Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
I don't understand most women.
|
Answer: Trick Question, women don't make any sense
Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
I don't understand how there can be fog in the desert.
|
Answer: Heating and cooling in the atmosphere. Deserts hold no heat at night...
Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
I don't understand how the earth can be spinning at over 1000 miles an hour, yet there's not even a breeze outside right now.
|
Answer: Air has mass. Mass is affected by gravity. Mass and velocity (don't ask how the air got velocity, it would take me awhile to explain
) create momentum. The vector sum of the momentum and the gravity keep air moving at the same speed as the earth.
Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
I don't understand how we can take pictures of parts of the universe that are millions of light years away.
|
Pictures are nothing more than images of light, just like when you take a picture of your car. We just have to use much more sensitive tools to capture light from these great distances. Of course our own atmosphere makes getting these pictures a little more difficult. Once we lauched a space-based camera we can get much better pictures as there is nothing to obstruct the light on it's path to earth.
Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
How did they determine the exact speed of light, anyway?
|
By rotating octagonal mirror reflecting light to a concave mirror located about 35 km away. The light reflecting back from the concave mirror struck another face of the octagonal mirror, and could only be seen by an observer if the octagonal mirror was rotating at certain speeds. (To allow the mirror to make the minimum one-eighth rotation in the time it took the light to make the return trip required the octagonal mirror to make slightly more than 32 000 revolutions per minute.) From the round trip distance the light travelled, and the period of rotation of the octagonal mirror, the speed of light was determined.
Now of course they can use a shorter distance and use very precise instruments to get a more exact answer.
Quote:
Originally posted by PKRWUD
I don't understand how Death Valley can be 280' below sea level, yet remains bone dry.
|
1. Heat evaporates moisture
2. Ground water can not permate the surrounding rock (at all or fast enough to replace evaporating moisture)