How is nuclear fuel stored in glass? Spent nuclear fuel is not stored in glass. Spent nuclear fuel can be turned into glass through a process called vitrification. The word “vitrification” comes from the Latin “vitrum”, which means glass. We still use the word in some circumstances. The word “vitriol” comes from the same root. […]
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Who were Rolls and Royce? The Rolls and Royce of Rolls-Royce Limited were Charles Rolls and Henry Royce. Rolls-Royce is a hugely famous brand name, but it is actually not a single company these days. The company has two parts. The largest part is Rolls-Royce plc, which is the part of the company that makes
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How can you fire through a propeller? Not a lot of planes did this, but the only way a plane can fire through a propeller is by synchronizing the gun and the propeller. By the start of World War 1 in 1914, powered flight had only existed for 11 years. On December 17th, 1903, Orville
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Why does a mirror reverse an image? The mirror doesn’t reverse the image. It shows the image face on. It is our minds that make us think it is reversed. The mirror doesn’t flip an image left to right, it flips the image front to back. A mirror is a piece of glass with a
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What is the Geneva Convention? The Geneva Convention is actually the Geneva Conventions because there are more than one. It is a set of four treaties that lay out the humanitarian rules of war. There were four meetings, held in 1864, 1906, 1929, and 1949. Both of them came after a major war, when people
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What is a Banana Republic? A Banana Republic is a small, poor, politically unstable country with an economy dependent on one export and usually controlled by foreign companies. The existence of US controlled banana republics have created an environment where drug cartels can rise up. Banana Republic is not a positive term. The economy is
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What are the Miranda rights? The Miranda rights are a set of warnings that have to be given by police to suspects that they intend to interrogate for information. If the police don’t read you your Miranda rights before you are interrogated and you go on to provide important information that proves your guilt, this
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What is Esperanto? Esperanto is a language constructed by L. L. Zamenhof in 1887. He meant it to be the international language. Around the world there are 2,000 native speakers of Esperanto and 100,000 people that can speak it. The word “Esperanto” means “one who hopes”. It is an artificially created language and the most
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What was the problem with Concorde? Concorde was far too expensive, was not very environmentally friendly, couldn’t carry many people, and it wasn’t allowed to go supersonic over land because of the sonic boom. Concorde first flew with Air France and British Airways in 1976. The supersonic plane flew continuously for 27 years before being
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What is the Voynich manuscript? It is a 200 page, vellum codex, with hand drawn pictures. It is written in a language that no one knows or can read. The Voynich manuscript is named after a Polish bookseller called Wilfred Voynich, who bought it in 1912. Today, the book is owned by Yale University and
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