Test Your Knowledge: Common Materials

Explain what the following materials are:

• concrete


• fiberglass


• gasoline


• plastic


• steel

We all discuss and think of many things with a lot of familiarity, but we don't necessarily know a lot about them.

Test Your Knowledge: For Texas Football Fans

What is Colt McCoy's...... major?

Test Your Knowledge: In the UK, they're "mobiles"

Why do we call mobile phones "cell phones?"

Here's a subtle hint: the improved battery life and reduced size of modern phones isn't solely due to improved battery technology.

Noms d'etat

Name 4 of the (I think) 9 United States that are named after a person. Bonus points for exactly naming the person. Even more bonus points for naming the Canadian provinces with the same property.

Test Your Knowledge: The electromagnetic spectrum

Name the 7 main components of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Test Your Knowledge: Presidential Surnames

A little sneakier and harder: how many distinct Presidential surnames have there been?

Test Your Knowledge: Napoleon

When and where was Napoleon's final battlefield defeat?

Test Your Knowledge: the Sun and the Moon

Within 10%, in the units of your choice (but not AU), how far away are the sun and the moon?

Test Your Knowledge: Population of the Permanent Five

What are the populations (within 10%) of the 5 permanent members of the UN Security Council?

Really, it's two questions, but the first one should be trivial.

Test Your Knowledge: Einstein's Miraculous Year

For a long time, I've been wanting to post a sampling of things that I think you should know off the top of your head if you consider yourself well educated. Test Your Knowledge, or, Things Y'oughta Know. I know, it's rather presumptuous. Who am I to say? Of course I'll pick things that I already know. But you're here, so...

First up, Albert Einstein's "annus mirabilis," 1905. In that year, Einstein published not one, not two, but four amazing and ground-breaking papers in physics explaining physical phenomena or proposing new theories. What were the topics of at least two of the four papers? I only remembered three; only when I was checking my answers on Wikipedia did I learn of the one published September 27. I'm reading a book that mentioned the second one listed in the Wikipedia article, which prompted this post, but I would have known that one anyway.