Science Quiz

Is it the direction water drains? Clockwise in the northen hemisphere, anti-clockwise in the southern annd straight down on the equator?
 
Wild guess: Columbus is attributed (wrongly) for portraying the world is round?

Another guess: St. Elmo's fire?
 
I'm sticking with the poles, or more specifically: the fact that there are two poles! *shock* :eek: ;)
 
Nope :p

If nobody has guessed by tomorrow morning (around 12 hours for me), I will give the next question to the poster which came close.
I encourage people to go back on the theories posted here and see if they can make them more precise or twist them in a novel way or something like that.
 
Columbus is given credit for proving the difference between magnetic and true north. That's my guess anyway.

Originally posted by nonconformist
Is it the direction water drains? Clockwise in the northen hemisphere, anti-clockwise in the southern annd straight down on the equator?

BTW, this is one of the biggest misconceptions in science, and it makes me sad to find that so many people believe it. Yes storm systems and large air masses indeed rotate in a certain direction, but the coriolis force that causes this rotation has NO effect on drains and toilets. The water drains too fast and at too small a scale to be affected by the earth's rotation. See this link:
http://www.ems.psu.edu/~fraser/Bad/BadCoriolis.html
 
Originally posted by Pirate
Columbus is given credit for proving the difference between magnetic and true north. That's my guess anyway.

And it is correct! :goodjob:

Columbus is indeed widely credited as having been the first man to observe that difference. It has however been proven than at least some Hanseatic merchants were aware of the phenomena before Columbus.
Columbus is probably the first man who really had to take it into account; I do not believe that it was more than a curiosity for the merchants in question, while it made a real difference for Columbus.
 
@Stormbind: You mentioned 2 poles, is that what you were trying to say? It wasn't really clear in your post.

Well, I spoiled any question on the coriolis force, so how about a quick multiple choice question:

I put an icecube in a glass then fill it to the brim with water. As the ice cube melts will the water level go down, stay the same, or overflow the glass? (a brief description why wouldn't hurt)
 
The level will drop. Ice has a lower density than water, meaning the H2O particles are packed farther apart than they are when formed together in the liquid state(although there are types of ice that are denser than water). As the ice melts, the now liquid H2O will nestle in closer with its fellow molecules, resulting in a decrease in volume, hence drop in the water level.
 
Stays the same, has to do with the fact that it floats and the displacement of light stuff is based on mass, and so as it melts it all balances out
 
Perfection is correct. Bah, too late.

BTW, this is why the melting of icebergs and any ice floating on water does not make the sea level rise, contrarily to what many people believe. What does is the melting of ice resting on land, over Greenland and Antartica in particular.
 
Now that I think about it I see how that makes sense, since not all of the ice is submerged, hence not all of the liquid volume is displaced. Is that it?
 
Maj: yes. And Archimède (english sp?) experimentally demonstrated that every body lighter than the liquid in which it is put displace a mass of water equivalent to its weight. For a fixed mass, the less dense the object becomes the bigger it will be, but the bigger the proportion of it staying above the water.
IIRC, for ice it's about 7/8 below water and 1/8 above.
 
Yep ;)

BN (Boron Nitride) has two crystalline forms, these crystalline forms are known for their resemblance of two more well known cystals. What are those two well known crystals, and why are they so similar in properties to the two forms of boron nitride?
 
Carbon and diamond, and it has something to do with Carbon having a similar outer electronic configuration than Boron I think... Mainly guessing on that last part though.

Anyway I am of for the night so if I guessed right Perfection can ask an other question.
 
Graphite and diamond. Boron and nitrogen together have the same electron configuration as two carbons (boron with one electron less than carbon and nitrogen with one more), so boron nitride mimics carbon in both forms.

edit: and the electronegativity difference between boron and nitrogen is small enough that you don't see much change to the bonds due to polarity. (LiF also has the same electron configuration, but its bonds are highly polar - its solid form is more like table salt.)

Ren
 
Your answer is a bit lacking, first off, its graphite and diamond, but your right about the electronic configuration, they function a lot like carbon, except the boron and the nitrogen have formal charges and polar bonds which make the compounds somewaht weaker.
 
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