Why did the Chinese government move to Taiwan? The Republic of China’s government lost a war with the Chinese Communist Party in 1949 and fled to Taiwan. We have to go back a bit further than 1949 to look at this question. People have lived on the island of Taiwan for thousands of years. Stone […]
#923 Why did the Chinese government move to Taiwan? Read More »
How much oil is left? About 1.5 trillion barrels, which is enough oil for roughly 47 years. There are several problems with this question. The first problem is that there are probably oil reserves that we don’t know about. The second problem is that oil drilling technology improves. The third is that estimates of how
#921 How much oil is left? Read More »
What are El Nino and La Nina? They are climate patterns that happen in the Pacific Ocean and affect weather all over the world. El Nino means “Little Boy” and La Nina means All of the climate in the world is connected and changes in one place can lead to climate events in other places.
#920 What are El Nino and La Nina? Read More »
How does an oil pipeline pump oil so far? They use centrifugal pumps to convert rotational energy into the energy that moves a fluid and there are more pumps every 100 km or so. There are 2,270,526 km of oil pipeline around the world. Not all of that is still in use, but it gives
#918 How does an oil pipeline pump oil so far? Read More »
When does history start? This is a difficult question, but we have prehistory, protohistory, and then history. Protohistory is the point where prehistory becomes history and it is probably in about 3400 BC. This is an impossible question because there is no concrete date. History is said to begin with the development of writing systems
#917 When does history start? Read More »
How does a bicycle stay upright? It is a combination of things, but nobody seems to really know for definite. All of the reasons that a bicycle can stay upright are valid, but none of them seem to be required. You can alter many of them and, so long as the others are still in
#916 How does a bicycle stay upright? Read More »
Geoffrey Chaucer was known as the Father of English Literature. This is obviously a topic that is only important to English speaking countries, but he was a significant force in the revitalization of English after the Norman invasion of England. Chaucer wasn’t the only writer that was operating at that time, but he was even
#915 Geoffrey Chaucer – the Father of English Literature Read More »
Why is a plane’s propeller at the front but a boat’s at the back? Because of how they move through the medium they travel in, the angle they need to move at, and the obstacles they encounter. The propeller was obviously first used on a boat because they were invented long before planes were. The
#914 Why is a plane’s propeller in front but a boat’s in back? Read More »
What is racketeering? It is a criminal act that usually involves extortion or a scheme to extract illegal profits. Racketeering became a big thing on October 15, 1970, when the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act became law in the United States. You may have heard of it in a movie because it is shorted
#913 What is racketeering? Read More »
In the 1440s, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press and changed the world. It is not very often where you can say that an invention caused such enormous ripples that without it, we wouldn’t be where we are today. The wheel seems an obvious example. The printing press made the spread of information, knowledge, discoveries,
#908 Johannes Gutenberg – inventor of the printing press Read More »
