The common coordinate system you refer to, iamthewalrus(:3, is the accepted definition among countries of what is east and west and how much so.
What was the name of the character in Al Capp’s Li’l Abner cartoon who always had a dark rain cloud over his head?
Joe Btfsplk
This should go to GQ first but the only way I know to describe a solid’s elasticity (or rigidity) is through a stress-strain curve which is unique for each substance. I’m talking only about tensile stress here (stretching.) With regard to relative elasticity, that appears easy, just subject different substances to the same amount of stress. However it’s not that simple.
If you stretch a rubber band with both hands, you might reach a point wherein it’s no longer elastic but plastic (permanently deformed.) So your elastic property stops even before it snaps.
what about a stick of chalk in your hands? It will snap very soon when stretched but for all you know, it might have been stretching without plasticity just before it snapped so it can also lay claim to being more elastic.
Okay, I’m still not getting this. Are you saying that somehow a piece of chalk and a rubber band are equally elastic? I don’t see how this can be. (And as you noted, the stress-strain curve for each material is unique.)
But if they’re not equally elastic, one of them must be more elastic. And if we’ve established that these two objects have differing amounts of elasticity, then we’re reached the point where some materials are more elastic than others. Which means that somewhere there is a material that is the most elastic.
Yeah, and even if chalk’s deformation is all elastic, it still breaks at a lower deformation than the rubber band.
How many US states lie, partly or totally, North of the Southernmost point of Canada?
From West to East:
[ol]
[li]Alaska[/li][li]Washington[/li][li]Oregon[/li][li]Californa[/li][li]Nevada[/li][li]Montana[/li][li]Idaho[/li][li]Wyoming[/li][li]Utah[/li][li]North Dakota[/li][li]South Dakota[/li][li]Nebraska[/li][li]Minnesota[/li][li]Iowa[/li][li]Wisconsin[/li][li]Illinois[/li][li]Michigan[/li][li]Indiana[/li][li]Ohio[/li][li]Pennsylvania[/li][li]New York[/li][li]Vermont[/li][li]New Hampshire[/li][li]Massachusetts[/li][li]Connecticut[/li][li]Rhode Iskand[/li][li]Maine[/li][/ol]
Not a difficult one, but a favourite for me: If a US pint is 16oz and an Imperial pint is 20oz, how many millilitres is each?
US pint = 473mL, Imperial pint = 568mL - US ounces and Imperial ounces are different volumes :dubious:
That’s a good one - I think it deserves explanation -
The bulge of the earth, making the earth slightly elliptical, pushes the peak Chimborazo further away from the earth’s center than anywhere else. After all, Ecuador is on the equator.
It reminds me of this one:
Measuring from base to peak, what is the tallest mountain in the world?
Mauna Kea, whose base is on the sea floor, 10,203 meters away from its peak.
What’s the difference between a karat and a carat?
A karat is 1/24: a 14K ring is 14/24 gold. A carat is 200 milligrams.
I’m with you; I call bullshit on this one. There’s a limit as to how far north or south you can go (once you reach the North Pole, it’s impossible to go in any direction but south), but you can keep going east or west forever. Any person attempting to reach Alaska from the Continental US would go west, not east.
I was going to say that you left out
Willie Mays, but the NY Giants and NY Mets were both in the same league.
What actor appeared in only five movies in his career and all five were nominated for the Best Picture Oscar (of their respective years)?
John Cazale - The Godfather; The Conversation; The Godfather: Part II; Dog Day Afternoon; The Deer Hunter
That’s the common mistake. If you know the short list of guys who hit over 500 home runs you can easily jump on that one and forget to think it all the way out.
I’m going to defend the Alaska thing. Pochnoi Point on Semisopochnoi Island has the most easterly longitude in the U.S. of 179° 46’ east. Can’t get much more easterly than that, and it’s a fact.
I’m even more confused than you. Perhaps I should back-pedal a bit and say “It’ll take a materials scientist in a big lab to tell you which is more elastic.”
In the SS curve, nearly all solids go through a three-step deformation: 1) elastic (deform-restore) 2) plastic (deform permanent) and 3) failure. I’ll now ask you, which substance is more elastic, the one that’s elastic over a bigger stress range, or the one that’s elastic throughout the curve just before failure?
And then, there’s a more basic issue: definition: if an elastic substance can be deformed and then restored, then elasticity = resistance to change, which now gives the chalk a better shot at the title.
Sick and tired of the chalk example? Take steel. Again, if resistance to change defines an elastic substance, then it should also mean that the stretched substance that is restored soonest following deformation is the more elastic substance. This makes a steel guitar string more elastic than a rubber or nylon string, if you compare their respective pitches.
NB: IANA an engineer or a materials scientist. Just stuck my nose into strength of materials sometime back.
Pick some measure of elasticity and there must be at least one substance that is most elastic on that basis.
I now think, yeah, that’s the answer. A lot like choosing a standard way to measure a big river’s length (I don’t think there is) which is why the Guinness gives the Amazon equal status with the Nile regarding which is the longest river in the world.
How many species of egg-laying mammals exist?
Five. One platypus species and four types of echidnas.
I was particularly proud of formulating this question many years ago (not sure if it counts as trivia).
((In the quiz I conducted I actually played the first piece of music))
What connects the theme music from the first Mission Impossible movie and someone named Gary Powers?
U2 - Gary Powers was the pilot of a U2 spy plane captured by USSR at the height of the Cold war and the them music was performed by the bassist and drummer of the bad U2
What concept did Sigmund Freud define as “the overestimation of the erotic object”?
romantic love