Thought these might make some fun conversation.

1why is the sky blue?

1A why is a sunset red?

2 Bob lives in a cabin with no electricity at the bottom of a steep hill. The nearest neighbor is miles away. One evening, he forgets to turn off the lights of his 1960 VW bug. The next morning, the battery is completely dead. How does he start it?
(from the car talk guys, the tappet brothers)

3 dust damages electronics like computers primarily by causing heat to build up. What fails?

4 freezing mineral water creates "stalagmites" little upside down icicles. Why does this happen?
4 A Why does water expand when it freezes?
(from Peter Rees thru Mishabear on the other site)

5 Babies have more bones than adults. Why?

6 Is it advisable to "disagree agreably", why?
6a How should one interact with others?

7)If you boil an egg for a really long time, will it bounce like a rubber ball?
(I'm testing this while I write)

8)How does 50 volts feel? 220? 3 phase? Please don't test this. If you have personal experience, let us know. I've felt 120v. Not bad across one finger, but from one hand to the other-whoa! I don't want to repeat that experience.

9)Why do animals , um... evacuate their bladder and bowel when frightened?
Can I say pee and poo?

10) Is it true that you only die twice?

11) Why did Ben Franklin choose not to patent inventions?

Does anyone have # 12?

Google is your friend.

A few additions...

1) The sky appears blue in the day because the sunlight reflects off the water droplets - the only color that gets through is Blue. The rest is scattered. The sky appears red during the day for the same reason - plus pollution in the air.

4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXZUP8nIQMc Link to the YouTube video referenced in this question.

5) Babies have more bones because as we grow older, some of the smaller bones are fused. The cranial plates (for example) fuse together to form a complete skull. That's why we don't have soft spots on our skulls when we're older (among other things)

9) Urination/defecation in a frightened animal is a sign of submission.

10) The brave only die once. The coward dies at least a thousand times (old proverb.. I think Chinese)

MythMod

MythMod.....there is really something about an intelligent woman...

Wutzmyname

quote:

Bob lives in a cabin with no electricity at the bottom of a steep hill. The nearest neighbor is miles away. One evening, he forgets to turn off the lights of his 1960 VW bug. The next morning, the battery is completely dead. How does he start it?

Those VW's were pretty easy to push. It's called Pop starting and you can do it yourself. With the car in neutral and the ignition on, push the car from the driverside A frame(door frame) from a speed of about 5 miles per hour, hop in the car and quickly push the clutch in while shifting into 1st gear, then release the clutch fast and all the way "Popping" it and the car will start.

I used to do this when my motorcycles battery used to die. I also would do it to help stranded motorists.

*NOTE* This only works in a vehicle that operates with a manual transmission (stick shift)


Wutzmyname

wutz
(#2) you're on the right track, but the key phrase is "parked at the bottom of a steep hill" in other words, the only route is uphill, making push starting impossible. Also, in most vehicles if your battery is completely dead, not just mostly dead, you can't roll start because the alternator requires some battery power in order to make power for spark.

It should, however be possible to start this car using stuff you'd expect to find in any car.

Mod
(re #4) Thanks for the link.
I have frozen water in CO2 cartridges before. Sometimes the ice breaks the steel cylinder, but sometimes it produces a little whisker of ice, perhaps 3 inches long. Perhaps the mineral water ice stronger than regular ice, creating a small hole to releasing the pressure as the water freezes from the outside in. Similar to the co2 cartridge, it directs the flow from the increasing pressure.

Another neat ice experiment at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aC-KOYQsIvU

Regarding blue sky(#1), I thought it was to do with refractive index of air compared to vacuum. Blue being bent more or less than red, like in a prism.I may yet have to google. As much fun as it is to speculate. Another hypothesis is that the sky contains natural blue pigment. Whenever a jet leaves a white contrail, this is the plane mining the blue pigment, essentially "erasing" the blue of the sky. I'm not sure how to test that hypothesis.

re # 5 I spose that those cranial plates are soft for easier passage thru the birth canal?

(re #9) I thought this response was essentially lightening the load for running away. Jettisoning ballast, as it were.

