| 3241/ Light is
really an electromagnetic wave. Each wave has brightness and
color, and vibrates at a certain angle, so-called polarization.
This is also true for laser light but it is more parallel
than any other light source. Every part of the beam has (almost)
the exact same direction and the beam will therefore diverge
very little. With a good laser an object at a distance of
1 km (0.6 mile) can be illuminated with a dot about 60 mm
(2.3 inches) in radius.
3242/ Since 1966, Marlene Williamon,
of Charleston, South Carolina, USA, has collected 3,300 individual
coffee mugs.
3243/ China overtook the US in
having the world's largest number of mobile phone users, with
120.6 million, at the end of July 2001.
3244/ X-ray quanta has energies
which are more than 10,000 times larger than those of light.
3245/ The Navel Orange, so named
for their "belly button" at the blossom end, were
discovered in the 1820's as an unusual growth on a Salata
tree in Salvador, Brazil, but are believed to have originated
in China.
3246/ In the United States the
principal orange-producing states are Florida, California,
Texas, and Arizona. From 1991 to 1992 the yield of oranges
in the United States was about 10 million metric tons.
3247/ Every man, women and child
in the US "consumes" about 74 cubic ft. of wood
each year. That wood comes in many forms from construction
lumber to furniture to tissue paper to packaging and energy.
If the 74 cubic feet were dry Douglas-fir, it would weigh
over 2300 lbs.! (USDA Forest Service Gen. Tech Report FPL-GTR-116,
1999)
3248/ As a construction material,
wood is 4 times more efficient as an insulator than an equivalent
thickness of cinder block, 6 times more efficient than brick,
15 times more efficient than concrete, 306 times more efficient
than steel, and 1,770 times more efficient than aluminum.
3249/ 44 percent (or about 45
million tons per year) of all paper in the United States is
recovered for recycling each year. The industry intends to
increase this to 50 percent by the year 2002.
3250/ The American forest products
industry provides jobs for one and a half million Americans
and contributes more than $200 billion to the national economy.
3251/ Four-fifths of the wood
harvested in developing countries, and 55% of all wood harvested
in the world, is consumed as fuel. Wood is the principal energy
source for cooking and heating for almost half of the world's
population.
3252/ Global wood consumption
has tripled this century, roughly paralleling population growth.
3253/ In 1997, forest landowners
planted nearly 1.6 billion seedlings. That is more than 5
trees for each American. This does not include the natural
regeneration of managed forests.
3254/ The forest products industry
is one of the top ten largest United States manufacturing
industries.
3255/ Today the United States
has far more trees than in the 1920's and grows over one-third
more wood than is used and lost to natural causes each year.
3256/ About 70% of all metal
is used just once and then discarded. The remaining 30% is
recycled. After 5 cycles, only one-fourth of 1% of the metal
remains in circulation.
3257/ Making tin cans from recycled
steel takes only one-fourth of the energy needed to make them
from new steel and created only one-fourth of the water and
air pollution created by making cans from new steel.
3258/ Americans throw away enough
steel every year to build all the new cars made in America.
3259/ In 1989, enough scrap copper
was recycled in the U.S. to supply the wiring and plumbing
for every building constructed during that year.
3260/ Each year, steel recycling
saves the energy equivalent to electrically power about one-fifth
of the households in the United States (or about 18 million
homes) for one year.
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