How Big? Trivia Quiz

Answer: Around 200 au (or 0.0031 light years)

An "au" is an astronomical unit and is the mean distance between the Earth and the Sun over one orbit. It's about 150,000,000 kms or eight light minutes. This means that the Earth is only 1/200th of the distance out along the Solar System's radius. Big, innit?

Answer: Around 318 times as big as Earth

Although Jupiter is about 318 as massive as Earth, its volume is equal to 1,321 Earths. This is because Jupiter is composed mainly of gas, whereas Earth is primarily solid and liquid.

The very "massiness" of Jupiter aids in the continuing survival of Earth. Jupiter sweeps space of debris as it orbits the sun, stopping this debris from passing through (and possibly colliding with) planets in the inner Solar System.

One reason proposed for the existence of such a gassy planet postulates a huge crown of rhubarb in the asteroid belt. Scientists have largely discounted this theory, although it is central to the beliefs of the Church of the Latter Day Vegetables in Banjoville, Kentucky.

Answer: A male African elephant is bigger.

African elephants are generally bigger, have proportionally bigger ears and have concave backs. One of the largest elephants ever recorded was shot in Angola in 1956. This male weighed about 12,000 kilograms (26,000 lb), with a shoulder height of 4.2 metres (14 ft), a metre (yard) taller than the average male African elephant. The guy who shot it must have been a real man, eh?

Answer: 6,728 cc (410 cubic inches)

The Gunbus 410 really is a ridiculous thing. It weighs 650 kg and has a 42" diameter rear tyre. Google it and have a look. Look for a photo with a person in it to get an idea of its true size.

The one question raised by the Gunbus is "Why?".

Answer: Robertson, NSW

Yes, there really is a Big Potato in Robertson. I've seen it and it really is as stupid as it sounds--with all due respect to the good folk in Robertson! Other than lots of potato fields, there isn't much more to see in there; sort of like Melbourne without the football obsession.

There really is a place called Dunedoo (pronounced Dunny-Doo). It's even funnier when you know that a dunny is an outdoor toilet in Australia. (For our American friends, a toilet is a bathroom. In Australia we have a bath in our bathroom).

My dad was always telling me to go to Bugaree, but I could never find it on the map.

Answer: They don't have teeth. They have plates of baleen.

Blue whales filter plankton from the water using plates of a keratin material called baleen. Sperm whales have teeth. I have no idea how big they are. I once asked a sperm whale to open wide but he wouldn't be in it. I think he was miffed about his name. If you really want to know how big a whales tooth is, then pop down to your local church and ask them to look up Jonah. If they tell you they don't know, look surprised and tell them that according to their advertising they are supposed to have the answers to everything.

Whale teeth with pictures carved into them are called Scrimshaw. I used to have a piece of scrimshaw which I kept in a breadbox. It was stolen one night and the last I heard had been cut down by a rogue orthodontist in Brisbane who supposedly made a set of false teeth for Kevin Rudd from it (if you don't know who Kevin Rudd is then Google him. If you don't know who Google is then be assured it never was never the Prime Minister of Australia).

Answer: Just over 31 years

1,000,000,000 / 60 / 60 / 24 / 365 = 31 (ish)

This is why Bill Gates never answers the phone - he's too busy counting.

This question is largely academic here in Australia. Every time we manage to gather together a billion dollars, some US bank goes broke and our money disappears again. It could be worse though, we could be Iceland. Not only do they have no money, they also have abyssal weather and live on pickled fish.

Answer: Ocean Sun Fish

Sunfish average around 1,000 kg and have been known to double that. They are weird-looking and can best be described as being a big head with a couple of fins. They are round (sunfish, geddit?) and sort of vertically flat. Every year we hear of round the world yachts losing keels and they always say "We must have run into a sun fish".

This may be so in some of the cases, but one suspects that they are covering up the fact that most long distance racing yachts are built purely for speed and are not really sea worthy.

Answer: Christianity

Christianity has somewhere between 1.5 and 2.1 billion followers and comprises about 35% of the world's population. Islam is good for around 1.5 billion believers (25% of global population). Hinduism is the major religion of India. It is estimated that there are around 1 billion Hindus.

While football is very popular, it isn't really a religion (unless you live in Melbourne of course). I have to very careful here - we all know what happened to John Lennon.

Answer: El Gordo

El Gordo is drawn annually every 22nd December. Tickets are very expensive (200 Euros in 2005), but you can buy 1/10 of one. Of course this only entitles you to 1/10 of the winnings.

State-run lotteries are an increasingly popular revenue source for governments worldwide. If you have a look at the cut the government takes, then it becomes quite apparent that they are just a tax on people who don't understand probability or even a tax on hope.

La Guardia is one of the three major airports servicing New York City. It is named after a politician. 'Nuff said.

El Toro means "bull" in Spanish and is associated with bullfighting for "fun".

Nigel is a masculine name. Wikipedia lists lots of famous Nigels, but none of them are lotteries, although Nigel Lawson was British Chancellor of the Exchequer under Thatcher. That means he was, in fact, a gambler but he used other people's money.