Tuff Quiz: Trivia For Smart People

The Milky Way has four spiral arms radiating out from a central cluster of stars or "nucleus". Our solar system is located on one of the spiral arms, quite far from the center.

Otiose derives from the Latin otium, meaning leisure, and has sometimes been used in the secondary sense of “indolent” or “idle”. You can pronounce it either “oh-tee-ose” or “oh-she-ose”, but the latter is definitely more high-faluting, and if you’re going to use a word like otiose you might as well go whole hog.

The best-known targets of cryptozoological research are the various forms of “ape-man”, such as the Himalayan yeti and the North American sasquatch; and the sea and lake “monsters”, such as Scotland’s fabled Loch Ness monster.

The land of Etruria occupied what is now Tuscany in central Italy. The origin of the Etruscan people is a riddle that has engaged the interest of historians since ancient times, and is still not settled. Some have held that the Etruscans came from Asia Minor, others that they were indigenous to Italy. What is certain is that the Etruscans, skilled in seafaring, mining and the arts, possessed a complex, vibrant and outgoing culture, with an elaborate, polytheistic religion and a distinctive language and literature. Unfortunately not much of the latter has survived. The heyday of the Etruscans came in about the middle of the millennium, when Rome was ruled by the Etruscan king Tarquin. Within a few centuries, however, they had been displaced by the Latin people who would soon rule not just Italy but much of the known world of that time.

William Shakespeare was born on 23rd April 1564. he died on his birthday in 1616.

Florida is the former holder of this title, but Hawaii overtook it a few years ago because of volcanic activity, which continually enlarges the southernmost of the Hawaiian islands. Puerto Rico would take the crown if it became a state. Florida is the former holder of this title, but Hawaii overtook it a few years ago because of volcanic activity, which continually enlarges the southernmost of the Hawaiian islands. Puerto Rico would take the crown if it became a state.

The prefix “kilo” usually means one thousand: a kilogram is exactly 1,000 grams. For technical reasons, however, computer memories are organized around numbers that are powers of two (numbers that can be obtained by repeatedly multiplying two by itself). 1,024 is such a number (2 raised to the 10th power). The term “kilobyte” is merely a convenient approximation. Similarly, a megabyte is 1,048,576 (1024 times 1024) bytes, rather than exactly one million as the “mega” prefix would suggest.

The first bathyscaphe was created in 1953, when Swiss physicist Auguste Piccard hung a round diving chamber called a bathysphere from a submersible balloon. More people have gone to the moon than have reached a depth of 10,000 feet, and the ocean depths are still largely unexplored.

The holy-water vending machine was invented by the Greek mathematician Hero, or at any rate was first described by him. Visitors to temples in Alexandria, Egypt placed a five-drachma coin in the machine and received a measured amount of holy water for ritual cleansing before joining in the rites conducted within. The machine depended on the weight of the coin to open the valve that allowed the water to flow. Given the relatively simple mechanism, it is quite likely that the first vending machine fraud also occurred at that time. Hero is also credited with devising the first steam engine, although given the widespread availability of slaves it was not put to practical use.

When the Moon is full, half (50%) of its area is visible. Since the far side remains permanently hidden, that would seem to be that. However, irregularities called librations in the Moon’s orbit cause the satellite to wobble slightly.

There are two species of rock hyrax and six of tree hyrax. The latter are also known as “dassies”. The common ancestor of both elephants and hyraxes also gave rise to the sea cows (dugongs and manatees). With such imposing kindred, it is perhaps not surprising that some extinct hyraxes were as large as oxen, a far cry from the rabbit-sized species of the present day.

There are two species of road runner, both native to Central America. They are poor flyers, but — as the name suggests — good runners, attaining sprint speeds of up to 25 kph (15 mph). Although they are cuckoos, road runners do not lay eggs in other birds’ nests.

Anaxagoras believed that there is an infinite number of elements, and that all things include the essence of all other things. This was in contrast to Anaximander, who a century earlier had concluded that there was only one indeterminate primordial substance from which all things are derived. Anaximander is believed to have been the first person to attempt mapping the entire world, which he thought of as a stubby cylinder. Anaximenes of Miletus, a contemporary of Anaximander, had taught that all things ultimately consisted of air at various densities. Anaximenes of Lampsacus (c.380-320 B.C.) was a writer and historian who accompanied Alexander the Great on his Persian campaigns.

Coracles (or “currachs”) are rowing boats made of wood or wicker with a waterproof covering. The knorr was a Norse voyaging ship, while canoes were used by North American aboriginals. A galley was a Greek or Roman vessel, usually rowed by slaves or criminals.

Chemists in the mid-1800s often created new coloring agents in the course of their experiments without realizing their commercial value. Perkin reacted aniline with potassium dichromate. When the product of the reaction was added to alcohol, it turned pinkish-purple. Instead of discarding this accidental product, Perkin used it to dye a piece of silk. It worked so well that he went on to patent the discovery which he named first “mauveine”, then “Tyrian purple” and finally “mauve”, after the French name for the mallow plant, which has purple flowers.

The original illustrator of Alice in Wonderland was John Tenniel. Winnie-the-Pooh and one well-known edition of The Wind in the Willows were illustrated by Ernest H. Shepard.

Brunelleschi (1377-1446), trained as a goldsmith and sculptor in his native Florence, but from the outset displayed a talent for mathematics and technical innovation. From a lifetime of achievements he is most celebrated for rediscovering and enlarging upon the engineering principles used by the architects of ancient Greece and Rome, for developing the science of artistic perspective, and for the monumental engineering feat involved in the construction of the Duomo Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence. In 1421, Brunelleschi devised a barge with a hoist to be used for bringing marble blocks up the river Arno to Florence from the quarries at Carrera. However, he refused to construct the vessel until the city granted him the exclusive right to use his design for a period of three years, and thus was awarded the first technical patent in history.

Wings won the 1927/1928 award for Best Picture (Production). It was the only silent movie to win Best Picture, and the only movie ever to win the award for Engineering Effects, which was dropped the next year. The plot of Wings centers around the adventures of two World War One pilots, both in love with the same girl.

Plywood today consists of layers of veneer glued together in such a way that the grain in adjacent layers is mutually perpendicular, which confers additional strength. The ancient Egyptians crafted objects from such laminates nearly 6,000 years ago.

In later life, Bell lived in Nova Scotia, Canada, where he worked for years with Casey Baldwin to develop a practical hydrofoil watercraft. A hydrofoil has a wing-like structure on its hull that raises the boat out of the water when it is moving; the consequent reduction in drag allows the boat to achieve much greater speeds. In 1919, Bell’s hydrofoil, the HD-4, set a world marine speed record of over 70 miles (110 km) per hour that stood for ten years. The cement-burning kiln was patented by Thomas Edison, the vacuum cleaner by I.W. McGaffers, and the “magic lantern” projector by Henry R. Heyl.