I learned this today. A touchscreen works because a tiny electric current is sent to your finger, which allows the device to calculate where your finger is. There are two different types of touchscreen: resistive and capacitive. The touchscreen in the phone you are probably reading this on is a capacitive touchscreen, so let’s look […]
#248 How does a touchscreen work? Read More »
I learned this today. The expression “mayday” was first used in February 1923. Mayday is used when a plane or a ship is undergoing a life-threatening emergency. The procedure is to say the word three times, “Mayday, mayday, mayday.” This is so that it can’t be issued by mistake. The expression “mayday” was concocted by
#247 When was the expression “mayday” first used? Read More »
I learned this today. Headlamps were first used on horse drawn carriages and then transitioned to the first horseless carriages. The first gas headlamps were used in the late 1880s. I have used the word “headlight”, but the correct term is “headlamp”. The headlamp is the device that emits the light and the beam of
#246 When did cars start using headlights (headlamps)? Read More »
I learned this today. The British and American accents are different because the UK accents dropped a few things that the US kept. It is obviously difficult to generalize about UK and US accents because there are wildly different accents within each country. So, why do accents form? Accents form because of the history and
#245 Why are American and British accents different? Read More »
I learned this today. The idea that manslaughter is different to murder was introduced in Athens in 409 BC. This is a difficult question because the laws of different countries are extremely different and many different societies developed different laws at different times. Some of those laws and societies have disappeared and some of those
#244 When did the law of manslaughter start? Read More »
I learned this today. The Ottoman Empire ended due to revolt, general decline, and defeat in World War 1. The Ottoman Empire began in the 13th century. Osman I, a Turkish tribal leader, managed to conquer a few of the territories near to his own on the border of the Byzantine Empire. The name “Ottoman”
#243 Why did the Ottoman Empire end? Read More »
I learned this today. A spray bottle works by breaking the liquid up into tiny droplets using a pump and different kinds of nozzles. Modern spray bottles work slightly differently to older spray bottles. The first kind of spray bottles used a rubber bulb and an atomizer nozzle. They were invented by an American called
#242 How does a spray bottle work? Read More »
I learned this today. Chloroform knocks people out by causing depression of the central nervous system. Chloroform appears to have been discovered by several people independently in 1830 and 31. A German pharmacist called Moldenhawer discovered it in 1830. An American physician called Samuel Guthrie, a French scientist called Eugene Soubeiran, and a German scientist
#241 Why does chloroform knock people out? Read More »
I learned this today. Bleaches react with colored organic compounds and turn them into colorless ones. Bleaches by working on the chromophore of a molecule. This is the part of the molecule that is responsible for the color we see. Our eyes do not see color. Our eyes detect a wavelength of light, which they
#240 How does bleach turn clothes white? Read More »
I learned this today. Signals from intelligent life are so difficult to hear because of the sheer vastness of space and the fact that we change the technologies we use. It is possible to look at a distant planet and reason that it has intelligent life because of the gases that are coming off the
#239 Why are signals from intelligent life so hard to hear? Read More »
