Shik
Starship database: completed; History of Starfleet: done; website: probably never
Member # 343
posted
1. What works best in your car, all water, all anti-freeze or half and half? And why? Half & half. As I remember Kerry Zerrener telling me, it something t'do with allowing the cooling properties of the water to work, but not allowing it all to freeze/boil off due to temperature stresses.
2. What's the difference between an apoapsis and an apogee? Nothing, except that Apogee is also John Dykstra's VFX company.
3. The real Voyager probes used RTGs to provide electrical power. What does RTG stand for and how does it work? Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator. Basically, it's a small nuclear power plant. The radioactive isotopes in the power cell (a plutonium-238 derivative, I think) decay slowly. The heat & radiation then powers a small onboard electric generator, which in turn provides power to the onboard instrumentation.
4. How does a turbojet engine work? A turboJET? Oh, that's simple.The first stage is the compressor, usually 7 or 8 inline fan blades. It increases the pressure of the incoming air until made extremely hot. After the compressor are the fuel injectors, which dump in the fuel to ignite it & cause thrust. Expanding rapidly & exiting through to the back, the gases then turn a single turbine, which is at the rear end of the same shaft as the compressor fans; this keeps the cycles going because the turbine is spun by the gasses, the turbine spins the shaft, & the shaft keeps the compressor going. After the turbine is the flame holder & then the exhaust nozzle. Turbojets are not widely used anymore & have long been replaced by turbofans.
5. How does a laser work? Stimulated emission. The energy released from one excited atom interacts with another atom that is also excited. The interaction causes the 2nd atom to release its own energy as light, & so on down the line. Since most of the light produced by the reaction has the same frequency as the triggering reaction, it travels in the same direction, thus recombining with & amplifying the triggering light--thus, coherent light.
6. How many bytes are in a Kilobyte, Megabyte, and Gigabyte? 1024; 1,024,000; 1,024,000,000
------------------ "Do you know how much YOU'RE worth??.....2.5 million Woolongs. THAT'S your bounty. I SAID you were small fry..." --Spike Spiegel
posted
Actually, it's 1,048,576 bytes in a megabyte and 1,073,741,824 in a gigabyte.
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posted
1. What works best in your car, all water, all anti-freeze or half and half? And why?
Half-and-half, I suppose, though I couldn't have said before that that was the right ratio. Regardless, though, all of one or the other won't do anything. It's the act of mixing them that lowers the freezing point.
2. What's the difference between an apoapsis and an apogee?
Hm... "Apogee" is the point where something is farthest in its orbit from Earth. (I think the term is also applied to other things, but, technically, the "gee" means "Earth".) I really don't know what an apoapsis is, though. Sounds medical...
3. The real Voyager probes used RTGs to provide electrical power. What does RTG stand for and how does it work?
I really have no idea...
4. How does a turbojet engine work?
I'm not sure of the specifics... I believe it involves sucking air in through the front of the engine and blasting it out the back to produce thrust...
5. How does a laser work?
The light gets bounced back and forth between two mirrors and then released in a compact beam. Well, I used to know some of the more complicated stuff, anyway... :-)
6. How many bytes are in a Kilobyte, Megabyte, and Gigabyte?
210 (1024), 220(1 048 576), 230 (1 073 741 824)
------------------ "I'm sick of you little girl and boy groups: all you do is annoy me, so I have been sent here to destroy you..." -Eminem, "The Real Slim Shady"
posted
Ok, the only problems this time was that an apoapsis is for a generic orbit and an apogee is just for earth. The -gee ending is used for earth and -helion is for the sun just for a little trivia. And an RTG generates power with a thermalcouple, which is basically a sheet of metal, with one side one metal and the other different. It makes an electric charge when heated, and the heat comes from a radioactive isotope.
If you want more I'll really have to dig and get some tough ones. I have a couple, but not enough to make it worth while. Anyone else have a good quiz?
------------------ It doesn't matter if you don't know what you're doing as long as you look good doing it.
Saiyanman Benjita
...in 2012. This time, why not the worst?
Member # 122
posted
Well, I missed that one by about a half hour, How do you do that, fructose?
------------------ Look at the past few years: Jimmy Carter: Who we kidding, Valium Posterchild. We go to: Ronald Reagan, Howdy Doody Sr. If it keeps getting benign, we might end up with: Mr. Rogers, "Can you say Armageddon? Oops, too late." Or we can get macho and have: Jack Nicholson vs. Clint Eastwood, Shortest debate in history, all Jack will have to say is "How can you debate me, you haven't opened your goddammed eyes in twenty years."
But really, I tried to give you all day. Sorry.
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