How does an ejection seat work? In the simplest sense, they remove the canopy to the plane and then launch the pilot on their seat into the sky before a parachute deploys. Ejection seats are a lot more advanced than they were when they were first invented. The first ejection seats were first used during […]
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What is the upper limit of a speaker? The loudest speaker ever made produced 165 decibels. No speaker could ever go above 194 dB, because sound has an upper limit, just like temperature. There are a few considerations when trying to make a speaker that can produce very loud sounds. The first is that the
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Nils Bohlin invented the three-point seat belt in 1959. There is no way of working out how many people his invention has saved, but it must be over a million, at least. The US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration thinks that the three-point seatbelt saves about 15,000 lives a year in the US alone. Bohlin
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What is a karat? It is a way to measure the purity of gold. (In the UK, karat is spelled as carat – more on that later). However, a carat is a unit of mass that is 200 mg. It is used for measuring gemstones and pearls. Both Karats and carats are not used to
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How does a monorail balance? The single rail of a monorail train is much wider than a rail on a regular railway and there is no worry about balancing. However, they use side wheels for support. There are two types of monorail train. The first type, and probably the most common type, ride on top
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Is palm oil bad? It depends. It is bad in terms of health and environmental costs, but it is good because it has more oil than other crops and provides an income for people who would otherwise be living in poverty. What is palm oil? It is made from the fruit of the African oil
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What is survivorship bias? It is when researchers focus on the individuals that have passed a selection process, while forgetting those that have not. It is an error in logic. Survivorship bias doesn’t have to be about people who have survived, it can reference people or things that have survived a selection process. There are
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Why are there ten pins in bowling? Because nine pin bowling was outlawed. Bowling is a very old game because it is a very simple concept. As long as people have a ball and something to throw it at, they can bowl. Balls and pins have been found in a children’s tomb from 5,200 years
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What is St. Elmo’s fire? It is a glowing region that appears around tall structures, the masts of old ships, or the wings of aircraft. It is a plasma made by a corona discharge from the structure. St. Elmo’s fire looks like a blue or violet fire that has engulfed the tip of whatever structure
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What are V1 and V2 on a plane? V1 is the point where a plane must take off and V2 is the speed where a plane can safely climb if one engine fails. Flying in a plane is incredibly safe these days. However, take off and landing are the two most dangerous parts of any
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