iFAQ: History

What colour were the dinosaurs?

The fact is, we don't know. There are a few isolated cases where scientists have managed to work out exactly what colour dinosaurs were but for monsters like the Tyrannosaurus Rex, they can only guess. It would probably be a shade of green or brown to provide camouflage, which may sound stupid because Tyrannosauruses were so big they couldn't hide but it did make a difference while hunting, albeit a very small one.

 What was the biggest battle ever?

The biggest recorded battle in English history was the Battle of Towton where one tenth of the English population participated. That is a massive amount of people, however you look at it. It took place in 1461 during the Wars of the Roses and resulted in about 7,000 casualties. The biggest battle ever was probably the Battle of Kursk between the Nazi Germans in World War II and the Russians. It involved about two million soldiers. It took place in Kursk, Russia, in the summer of 1943.

When was the Automobile Invented?

That depends on your definition of 'automobile'. The Ford Model T is the most famous of all the motoring firsts, as the first car to be produced by mass manufacture. The Ford was produced first in 1908, but was only mass manufactured from 1911. Most people would credit Karl Benz with inventing the automobile as we know it in 1885 with the Benz Motorwagen. As early as 1335, the Italian engineer Guido da Vigevano

 designed (and supposedly built) a vehicle that moved using wind power, but this was more of a boat than a car. 

-PWN-

iFAQ: Science

How fast is the speed of light?

In a vacuum, the speed of light is 299,792,458 metres per second, but it can change. In a prism, light can almost be stopped, while outside of a vacuum, light does not travel as fast, slowed down by numerous particles in the air. Sound, however, travels faster where there are more particles, as that is a wave that relies on particles to move, while light is a wave that does not.

What is the difference between dynamite and TNT?

TNT is not the chemical name for dynamite, nor has dynamite got anything to do with TNT at all. Dynamite is stabilised nitroglycerine wrapped in a cylinder, developed by Alfred Nobel, who later created the fund for the Nobel Prize after feeling guilty about having developed an explosive which was later used in warfare. TNT is an abbreviation of trinitrotoluene, another explosive which is less powerful yet safer to work with than dynamite. However, it has proved to be toxic, causing yellow colouration of skin. This is what caused the female workers in munitions factories to have yellow skin, leading to the nickname 'Canary Girls'. It can also cause organ damage and increased risk of cancer.

What is radar?

Radar, standing for radio detection and ranging, is a device that allows users to detect objects by bouncing radio waves off objects. Its most famous usage was during World War II, when the government spread the rumour that ace pilots were aided in seeing in the dark by carrots, to distract the Germans from the possibility of radar. This mistruth has persisted to this day, although it is true that carrots contain a vitamin necessary for quickly switching between normal vision and night vision, but there is a difference between a lack of something causing damage and an excess of something causing good.

-PWN-

iFAQ: Miscellany

What is an iFAQ?

An iFAQ is not a new Apple product, instead it is something that takes little bit of effort to create (fine, hate me for it). An iFAQ is a collection of infrequently asked questions, because, let's be honest, most questions in other FAQs are never asked by anyone. Some of the questions featured in these were first published in a magazine I used to edit, then later in a blog I edited. Hopefully they won't be republished again. All of them were written by me or a direct associate anyway so I don't think it necessary to make to much of it. In short, the aim of an iFAQ is to provide answers to questions that are seldom asked, but deserve to earn recognition.

How does a turbocharger work?

Turbochargers work by pressurising air entering an engine and adding more fuel to combust it, so that you can get more torque from fewer cylinders. Superchargers are probably different, but as Jeremy Clarkson puts it: "with a supercharger, air goes in, witchcraft happens and you go faster". In reality, superchargers are less sophisticated versions of turbochargers where the pump to increase pressure is mechanically driven, thus taking horsepower from the engine. Some very large superchargers can use more than a hundred horsepower from the engine to keep them running. Superchargers therefore aid top speed, while turbochargers aid acceleration. Turbochargers are more efficient because they utilise exhaust gases, rather than power from the engine.

What is the lowest point in Microsoft Excel?

1048576. If you're wondering how I found this out, press Ctrl and the down key at the same time in an Excel document.

-PWN-