Why is there an obelisk in Rome? There is more than one and the Romans took them from Egypt as a show of power. During the Roman Empire, 50 obelisks were taken from Egypt and 13 of those survive today. 8 of those 13 were made in Ancient Egypt and the other 5 were commissioned […]
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What is impressionism? It was a style of art where the artist was trying to capture an impression of the moment. Claude Monet is probably the most famous impressionist, and he was one of the few artists who was able to make money while he was alive. Impressionism began in Paris in the late 1800s
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How does a motion detector work? There are several different methods. They can use infrared light, microwave radiation, ultrasound, video, or electromagnetic radiation. There are many uses for motion detectors and not all of them are for security systems. If you have used an automatic door, or walked into a room and had the lights
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Is there a planet beyond Neptune? It is possible, but there is no way to know for sure until telescope power increases. Neptune was discovered in 1846 and it was the last planet to be discovered. Pluto was discovered in 1930, but it wasn’t a planet for very long before it was demoted to “dwarf
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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