FunTrivia Sci / Tech Mix: Vol 21 Quiz

Answer: coccyx

The tailbone (coccyx) is right below the sacrum. The mandible is a face bone. The thorax is between the head and the abdomen. The thymus is a small organ in your upper chest.

Question by player BlueMNguy

Answer: Octahedron

An Octahedron has eight (note the identical prefix to octagon!) identical triangular faces (sides), meaning that if your die is made properly each face will come up equally often. A Cube is your typical 6-sided die, while an Icosahedral die would have twenty faces and a Dodecahedral one would have twelve.

Question by player kevinatilusa

Answer: Eratosthenes

Eratosthenes measured shadow lengths of identical poles at noon on the Summer Solstice. The measurements were made in Alexandria and Syene (now Aswan) 5,000 "stadia" apart, close to 500 miles. The shadow in Syene (on the Tropic of Cancer) was non-existent: straight up-and-down.

The shadow length in Alexandria was documented and with this information Eratosthenes determined that the difference in the angles of the shadows equated to 1/50 of a circle. Using the most accurate information available and dividing the distance between the points by the degrees of 1/50 of a circle (7.5) gave him 252,000 stadia, about 25,000 miles.

He described the process in a book called "On the Measure of the Earth" which unfortunately was not preserved.

Question by player H53

Answer: Ear

The cochlea, organ of Corti, and tympanic membrane are all located in the ear and help perform various jobs for hearing.

Question by player CoachLamb

Answer: A bakery

Toe prints have the same unique identification factors as fingerprints, including the well known whorls and ridges we've all read about. These are specific to each individual, so toe prints have been used to solve crimes in the same fashion as fingerprints.

The first occurrence of this kind took place in 1952 in Scotland when a barefooted thief broke into a bakery there, and then managed to open the safe where the takings were kept. Unfortunately for this person - and thanks to a somewhat untidy bakery - the thief left his toeprints in the residual flour left scattered about the business, and was identified from them.

Question by player Creedy

Answer: Searching for Mersenne prime numbers

The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) was launched in 1996 by American computer scientist George Woltman. The software developed is used to search for Mersenne prime numbers, which are prime numbers that can be expressed in the form of 2^n - 1, where n is a positive integer.

The number is named after French polymath Marin Mersenne (1588-1648).

Question by player Matthew_07

Answer: Aluminium

Actinium is a radioactive element that is found in very small quantities in uranium ores. Boron is a metalloid that occurs in small amounts in meteoroids. Beryllium is extracted from the mineral beryl.

Question by player mazza47

Answer: Australia

The buloke tree is native to Australia. Using the Janka hardness test, the wood of Allocasuaria luehmannii, or buloke, required a force of 5,060 lbs to embed a .444 inch steel ball to half its diameter. By the way, cuipo wood has a Janka hardness of 22 lbs while the wood of balsa, the softest commercial hardwood, has a Janka hardness of 100 lbs.

Question by player pomophagist44

Answer: Mars

The largest volcano in our solar system is called Olympus Mons, it is located on Mars and it covers an area equivalent to Arizona.

Question by player crazybingo

Answer: physics

The discovery of a 'standard model' in regards to particle physics was a collective effort by a group of scientists. It relates to quantum mechanics and special relativity.

Question by player nmerr