21

How large is a googol in real terms? The number of grains of sand lying on the beach at Coney Island has been calculated at about 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 – one followed by only 20 zeros. Much smaller than a googol!

25

An increase in global water temperatures of only 2°F could raise the ocean level by two feet; melting ice caps could creating extreme flooding and changing the face of the landscape the world over…Low-lying cities, such as New York and New Orleans, would be the first to be affected. It has been estimated that if sea levels rose no more than 26 feet, senators of the future would travel from the Capitol by boat to visit the White House!

38

Intriguingly, a similar mass extinction has ushered in the reign of the dinosaurs. Indeed, over the last 600 million years of life on earth, there seems to have been a cataclysmic change roughly every 60 to 70 million years, and smaller changes roughly every 30 million.

25

In 1896 the French physicist Henri Becquerel noticed that pitchblende had one very unusual property: photographic plates exposed to a sample of pitchblende reacted as if they had been exposed to light. This property was called radioactivity, but at the time many scientists dismissed it as being of little importance. However, the investigation of what caused the radioactivity was to lead to one of the most significant discoveries in science, a discovery that laid the foundations for modern nuclear physics.

22

An odd device patented in Britain in 1904 by a Prussian count, Vladimir Skorzewski, was a compressed air walking assister. It consisted of a seat and handlebars, shock absorbers, and leg extensions and soles attached to stirrups. The count’s notion was that the shock absorbers at the contraption’s joints would function much like a series of miniature pogo sticks. The user could bound along the street and still enjoy the comforts of sitting down while “walking”.

0

For all us nerds >;P jk.

16

Although evidence is scanty, it appears that four monkeys were the first animals to enter the earth’s stratosphere via a V – 2rocket launched from White Sands, New Mexico, in 1951. The next year Aerobee rockets with monkeys and mice on board were frequently launched to test the effects of weightlessness. But usually the U.S.S.R. is credited with having started the age of space travel by launching the dog Laika into orbit on board Sputnik two on November 3, 1957.

26

The stories behind several are probably apocryphal: For example, Joseph Michael Montgolfier is said to have conjured up the idea of ballooning when he saw his wife’s chemise, drying by fire, rise up as it became filled with hot air. A number of other such stories, however, are known to be true…

20

The sex drive is powerful but it can and should be controlled. We do not have to give in to our sexual desires. We can think before we act. We can consider the consequences. We can decide what we will or will not because we are human beings with dignity and self-control.

28

According to the Principle of Conservation of Momentum, the expulsion of hot gases through the rear of rockets or air crafts will produce a large momentum in the opposite direction. The forward thrust of a jet engine enables the aircraft to move forward while the upthrust of a rocket engine enables the rocket to propel upwards..