I Love Science!

What's not to love? This is where we keep all of our challenging trivia questions, fun links, and anything related to science that's just plain cool.

Science trivia
Interesting facts
Fun science links

Suggest a fact or a link: email scienceadvice@ufv.ca

Q1:		Probability Machine:  How many balls on average will end up in each of the 5 compartments? Hint: An even split at each division helps!
Q2:		In a virtual reality game you are given the chance of fighting a Tyrannosaurus Rex (with a 1in 7 chance of winning) and three smaller Triceratops (with a  1 in 2 chance of winning for each one) one at a time.  Which do you choose? Hint:  Don’t wear yourself out on this one!
Q3:		Can you take a strip of paper, and with a single piece of tape and a single cut, turn it into two joined rings?  Hint:  A double twist does the trick.
Q4:		Where on earth do you weigh less?  The north pole, south pole or equator? Hint: The earth the bulge makes you lighter!
Q5:		Can you use a bathroom scale to measure your weight anywhere in the universe? Hint: It’s all relative!
Q6:		Suppose you have one full mug of juice you wish to share equally with a friend.  With nothing more than the mug in your hand, how can you give your friend EXACTLY half the juice? Hint: It’s all in the angle!
Q7:		Which direction should the first cog turn to turn the last cog clockwise?  Bonus question, if you had 15 cogs which way?  If you had 20 cogs, which way? Hint: What are the odds of getting this?
Q8:		A suitcase falls off an airplane. Which best describes the trajectory of the case as it falls to the ground? Hint: Its not straight-forward!
Q9:		CSI: Two suspects fired shots through a glass window, you know one of them fired first, can you tell from the window which it was? Hint: It’s not all it’s cracked up to be!
Q10:		Can you put the bird in the cage by just looking at this picture?   Hint:  You will have to focus on something other than the problem!
Q11:		Can you take a sheet of paper, 8.5 x 11 inches, and cut a hole in it that you can walk through?  Follow up:  if you have a steady hand and the eye of a surgeon, can you take a 1 inch square piece of paper and cut it so that you can walk through it? Hint: Folding the paper in half makes a lot of sense!
Q12:		You have a chance to win $1,000,000 which is hidden in one of three suitcases.  You get to choose one suitcase, but before you open it, one of the remaining suitcases is opened and it does not contain the money.  Now you have the suitcase you chose, and the one you didn’t choose. You are given the chance to exchange the suitcases.  What do you do? Keep the original one, or choose the remaining closed case?  Hint: First impressions can be deceiving!
Q13:		Why are man-hole covers round?  Hint: It’s a question of safety!
Q14:		You and your friend are having a race in a virtual reality game.  Both of you start at the same spot and have to get to a prize that is on an edge on the other side of the cube.  What is the shortest distance to the prize?  Hint.  Don’t sit on a fence on this one!
Q15:		Consider the following line:  “The last man on earth sat alone in his room. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door."  Can you change one word in this line to make the man’s isolation before the knock even more complete? Hint: Go ask Mom.
Q16:		If you have two identical eggs sitting in front of you, and one is raw, and the other hardboiled, without breaking them, how can you tell which is hardboiled and which is raw? Hint:  Don’t get too spun out about it!
Q17:		What Canadian is known as the "Father of Modern Medicine and the Father of Pathology"?
Q18:		Which Canadians won the Nobel prize for the discover of insulin?
Q19:		Which Canadian born scientist is considered the father of modern-day neuroscience?
Q20:		Who was the clinical scientist who mapped the sensory and motor cortices of the brain while working at the Montreal Neurological Institute?
Q21:		Why are there 111 days in a week?
Q22:		Which Canadian is considered the Father of Kinanthropometry?
Q23:		In which province was  the longitudinal data collected that formed the basis of daily recommended allowances for calcium? Who spearheaded the project?
Q24:		Which Canadian hockey player has the most combined medals in the junior and senior world championship and Olympics?
Q25:		Why does a polar bear have a large body and short legs, and a giraffe have long legs and a small body?
Q26:		Does it take more muscles to frown or to smile?
Q27:		What is the strongest muscle in the body?
Q28:		What is the only free floating bone in the body?
Q29:		On average how much does the human eye blink in a year?
Q30:		What is the only letter not appearing in the periodic table?

