What Does the Moon Smell Like?: 151 Astounding Science Quizzes (15 page)

and the USSR, and the Van Allen Belts haven’t been the same since. No one knows when, or if, they’ll ever return to their former state.

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Cooking with Genius

Richard Feynman worked on the development of the Q

atom bomb, and was a leading thinker in the field of quantum theory, among other things. He loved a scientific challenge at least as much as he loved to play MAD

bongo drums. One night, he and supercomputer

SCIENTISTS

innovator Danny Hillis were in Feynman’s kitchen ready to make dinner, but they made a real mess instead. When you cook with science, experimenta-tion is often on the menu.

What were they trying to discover?

a) Does the buttered side of toast hit the floor more often?

b) What is the velocity of honey?

c) Why does bottled soda explode when mints are dropped into it?

d) Why does spaghetti shatter when you try to break it in half?

193

Cooking with Genius

What were they trying to discover?

A

a) Does the buttered side of toast hit the floor more often?

b) What is the velocity of honey?

MAD

c) Why does bottled soda explode when mints are SCIENTISTS

dropped into it?

d) Why does spaghetti shatter when you try to break it in half?

CORRECT ANSWER:

d) Why does spaghetti shatter when you try to break it in half?

If you hold a strand of spaghetti by the ends, and try to break it in half by bending it until it breaks, it shatters, often into three or more pieces. Danny Hillis asked Richard Feynman why that happened, and the experiment was on. Instead of cooking their pasta, they played with it and tried several different techniques for breaking it. After a few hours, they had broken spaghetti all over the kitchen, but had no dinner or good theory to explain why spaghetti shatters. Too bad they didn’t have a high speed camera that could shoot 1,000 frames a second. That’s what French scientists trying to solve the mystery used 20

years later. They think that the first break in the strand creates waves that travel through the pasta, which cause it to break up into three or more pieces.

Despite having a high speed camera, they made a mess too.

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A Psychologist and his Box

B.F. Skinner studied behaviour, and is famous for Q

ingenious animal experiments using his “Skinner Box,” a cage rigged with a lever or button that released food when it was pressed. His experiments MAD

showed that animals could be trained to do all kinds SCIENTISTS

of complicated tasks by using a combination of positive and negative reinforcements. Late in his career he trained pigeons to act as if they were self-aware, and could communicate with each other. He probably could have herded cats, but as far as we know, he didn’t.

What else did B.F. Skinner NOT do?

a) sleep in a bright yellow plastic tank in his office b) teach a pigeon to bowl

c) teach a rat to spend money

d) teach rats to guide warheads

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A Psychologist and his Box

What else did B.F. Skinner NOT do?

A

a) sleep in a bright yellow plastic tank in his office b) teach a pigeon to bowl

c) teach a rat to spend money

MAD

d) teach rats to guide warheads

SCIENTISTS

CORRECT ANSWER:

d) teach rats to guide warheads

Dr. Skinner trained his lab rats to complete all sorts of complicated tasks, but he worked with 24
pigeons
when America needed a missile guidance system

during World War II. The birds were conditioned to keep a target in the centre of a screen by pecking at four levers (up, down, left, right). He envisioned three pigeons, each in a separate compartment of the missile’s nose cone, their combined pecks steering the warhead to the target. Project Pigeon was tested, but in the end it didn’t fly. The missile engineers and physicists wanted an electronic guidance system because it was the way of the future, but their early systems rarely hit a target. Maybe they should have gone for pigeon power. With today’s technology, the pigeons wouldn’t even have to leave their roosts.

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EXTREMES

Fastest Living Thing on the Planet

Our obsession with fast-moving things compels us to Q

race whatever we can, wherever, and whenever we can. It thrills us to see the fastest of the fast com-pete. Animals in the wild don’t race for sport, and they don’t keep speed records. We more than make up for their lack of interest by timing anything that moves, or
really
moves — like the fastest living thing on the planet. Can you name the world speed record holder? I’ve heard different answers to that question.

Maybe you have too. Let’s say they’re all clocked going at top speed.

Which one is moving the fastest?

a) Bdellovibrio (bacterium)

b) cheetah

c) mako shark

d) peregrine falcon

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Fastest Living Thing on the Planet

Which one is moving the fastest?

A

a) Bdellovibrio (bacterium)

b) cheetah

c) mako shark

EXTREMES

d) peregrine falcon

CORRECT ANSWER:

d) peregrine falcon

Peregrines are the fastest living things on the planet.

They can plummet through the air at more than 300

km/h (186 mph) when stooping, or diving, for prey.

Cheetahs, the next fastest, can run short distances at about 110 km/h (68 mph). The mako is the fastest shark, with a top speed of about 96 km/h (60 mph).

The bacterium, travelling at more than half a metre (20 inches) per hour, is dead last when it comes to actual speed. But if you compare speed relative to body length, the bacterium is faster than even the peregrine. In attack mode, Bdellovibrio* can move at 100 times its body length per second. If we could move like that, we’d be roaring around as fast as a passenger jet.

* Bdellovibrio is pronounced dellovibrio, with a silent B.

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Heaviest Baby Panda

The heaviest panda cub was born at the Wolong

Q

Giant Panda Research Center in China in 2006. He was Zhang Ka’s first baby, and she set a record too, for the longest labour by a panda, 34 hours. The staff EXTREMES

were minutes away from starting an operation to deliver the baby, but at the last minute, the wailing of the newborn baby panda stopped and delighted them.

Zhang Ka, an average sized female panda, weighed 103 kilograms (227 lb), but her baby was a real heavy-weight.

How much did the panda cub weigh?

