| 2381/
During the 1870s, the standard monetary unit of trade used
around much of the world, and particularly in the emerging
markets of the Orient, was the Mexican silver peso. The peso,
nearly identical to the American silver dollar in size and
silver content, had the advantage of being slightly heavier;
the peso weighed in at 418 grains while the dollar weighed
412 1/2 grains.
2382/ At sea level, every
portion of our bodies is subjected to an air pressure of 14.7
pounds per square inch.
2383/ However, in water,
pressure increases at the rate of an additional 0.433 pounds
per square inch for every foot which we descend at a depth
of two feet.
2384/ Therefore, confining
pressure on the rib cage (assuming about two square feet of
surface area for an average chest) totals about 250 pounds!
2385/ The more massive
the celestial body, the greater the escape velocity for a
space vehicle in order to obtain orbit . For instance, the
escape velocity on the Moon is only about 3000 mph; for the
planet Mercury, about 7900 mph; for Mars, about 11,000 mph;
and for giant Jupiter, a whopping 133,000 mph.
2386/ This is why the
great planets such as Saturn and Jupiter have such dense atmospheres,
and the smaller planets such as Mercury and the Moon have
none. Escape velocities on the giants are much too high for
even high-speed gas molecules to escape, while the smaller
planets do not have enough gravity to hold onto them.
2387/ Spearmint and caraway
have two noticeably different aromas. Yet the molecule that
causes those aromas is exactly the same in all respects except
for the left or right-handed arrangement of one carbon atom
in the compound.
2388/ Tree ring chronologies
have shown that each year of constitutional crisis in Athens
between 632 B.C. and 510 B.C. a time when democracy was being
forced on the aristocracy - was preceded by one or two dry
years.
2389/ The earth rotates
on its axis a full 360 degrees in 24 hours. Therefore, the
sun appears to move at a rate of 15 degrees per hour and local
time varies from place to place as one moves east or west.
An international system of 24 time zones was established in
1884 to avoid the inconvenience of numerous differences in
local times.
2390/ Cold air is more
dense than warm air; hence, light rays are always bent in
the direction of the colder air layers.
2391/ The North Magnetic
Pole is currently located in Northern Canada. It wanders in
an elliptical path each day.
2392/ Temperature is
a measure of the velocity at which molecules of a substance
vibrate. The molecules of ice water vibrate more slowly than
the molecules in a pan of boiling water. Hot air molecules
vibrate more rapidly than cold.
2393/ the temperature
of a molecule at an altitude of 400 miles approaches 2300°F,
and this temperature gets even hotter up to about 600 miles
where the earth's gravitational field can no longer hold onto
the now highly-energetic particles and they escape into space.
If an astronaut at this altitude were to stick his hand out
of the window, he would not feel heat because the molecules
are so widely dispersed. He would encounter instead a very
bitter cold, unless the hand was in the sunlight, in which
case he would get a very bad sunburn because the "air"
is too thin to shield the sun's rays.
2394/ Wood is 55-75%
glucose in the form of cellulose.
2395/ Modern smokeless
explosives are prepared by treating cotton with nitric acid.
2396/ The single most
important quality in the insulating property of a material
is its capacity to "loft," or contain air.
2397/ Some people who
have two or more different kinds of fillings in their teeth
are able to hear high-power AM broadcast stations when located
within a few hundred feet of the stations. In such cases,
the strong radio waves act upon the teeth fillings in such
a way that the electromagnetic oscillations get transformed
to mechanical vibrations in the person's head, and these are
heard as sound.
2398/ Methyl alcohol,
also called methanol or wood alcohol, was discovered in 1661.
2399/ Wood contains,
by weight, roughly two percent methyl alcohol, so a ton of
wood will yield about 24 liters (6 gallons) of methyl alcohol.
2400/ One source claims
a single cord of pitch pine will yield 50 bushels of charcoal,
1000 cubic feet of methane gas, 50 gallons of a burnable mixture
of oil and tar, 1.5 barrels of pitch, 20 gallons of turpentine,
1 barrel of tar, and 100 gallons of a gooey mixture of acetic
acid and methyl alcohol, in addition to 5 gallons of pure
methyl alcohol. So wood can produce a variety of useful substances.
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