A1:		The fifth row of Pascal's triangle provides the answer. The average number of balls that reaches each juncture corresponds to a Pascal's triangle for which each successive row from the bottom is multipled by an additional factor of 2, so that each row has the same sum. In a full-sizes probability machine, which possesses a larger number of balls and branches, the distribution pattern approaches the famous Gaussian curve, also known as the bell curve.
A2:		The three triceratops – the chances of winning all three are at best 1/8, which is less than beating the tyranasaurus Rex!
A3:		Take a strip of paper, put a double twist into it, tape the ends together and cut down the centre of the paper – you have two joined rings.
A4:		The earth is not a perfect sphere, and bulges slightly at the equator.  Thus you are about .5% less at the equator because you are slightly further from the center of the earth’s mass here than at the poles.
A5:		Yes, as weight is relative, the scale will accurately reflect your weight wherever you are, even if you are weightless (ie the scale would read zero).
A6:		Pour the juice out slowly until the surface of the juice in your mug just touches the intersection of the wall and the floor of the mug.
A7:		Odd – the last cog turns the same way as the first cog. Even they turn the opposite way.
A8:		The suitcase follows a parabola. The vertical trajectory is the same as a free fall but the suitcase also carries a horizontal motion imparted by the airplane. Since the vertical motion is accelerating, the curve will become steeper, rather than shallower.
A9:		Glass will crack until it hits an edge or another crack.  Thus the hole with cracks ending in the window frame fired first!
A10:		Stare at the red bird for a minute and then look at the centre of the birdcage. You will see an illusory after-image of a green bird in the cage. There are three types of colour receptors in the eye -- one each for red, green, and blue. The red of the bird in the picture causes the red receptors to adapt, temporarily decreasing their sensibility to red. Since the figure does not reflect much green or blue light, receptors for those colours become considerably more sensitive. When you shift your gaze  to the grey area, the effect of adaptation makes your green and blue receptors overly sensitive -- and the red receptors dulled -- and therefore you see the grey area temporarily as green. Afterimages are a signal that our visual receptors have become fatigued from seeing too much of the same colour.
A11:		Open this PDF to see how to fold and cut the paper to achieve this.
A12:		Switch.
A13.		A round cover is the only cover which won’t fall through the hole designed to hold it!
A14:		Unfold cube draw straight line and this is it.
A15:		There could be one man, many women.  If you change man to person, you know that person is alone.
A16:		Stand the egg on its end and spin it.  The hard boiled egg will spin easily on its end, while the raw egg will not spin well.
A17:		William Osler. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Osler
A18:		Frederick Banting and John McLeod. Most people think it was Banting and Best. Banting shared his prize with lab assistant, Charles Best and McLeod shared his with the biochemist, James Bertram Collip: www.discoveryofinsulin.com/Home.htm
A19:		D.O. Hebb
A20:		Wilder Penfield
A21:		In a computer, numbers are represented as binary numbers, so 111 in binary equals 22 x 1 + 21 x 1+ 20 x 1 = 4 + 2+1 = 7 days (in decimal).
A22:		Bill Ross
A23:		Saskatchewan; Don Bailey
A24:		Fabian Joseph
A25:		Thermoregulation: the bear needs to stay warm to survive and the giraffe needs to stay cool. To adjust body temperature, you change the surface area to mass ratio.
A26:		17 to smile, 43 to frown
A27:		Tongue
A28:		Hyoid bone, which is a a U-shaped bone at the base of the tongue that supports the tongue muscles.
A29:		4, 200,000
A30:		The letter "J"

 Interesting facts

• The largest cell in the body is the female egg, the smallest cell is the male sperm.
• Locusts have leg muscles that are about 1000 times more powerful than an equal weight of human muscle.
• There are more microbial cells in our bodies than there are human cells! In fact 95% of all the cells in the body are bacteria, mainly living in the digestive tract.
• There are more bacteria in the colon than the total number of people who have ever lived.  Human adults excrete their own weight in faecal bacteria every year.
• Most human cells have about 2 meters of DNA in it. Each human has trillions of cells in their body. This means that if one was to stretch out the DNA from each cell into a string, and connect them at their ends, our DNA could travel to the sun and back numerous times.

Fun links

Amusement park physics
Bill Nye the Science Guy
Extreme Science
Greatest Engineering Achievements of the 20th Century
Hilarious House of Frightenstein
How Stuff Works
Human Anatomy Online
Popular Science magazine
Robot Constructor
Rudiments of Wisdom encyclopedia
Science of Hockey
Strange Science
Triumph of the Nerds
Volcano World
Your weight on other worlds