About as much as . . .

a) a newborn polar bear cub

b) a newborn teacup poodle

c) an official-size soccer ball

d) two sticks of butter

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Heaviest Baby Panda

How much did the panda cub weigh?

A

About as much as . . .

a) a newborn polar bear cub

b) a newborn teacup poodle

EXTREMES

c) an official-size soccer ball

d) two sticks of butter

CORRECT ANSWER:

d) two sticks of butter

The chubby baby panda weighed 218 grams (7.7 oz), almost as much as two sticks of butter. At birth, the average panda cub weighs about as much as one stick of butter, as does an average newborn teacup poodle.

As an adult, the teacup poodle will weigh about 20

times as much as when it was born. The average baby panda increases its birth weight by about 1,000 times, and grows into a 100–150 kilogram (220–330 lb) adult.

Will the chunky baby panda, named Bao Le, be a

super-sized adult? We’ll have to wait and see, and while we’re waiting, consider this: if humans were less like dogs, and more like pandas, a three-kilogram (6.6 lb) baby would grow into an adult weighing three or four tonnes, about as much as an elephant.

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The Hottest Stars

The next time you’re stargazing, how cool would it be Q

if you could just look up and casually point out the hottest stars in the night sky? You don’t need a degree in astronomy, a star map, or even a telescope. The EXTREMES

secret of identifying which stars are hot, and which are not, is simple — colour. The hottest stars in the night sky twinkle blue or bluish white. Now that you know what to look for, do you know how hot the

hottest of the hot are?

How hot is the surface of the hottest stars? About the same temperature as . . .

a) a bolt of lightning

b) inside a car’s catalytic converter

c) inside a particle accelerator

d) the core of the stars

201

The Hottest Stars

How hot is the surface of the hottest stars? About the A

same temperature as . . .

a) a bolt of lightning

b) inside a car’s catalytic converter

EXTREMES

c) inside a particle accelerator

d) the core of the stars

CORRECT ANSWER:

a) a bolt of lightning

Blue stars may be among the hottest, but at the surface, their temperature is only about as hot as a bolt of lightning here on Earth, around 30,000ºC

(54,000ºF). That’s more than five times hotter than the surface of our sun. Did you think they’d be hotter? Well, they’re pretty big, so their surface is a lot cooler than their core temperature. Some of the biggest blue stars have cores up around 40 millionºC

(104 millionºF). How hot the core of a blue star is depends on its size. The bigger it is, the hotter it is, and the hotter it is, the faster it burns. The biggest, hottest stars burn the brightest, but only for a few million years. If they had a motto, it would have to be: live fast, burn hot, and die young.

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As Light as Air

Does air weigh anything? You can’t tell by looking at Q

it, and you can’t feel it, but just because we can’t see it or feel it, does it mean that air is weightless? You probably know that the answer is no. Air isn’t heavy EXTREMES

enough to register on your weight-sensing nerves, but it does have weight, and it’s usually measured in cubic meters, or cubic feet or yards. So, how much could air possibly weigh? When different kinds of air are at the same temperature . . .

Which is the lightest?

a) dry air

b) moist air

c) very dry air

d) they all weigh the same amount

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As Light as Air

Which is the lightest?

A

a) dry air

b) moist air

c) very dry air

EXTREMES

d) they all weigh the same amount

CORRECT ANSWER:

b) moist air

It seems counter-intuitive, but moist air weighs roughly half as much as dry air. Dry air weighs about 1 kilogram (2.2 lb) and moist air weighs 0.6 kilograms (1.3 lb) per cubic metre (1.3 cubic yards) when both are at the same temperature. Air is made up of various components — mostly nitrogen, oxygen, and

water vapour. Of the three, water vapour is the lightest. When there’s more water vapour in the air, there’s less oxygen and nitrogen, so the air weighs less. Most people think that because it’s harder to breathe very moist air, it must be heavier, but it’s not.

It’s just the humidity making it seem that way.

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THE SOUNDS OF SCIENCE

The Rasping Noise of Discovery

It was three o’clock in the morning, and a young bio-Q

logist, Ben Wilson, was alone in the lab with a fish tank holding 10 wild-caught herring. He was about to test the reaction of the fish to the sound of the hunting call of their mortal enemy, the killer whale.

Seemingly out of nowhere, a loud rasping noise

ripped through the lab. At first Wilson thought it must be a practical joke, so he searched the lab for the pranksters who were disrupting his experiment with rude noises. When he didn’t find anyone, it dawned on him that it had to be the fish. He had just discovered that herring fart. It soon became apparent that in certain situations, they really let it rip.

When did the fish fart the most?

a) after eating

b) at night

c) when they were alone

d) when they were hungry

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The Rasping Noise of Discovery

When did the fish fart the most?

A

a) after eating

b) at night

c) when they were alone

THE

d) when they were hungry

SOUNDS

OF

CORRECT ANSWER:

SCIENCE

b) at night

The fish farted the most at night, when the lab was quiet and dark. The rude noise was accompanied by a train of bubbles, ejected from their anal pores. They didn’t fart after eating, and they didn’t stop farting if they weren’t fed. Regardless of their food intake, the herring farted up a storm at night, and the more fish in a tank, the more they all farted. What’s up with that? The researchers think that it’s social behaviour, and could be a form of communication. Wilson

named the sound Fast Repetitive Tick, or FRT. Who says scientists don’t have a sense of humour?

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The Ping of Sonar

Leonardo Da Vinci wrote about a tube that was low-Q

ered into the sea to listen for ships. About 400 years later, in 1917, French, British, and Canadian physicists put their heads together and pooled their THE

knowledge to come up with a practical way to detect SOUNDS