Science and Technology Quiz 3

[Tabster]

Sir John Herschel was an astronomer, I believe, so how about an early mechanised telescope? I'm not sure what Quasimodo has to do with this (The bells! The bells!), but how about some sort of automated bell-ringing device?

Nope, tis neither.

I may have confused things - Surveyors also use telescopes and its what the surveyors were looking at, which was demonstrated to Herschel. The Herschel reference is more to do with his amazement at seeing this new technology in action, which at the time would have appeared magical even to him. But, this of cause, was the VERY famous replacement of the machine that I'm interested in.

Location clue-
No, not Quasi, not Notre Dame, but very, very similar !! Lon Chaney, anyone?

 

[Truronian]

Phantom of the Opera... Opera hall... some kind of intricate lighting system?

 

[Mise]

Photograph equipment?

 

[Tabster]

Phantom of the Opera... Opera hall... some kind of intricate lighting system?

Truronian is correct.

The machine was indeed the old coal-gas lighting system at the opera house. it had a total of 960 gas jets providing illumination, controlled by the operator at the central control panel. the lighting was syncronised with the performance on stage. (hence the timed instructions I mentioned to Irish Caeser)

The first was at Drury Lane 1815.

The famous replacement was limelight. first used 1825 during a survey of Ireland.

Lon Chaney played the phantom in a 1925 film.

Over to Truronian.

 

[Truronian]

Woo!

What, in June 2005, was shown to be able to survive in space for 15 days?

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Bacteria?

 

[Mise]

The Water Bear?

 

[Tabster]

Plant seeds?

 

[Truronian]

The Water bear has been shown to survive for 10 days in '08.

Some bacteria have been shown to survive in space IIRC... not what I was after though.

I'm not sure about plant seeds but they're also not what I'm looking for though.

 

[nonconformist]

Semen.

 

[Atrebates]

I heard tell of Lichen being the first things to be able to survive high levels of radiation as found in space.

So Lichen, but dunno if they've been tested in a shuttle flight?

 

[Mise]

Are we talking about living things, or "survive" as in "remain intact" so as to include non-living things?

 

[Truronian]

Lichen is the answer!

It went into a dormant state while in space and then grew as usual when returned to its natural habitat. Bonus fact: lichen is the result of a bromance between a fungus and algae.

Atrebates, you're up.

 

[Atrebates]

Whoo!

You are blindfolded and given a pack of cards.

In the pack there are 16 face-up cards (36 face-down). How can you separate the pack into piles so that EACH individual pile is guaranteed to have EXACTLY the same number of face-up cards?

***Disclaimer: -You can't take off the blindfold
- You can't "feel" the difference between the front and back of the card
- You can have any number of piles (plural!! more than 1)
- No silly buggers with ripping cards in half, asking your mate to do it etc...

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Use only 1 pile

EDIT: Whoops didn't read rule 2

 

[civ_king]

Whoo!

You are blindfolded and given a pack of cards.

In the pack there are 16 face-up cards (36 face-down). How can you separate the pack into piles so that EACH individual pile is guaranteed to have EXACTLY the same number of face-up cards?

***Disclaimer: -You can't take off the blindfold
- You can't "feel" the difference between the front and back of the card
- You can have any number of piles (plural!! more than 1)
- No silly buggers with ripping cards in half, asking your mate to do it etc...

answer #1 is this science or technology?

smart ass answer: eat all the cards do a #2 and split it into two piles, technically you have the same number of face up cards in each pile (0)
If i can't do the smart ass answer, why not? (and I haven't buggered the cards either)

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Can you flip cards while making piles?

Otherwise you need to make 2, 4, 8 or 16 piles and I can't see a way of guaranteeing equal numbers of face up cards in each.

 

[Truronian]

Can I buy another pack of cards? (Probably get some funny looks in the shop...)

 

[ainwood]

This isn't really science & technology; its an old magic trick.

Deal half the cards into one pile, and half into the other. Turn one pile over. Looks like ParadigmShifter is on to it.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

Surely that wont work because if all the face up cards ended up in pile #1 you would have 16 face up in pile #1 and 26 face up in pile #2.