(re #10) I've known 2 people who in the 20th century were diagnosed as dead. Later, they were not. Were they misdiagnosed? Were they only "mostly dead"? Or...


Ming,
Yes, google is great. Very useful for research.
If old information was the only important thing, then using a search engine could replace not only this website, but the show MB, and even schools. There is, however, something about interacting with other people which goes beyond research. It allows for new solutions to questions which may already have been answered once. There may be more than one right answer. It also allows for joking around, facetious answers, and sharing that which one enjoys with others of similar interests. Google will never replace that.

1- answered by others.

1A- I believe this has to do with the sunlight being transmitted through more atmosphere due to the angle of the sun to the observer, but I won't bet the farm on this.

2- Bob takes out the pull start rope that came with those silly little cars and uses that to pull start the motor, much as one would pull start a lawn mower.

3- I believe it's got to do with the physical components just expanding and breaking under the stress of the heat, but not sure.

4- I don't know, but it's nice to look at.

4A- Because it's trying to take over territory from the frozen peas in the freezer?

5- Certain bones, such as the skull, are actually made up of several "plates" which fuse as the baby grows.

6- Disagreeing politely means a discussion. He who yells first, loses.

6A- Golden rule applies, as does the "Lisa R. 5 Second Rule" (my sister): why be annoyed at some stranger that in 5 seconds will be out of your life forever. Save the aggravation for close friends and family.

7- Only when I make eggs.

8- I believe it's the amps, not the volts that hurt. That said, I've been shocked by 110, 220 and 12 volts. None of them were a walk in the park.

9- Actually has to do with a survival instinct. If the bowels and bladder are empty, there is less chance of infection in the event of a lacerated bowel or bladder from an attack.

10- Only if you're Sean Connery pretending to be a British spy pretending to be a Japanese spy.

11- No patent office back then?

quote:

1why is the sky blue?

1A why is a sunset red?

OK, let's see if I remember this right.
Blue because 70 something percent of the atmosphere is nitrogen and it "reflects" mostly blue wavelength.

Red because as Scott said, it's passing through more of the atmosphere so more longer red wavelengths make it to the observer. Dust is an issue as well. Remember, it will still be blue to the people standing over there at the horizon and they are looking through the same air, just not as much of it.

quote:

originally posted by Scott9282
2- Bob takes out the pull start rope that came with those silly little cars and uses that to pull start the motor, much as one would pull start a lawn mower.

Do they really come with starter rope? I never knew that.

quote:

3 dust damages electronics like computers primarily by causing heat to build up. What fails?

In a computer, I think the CPU fan/heatsink stops radiating heat enough due to the dust insulating it and causes the processor to overheat. Same for video boards. I've also been warned against areas with heavy smoke (cig. or other) due to acid in the smoke residue on the components damaging them.

quote:

4 freezing mineral water creates "stalagmites" little upside down icicles. Why does this happen?
4 A Why does water expand when it freezes?
(from Peter Rees thru Mishabear on the other site)

Capillary force through the ice? (a guess)
4a Greater distance between H2O molecules when it's ice as opposed to liquid.

quote:

8)How does 50 volts feel? 220? 3 phase? Please don't test this. If you have personal experience, let us know. I've felt 120v. Not bad across one finger, but from one hand to the other-whoa! I don't want to repeat that experience.

I had a 120 shock once, but it wasn't bad. Picked up the multi-outlet part of an extension cord that, unknown to me, didn't have a back on it, just open wires. Luckily, my hands were pretty dry at the time so I didn't make as good contact as I might have.

I was working on a phone line in a house crawl space in the summer and touched my sweaty arm against the foil covering of heat/air duct insulation. That was different. The more I tried to avoid it (not a convenient spot) the more I got shocked when I wasn't expecting it.

quote:

11) Why did Ben Franklin choose not to patent inventions?

After the whole "kite/electricity" thing he was never really quite right.

Later!

I always liked if cold sinks why does the top of a lake freeze first.

It's a conspiracy by ice fisherman.

quote:

Originally posted by toga_dan:
wutz
(#2) you're on the right track, but the key phrase is "parked at the bottom of a steep hill" in other words, the only route is uphill, making push starting impossible. Also, in most vehicles if your battery is completely dead, not just mostly dead, you can't roll start because the alternator requires some battery power in order to make power for spark.

