________________ The fastest-growing plant, the giant sea kelp, grows 1-1/2" per hour. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists at the University of Liverpool in England have devised a new data storage technique in which they drill holes in metal with a electron beam. The holes are so small and so accurate that they could write as much data as is contained on a CD-ROM (for instance the whole Encyclopedia Britannica) on the head of a pin. The only problem is that so far, the only way to read the data is to view it with a powerful electron microscope. _____________________________________________________________ Sound travels at around 1120 feet per second, or approximately one mile every 5 seconds (760 miles per hour), depending on the temperature air density. This is why when you see lightning, and if you count the seconds until you hear the corresponding thunder, the lightning bolt will have been one mile away for every five seconds you count. The lowest 'C' on a piano vibrates at 32 cycles per second and the highest 'C' is 4096. So, for the low 'C' the first vibration will have traveled for 1/32 of a second before the next one, and for the high 'C' only 1/4096th of a second will elapse. There fore the wavelength of the piano's highest 'C' is three inches, and the waves of the lowest 'C' are 35 feet apart. _____________________________________________________________ The speed of the moon orbiting the earth is 2300 miles per hour. _____________________________________________________________ Lobster shells and mushrooms are made out of the same thing, chitin. _____________________________________________________________ MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) has received a bequest of $500,000 to teach students to regard comedy in all aspects of their lives. _____________________________________________________________ If you put a chemical in the water in the deepest parts of the oceans, it would take 1000 years for any traces of the chemical to rise to the surface. _____________________________________________________________ There is at least one bubble in the universe that contains absolutely nothing detectable within 217 million light-years. _____________________________________________________________ Some scientists are estimating that the carbon dioxide in our atmosphere has risen by 2% due to the hundreds of oil wells ablaze in Iraq. After the fires are put out, the extra carbon dioxide will remain in the sky for a century. This is the gas which causes the greenhouse effect. Expect worldwide changes in weather, crop failure and starvation. On the plus side, some scientists say the smoke from the fires will actually increase the rain in California. In the middle east, the average daily temperatures are already 15 to 30 degrees lower. _____________________________________________________________ We bristle at the thought of 500 oil wells producing pollution in Iraq, but few people know about the British proposal to plumb the shore of the English Channel with oil pipes during World War II. The idea was that if the Germans tried an invasion across the channel, the British would send as much oil as they could muster into the channel and set the whole works on fire. _____________________________________________________________ There is a new high-tech gadget you can buy that fastens between your camcorder and your tripod. It is for filming yourself. As you dance around during your lecture or acting activities, the camera pans to keep you in the picture. _____________________________________________________________ Some small stars spin at over 38000 rpm (revolutions per minute) on their axes. This is more than ten times faster than a lawnmower going full blast. _____________________________________________________________ What do you do if you want a telescope which requires a mirror bigger than anyone can accurately make? You put four huge mirrors, each 24 feet across, side by side, to make the world's biggest telescope. Construction of this telescope on a mountain in Chile should be finished around the year 1999. Although it won't see quite as far into space as Hubble was supposed to, at least this one is likely to work right. The reason the much smaller Hubble telescope was to have been so powerful is that it would do its viewing from space, and therefore wouldn't have to peer through the earth's fuzzy atmosphere. Astronomers are now reporting that their pictures are not as clear as they used to be due to two forms of pollution. One is dust and chemicals in the air. The other problem is light pollution from cities, farms, streetlights, etc. _____________________________________________________________ The temperature of the universe is not absolute zero. It is actually 2.735 degrees above absolute zero. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists are now working to utilize plants' power of photosynthesis to our own uses. In bioreactors, which might eventually replace nuclear reactors, green plant stuff taken from mucky ponds separates water into oxygen and hydrogen. The hydrogen can then be burned in the oxygen, creating enough heat to turn turbine generators. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists have discovered a way to coat chloroplasts, the smallest units of photosynthesis in plants with platinum, making microscopic items that create electricity when light is shined on them. These could eventually be installed in computers, neatly integrating electronic and optical operation in a very small, very powerful data processing package. _____________________________________________________________ Science has affected pavement. With a small, soon to be implemented change in paving technology, streets and highways may last up to 10 times longer before needing repaving. The change will be the addition of a small amount of an inexpensive chemical to the mix. _____________________________________________________________ One of the chief scientists at the Manhattan Project, where atom bombs were invented, spent his later years designing a very simple air conditioning system. His technique was to make a pit in the yard of a home, fill it with snow in the winter, and then as the snow melted in the summer, the cold water would be circulated throughout the house. _____________________________________________________________ While working on the previous paragraph, your author learned that an interesting typographical error can occur when the w of snow is replaced with a t. Try to imagine a pit in your yard filled with that! _____________________________________________________________ The Soviet Union was more involved in the moon race than we Westerners thought. In the early 1970's they tried four times to launch rockets similar to our Apollo/Saturn craft, but theirs all failed. The problem seems to have been that the first stage 30 small engines and they couldn't get the firing of all the engines synchronized. Saturn rockets used only 5 engines. _____________________________________________________________ Scientists can now make little-tiny metal gears one-seventh the diameter of a human hair. The uses for such small mechanisms could be incredible. Using a little gear as a saw in extreme one cell at a time microsurgery might be useful at first, then whole fleets of automatic saw-gear machines could be injected into a person to cut out a brain tumor in medicine of the future. See nanotechnology in the FUTURE chapter. _____________________________________________________________ You can now buy paint for your inside walls from a Japanese manufacturer that plugs into a wall socket and emits heat for the most uniform room heating imaginable. Since this paint can produce as much as 1832 degrees F, it can also be used to paint a hot plate on your counter top. _____________________________________________________________ How big is a molecule? If you were to make a pile of 10,000 average-size molecules, you could just barely see it as a tiny speck. _____________________________________________________________ 85% of all the plants and animals of the earth live in the sea. _____________________________________________________________ Engineers in the Soviet Union have designed a pilot and astronaut ejection seat which is much superior to the ones used by the United States. There is a possibility that we may buy the seats from the USSR for the space shuttle. We have already purchased a nuclear reactor from the Soviet Union. This is the model which has been powering many of their satellites for years. We will learn how their technology works from this engine for our own space machines. _____________________________________________________________ Perhaps you have been wondering about how gravity works. Here is a possible theory: Scientists speculate that a perfect vacuum is not perfectly empty. Sure, there may be no particles in it, but there is still energy, which is constantly occurring in microscopic random spurts. Furthermore, there are radiations penetrating the vacuum all the time from nearby and distant objects. For instance, if you put an object within several hundred million miles of the sun, you would be able to see it, due to the light penetrating the space between the sun and the object. Some of the radiations cannot penetrate solid objects, or are diminished as they pass through. If you put two solid objects near each other, they shield each other from the radiations and energies that cannot penetrate them. Therefore, each of these two objects are affected, essentially pushed, from all directions except from the other, shielding object. Therefore, they get shoved together. You have gravity. _____________________________________________________________ chapter end.