Who invented the slide rule? Willian Oughtred in 1622. I think, first, I need to look at what a slide rule is because not many people under 60 will have ever used one. These days, if we want to do complex calculations, we can just plug them in to our phone and get the answer […]
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What is the Fermi paradox? It is the fact that if life in the universe is so common, we should have found signs of it. Enrico Fermi was an Italian physicist. He received a Nobel Prize for physics in 1938 and he was involved with the Manhattan Project in the Second World War. He died
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Why did the USSR collapse? There are a myriad of reasons. Not one of them is exclusive and it could be said that were only one of these to have happened, the USSR could have continued to this day. Let’s look at 6 of them: war in Afghanistan, the price of oil, the Chernobyl nuclear
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What are moles, freckles, and birthmarks? Moles are caused when pigment-producing cells grow in a group. Freckles are caused when your skin cells produce too much melanin. Birthmarks are caused when blood vessels don’t form correctly or when the cells that produce pigment grow too much. Almost everybody has moles. By moles, I obviously don’t
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Why did some dinosaurs have such long necks? To reach the higher up vegetation, to get more low-lying vegetation, to expend less energy, and to lose heat. There are several different types of dinosaurs that evolved long necks. The most famous that we probably all know is the diplodocus. The diplodocus was undoubtedly large. It
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Are ants smart? They are not smart in the way that we are, but they have been observed using tools and performing tasks that would show they have some intelligence. The size of an animal’s brain is not necessarily an indicator of how smart it is. If we just look at the largest brain, it
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When did silent movies end? The last silent movie was The Poor Millionaire, released in 1930. The expression “silent movie” didn’t exist until movies with sound were released. There was no need to have a label for something when that thing was the only option. “Silent movies” were just called “movies”, which is the shortened
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How many Egyptian dynasties were there? Depending on how you view it, there were 31, 33, or 34. Egypt was conquered by Alexander the Great in 332 BC, which made the 32nd and 33rd dynasties Greek. They still ruled Egypt, so some people count them as dynasties. Then, in 30 BC, Greek Egypt was conquered
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Why do people pass out from pain? Sudden pain can make the heart rate decrease, which lowers blood pressure, which can cause people to pass out. Fainting is technically known as syncope. Syncope can also mean when a word is contracted by not pronouncing the middle letters, such as favorite (we don’t say the o),
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Why do we sing Auld Lang Syne at New Years? Because Scottish people emigrated all over the world, taking the song with them, and then a Canadian bandleader started playing it every year on American national TV. Auld Lang Syne means “old long since”. For auld lang syne is often translated as “for the sake
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