Why doesn’t the UK have fire hydrants?
Of course the UK has fire hydrants. They’re in hatches in the road, where they’re not going to be hit by cars or peed on by dogs. This…
If you went back in time 1 billion years and picked up a rock and simply moved it a couple meters and put it back down, would the world today be much different?
The world would be unrecognizable. I was first brought to this by a single answer, but there are a lot of answers that fail to recognize just how…
What is the strangest place on Earth?
If you’re European and go grocery shopping, you’ll notice that around half of the fruits and vegetables available at any supermarket are from Spain. No shocker here, as…
What would be the scariest thing we discover on another planet?
This question took a little thought, but after a couple days of mulling it over, I have to go with my original gut response. Honestly, the scariest thing…
When Hiroshima was nuked, why didn’t the Japanese tighten air security to save Nagasaki or other cities?
Let’s start with the Hiroshima mission. At the time Little Boy was dropped, there were three Silverplate B-29s in the vicinity of Hiroshima. Colonel Paul Tibbets, leader of…
Why is steel extensively used with concrete?
Concrete is great in compression. You comfortably put 500 times the weight of the concrete on top of concrete with no problem. Unfortunately, concrete totally sucks when it…
If I hack my microwave oven so that it runs with the door off, would this be dangerous?
I did this with a colleague when we were training technicians on microwaves back in the 90s. The unit was 800 watt which was standard back then and…
At what point would a spaceship leaving our solar system become free of it and no longer be a part of the solar systems gravity? Would this effectively increase the speed of the spaceship allowing it to get to another solar system quicker?
The sun’s pull thins as you go. At the heliopause, about 11 billion miles out, the solar wind gives way to what lies between stars — Voyager 1…
If Andromeda is the closest galaxy to us, why have we not started exploring it yet?
A lot of people have already given a sufficient answer but I really like talking about the scale of the Universe. Let me give you some comparisons so…
Why is the Washington Monument built to be 555 feet and 5 inches (555’ 05”) tall? Was it intentional or just a coincidence with all the fives?
Not only is the Washington Monument 555 feet 5 inches tall, it is also 55 feet wide at its base. That’s even more fives! But the reason for…