It should, however be possible to start this car using stuff you'd expect to find in any car.

But you didn't ask how he got his car up the hill, just how to re-tart it? Pop start and drive around at the bottom of the hill? Walk up the hill and get a booster vehicle? CALL someone for a boost?

quote:

freezing mineral water creates "stalagmites" little upside down icicles. Why does this happen?

I thought stagmites/stalactites happened with the water evapourated, leaving the minerals, rather than freezing.

I think you can die way more than twice.

Quote from scott9282: 2- Bob takes out the pull start rope that came with those silly little cars and uses that to pull start the motor, much as one would pull start a lawn mower.

Lawn mowers have a magneto, which doesn't require a battery for ignition. VW's and most other cars do require a battery for the ignition, so pull-starting would only work if there is any life left in the battery. If it is totally dead, then pull-starting will not work.

quote:

Originally posted by cijay:
(#2) It should, however be possible to start this car using stuff you'd expect to find in any car.

If that is a valid hint, then the logical answer is to use any batteries that you can find from flashlights, radios, cell phones, etc. If you can series all the batteries to get a total voltage of approximately 12 volts, then you could use those batteries to jump start the engine (or use that silly rope to pull-start it if you have enough muscle strength)

Another hint: until the late 60s, VWs had generators, not alternators. An alternator requires current from battery to activate the field coils(an electromagnet) a generator has permanent magnets, and therefore does not require a charged battery to function.

I had not considered a pull rope. If you could wrap it around the crankshaft pulley, this might work. But there's another way.

To clarify, the 1960 car is at the bottom of the hill, which is too steep to push the car up. He's got a jack, lug wrench, that cute little bud vase on the dashboard...

Regarding mineral water "stalagmites", you are correct cijay, true stalagmites are formed by water evaporating. My intent in using quotes was to indicate that these are things _resembling_ stalagmites. Sorry I was a bit vague. Mythmods link to Peter Rees' youtube vid should clarify further.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by cijay:
(#2) It should, however be possible to start this car using stuff you'd expect to find in any car.



If that is a valid hint, then the logical answer is to use any batteries that you can find from flashlights, radios, cell phones, etc. If you can series all the batteries to get a total voltage of approximately 12 volts, then you could use those batteries to jump start the engine

If voltage alone was enough to crank the engine over then you could series together eight 1.5 volt watch batteries, you know, the tiny little "button" cells. But this would produce 12 volts at way too little current to turn a starter. The batteries themselves have internal resistance to current. flashlight batteries wont have enough current.

I've heard that flashlight batteries may have enough current to activate the field coils of an alternator, allowing a roll start. My own attempts at this have been unsuccessful.

Scott wrote, regarding electrical shocks

8- I believe it's the amps, not the volts that hurt. That said, I've been shocked by 110, 220 and 12 volts. None of them were a walk in the park.


Are you sure that it was 12 V you were shocked by, not the high volt ignition circuit of a car? 50 v is generally considered the minimum dangerous voltage. I've connected with both poles of a car bat without feeling anything.

one addition.

Rain falls from so high up how come it can't humans get hurt by it.

I'm just going to GUESS without thought for fun and some goofiness so no hate mail please.

1) Light you see passing through the atmosphere is in the blue ranges of the spectrum
1A) Like above only different
2) Bob can phone his neighbor for a boost. You don't need electricity to use a phone. Better yet, use a cell phone.
3) Computers, what doesn't fail?
4) Minerals maybe?
4A) Particles act different in solids and liquids
5)Their bones fuse together as they grow, if they didn't they couldn't grow
6) Agree to disagree, yep that means the arguing ends but on a bad note
6A) For sex
7)No, the shell will split in the pot and the egg will tear open during the rapid boil
8)feels bad no doubt
9) "Scared $h*t|ess" - because that's how the saying goes, animals follow suit
10) False- die is one, dice is two.
11) Best not to tell
12) Is a dozen.

quote:

Originally posted by hockeymythbusters:
one addition.

Rain falls from so high up how come it can't humans get hurt by it.

Oh, come on now, everyone knows rain is *soft* water.