Things I Learned Today
coming back in january
10 20 2001
At the time John Adams was elected as the second president of the United States of America. Thomas Jefferson, who belonged to the Republican party, became his vice-president. Even though Adams was in the Fedaralists party, at the time the vice-president was determined as the candidate who got the second largest amount of votes. Therefore creating a cross-party duo. The Twelfth Amendment, adopted in 1804 reformed the electoral system to prevent such occurences.
10 16 2001
I learned to knit today!
10 14 2001
When a person throws a boomerang properly, he or she causes it to spin vertically. As a result, the boomerang will generate lift, but it will be to one side rather than upwards. As the boomerang spins vertically and moves forward, air flows faster over the top arm at a particular moment than over the bottom arm. Accordingly, the top arm produces more lift than the bottom arm and the boomerang tries to twist itself, but because it's spinning fast, it acts like a gyroscope, which is unwilling to move from its position, and turns to the side in an arc. If the boomerang stays in the air long enough, it will turn a full circle and return to the thrower. Every boomerang has a built-in orbit diameter, which his not affected by a person throwing the boomerang harder or spinning it faster.
10 13 2001
Only bismuth and water are less dense as a solid than as a liquid.
10 12 2001
Hydrogen makes up about 75% of the mass of the universe. Most of the rest is helium. Oxygen is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust, waters and atmosphere. It makes up 49.5% of all of this. Silicon is the second most abundant; silicon dioxide and silicates make up 87% of the materials in the Earth's crust.
10 11 2001
The color of a star indicates its temperature and age. Stars are classified by their spectral type. Here's the list from oldest to youngest, and hottest to coolest:
Type Color
O Blue
B Blue
A Blue-White
F White
G Yellow
K Orange
M Red
They are then further divided from 0-9. The sun is of type G2.
10 10 2001
The sun is approximately 4.5 billion years old. About five billion years from now, the sun will have burned all of its hydrogen fuel into helium. As this process occurs, the sun will change from yellow to red and increase in size. Its diameter will extend well beyond the orbit of Venus, and even possibly beyond the orbit of Earth. In either case, the Earth will be burned to a cinder.
10 09 2001
Sunlight contains all the colors of the rainbow, which blend to form white light, making sunlight appear white. At times, some of the color wavelengths, especially blue, become scattered in the Earth's atmosphere and the sunlight appears colored. When the sun is high in the sky, some of the blue rays are scattered in the Earth's atmosphere and then the sky looks blue and the sun appears to be yellow because yellow is white minus blue. At sunrise or sunset, when the light must follow a longer path through the Earth's atmosphere, the sun looks red, which has the longest color wavelengths.
10 08 2001
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune all have rings. Saturn's are the largest in the solar system.
10 07 2001
The volume of Niagara waters depends on the height of Lake Erie at Buffalo, a factor that varies with the direction and intensity of wind. Changes of as much as eight feet in the level of Lake Erie have been recorded. On March 29, 1848, a gale drove the floating ice in Lake Erie to the lake outlet, quickly blocking the narrow channel and shutting off a large proportion of the river's flow. Eyewitness accounts stated that the American falls were passable on foot for thirty hours.
10 06 2001
The eruption of Mount Tambora, a volcano in Indonesia, in 1815 threw billions of cubic yards of dust over 15 miles into the atmosphere. Because the dust penetrated the stratosphere, wind currents spread it throughout the world. Due to this volcanic activity, in 1816 normal weather patterns were altered. Some parts of Europe and the British Isles had average temperatures of up to 6 degrees below normal. In New England, heavy snow fell between June 6 and June 11 and frost occurred every month of 1816. Western Europe, Canada, and New England experienced crop failures. In 1817, the weather returned back to normal.
10 05 2001
High-speed photographs reveal that a large raindrop has a spherical shape with a hole not quite through it, giving it a doughnut-like appearance. Water surface tension pulls the drop into this shape. As a drop larger than 0.08 inch in diameter falls, it will become distorted because air pressure flattens its bottom and its sides bulge. If it's larger than 0.25 inch across, it will keep spreading crosswise as it falls and will bulge more at its sides, and its middle will thin into a bow-tie shape. Eventually, it will divide into two smaller spherical drops. So a raindrop is not pear-shaped after all.
10 04 2001
There are documented cases of showers of frogs since 1794, mostly due to heavy summer rainstorms. Fish, birds, and other animals have also been reported to have extensive falls, most likely as a result of whirlwinds, waterspouts, or tornadoes.
10 03 2001
A perfectly clean diamond has the ability to almost "magnetize" water and will keep the drop of water on the surface of a table from spreading.
10 02 2001
Bulletproof glass is composed of two sheets of plate glass with a sheet of transparent resin in between, molded together under heat and pressure. When subjected to a severe blow, it will crack without shattering. Today's bulletproof glasses are a development of laminated or safety glass, invented by the French chemist Eduard Benedictus. It is multiple laminations of glass and plastic layers.
10 01 2001
Many animals have been observed to snore. Here are some: dogs, cats, oxen, cows, sheep, buffaloes, elephants, camels, lions, leopards, tigers, gorillas, chimps, horses, mules, zebras, and elands.
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