Why did the Royal Society begin? The Royal Society was formed in 1660 and it was started to bring like-minded scientists together and encourage research and discussion. The Royal Society in Britain is the oldest continuously existing scientific academy in the world, but it is not the earliest. That is the Accademia dei Lincei in […]
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What is a Ponzi scheme? It is a type of fraud where you use money invested by new people to pay profits to the people who are already invested. It was named after Charles Ponzi who certainly didn’t invent the scheme but who made it famous. (Incidentally, Ponzi scheme, scam, and con are all relatively
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Why do we see faces in everything? We see faces in everything because it is far better to think there is a face in the forest and be wrong than to not think there is a face there and be eaten by a tiger. Seeing faces everywhere is called pareidolia. This is Greek. “Para” means
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Why do your ears hurt on a plane? Your ears hurt on a plane because the pressure in the cabin is different to the pressure in the fluid in your inner ear, which causes pain. If you have ever ridden on an airplane, you have probably felt your ears go funny. You have probably also
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Why does copper kill bacteria? Copper can kill bacteria by pulling electrons away from the bacteria’s cell wall, breaking it. There are several materials and chemicals that are good at killing bacteria. Of all the metals, only copper, silver, and zinc can kill bacteria. Some plastics have been engineered to kill bacteria and there are
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Why do cold batteries lose their charge? Cold batteries don’t lose their charge exactly. In colder weather, the atoms that are inside the batteries can’t move as much and that means they can’t produce as much power. You may have noticed that if you use your phone on a particularly cold day, it runs out
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What is Prince Rupert’s drop? Prince Rupert’s drop is a small, tadpole-shaped glass bead that is incredibly strong but incredibly fragile. Prince Rupert’s drops have been around for a long time and there is some thought that they were first discovered by Roman glassmakers two thousand years ago. They were first brought to Great Britain
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How does roasting coffee beans change their flavor? Roasting the coffee beans changes their flavor because they lose a lot of water and they start to caramelize. When you buy coffee in a shop, you will most likely be buying roasted beans. You can buy unroasted coffee beans, but you have to seek them out.
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Why do we work Monday to Friday? We work Monday to Friday with Saturday and Sunday off because of trade unions and because of Henry Ford, but he was improving on systems that had started earlier in the previous century. The idea of having Saturday and Sunday as a holiday is a relatively recent invention.
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What are the physics of roller coasters? Designers of roller coasters have to pay a lot of attention to physics because they need the roller coaster cars to move, they need them to stay on the tracks, and they need them to go fast enough to be thrilling but not so fast that they kill
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