During One Spark Berlin event Caspian Sci Fest offered the festival visitors a chance to win an amazing and very inspiring book - The Art of Tinkering. The winners are Ellen and Daniel Kolodzig who were the only ones who found all five correct answers, so technically, there was no raffle. We congratulate the winners and will send them the book shortly!
QUIZ “Which 5 (five) are correct”
1. The driest place on earth is the Sahara
No. According to NASA studies, it’s not Sahara, but Atakama
2. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on earth
When discussing mountains, there is a huge difference in definition between ‘tallest’ and ‘highest’. Mount Everest is the highest, but the tallest mountain on earth is actually in Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This is because ‘highest’ is defined as a measure of mean sea level to summit, while ‘tallest’ is a measurement from the bottom of the mountain to the top. From it’s base to it’s tip, Mauna Kea measures 33,465 feet. In comparison, from base to tip, Mount Everest comes in at a measly 29,029 feet, shorter by more than 4000 feet. With sea level hypothetically removed from the picture, if the two mountains were placed next to each other Mauna Kea would be taller, but because a huge amount of it is under the sea and invisible to most of us the issue of height becomes blurred. Some even believe Mount Kilimanjaro is taller than Everest because it rises straight from the African plain while Everest sits atop the Himalayas.
3. We lose 70% of our body heat through our heads
No, according to the studies it’s proven to be wrong.
4. An ostrich buries its head in the sand when afraid
There are some misperceptions about these animals and this is one of them
5. The “planet” Pluto got its name after a close friend of Walt Disney suggested it
No, it was the other way around
6. A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
This is true! True - gold can be rolled thin enough to be translucent, so thin that it is used as a filter on the helmets of astronauts. According to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), a little gold goes a long way: “Gold is malleable, so it can be flattened into extremely thin sheets. […] Gold leafing—also known as gilding—is an ancient technique. Traditional artisans beat raw gold between pieces of leather until it was almost too thin to be seen. One ounce of gold may be hammered thin enough to cover more than 9 square meters (96.9 square feet) of a surface. The gold leaf may be only 0.18 microns (seven millionths of an inch) thick; a stack of 7,055 sheets would be no thicker than a dime.”
7. The drink Fanta was developed in Germany in the 1930’s. The name came about when the team that had to name it were told (in German!) to use their imaginations
Yes! From “fantastisch” word
8. The liquid inside a coconut is coconut milk
It is called "coconut water". "Coconut milk" is the liquid that comes from the grated meat of a brown coconut.
No. According to NASA studies, it’s not Sahara, but Atakama
2. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on earth
When discussing mountains, there is a huge difference in definition between ‘tallest’ and ‘highest’. Mount Everest is the highest, but the tallest mountain on earth is actually in Mauna Kea in Hawaii. This is because ‘highest’ is defined as a measure of mean sea level to summit, while ‘tallest’ is a measurement from the bottom of the mountain to the top. From it’s base to it’s tip, Mauna Kea measures 33,465 feet. In comparison, from base to tip, Mount Everest comes in at a measly 29,029 feet, shorter by more than 4000 feet. With sea level hypothetically removed from the picture, if the two mountains were placed next to each other Mauna Kea would be taller, but because a huge amount of it is under the sea and invisible to most of us the issue of height becomes blurred. Some even believe Mount Kilimanjaro is taller than Everest because it rises straight from the African plain while Everest sits atop the Himalayas.
3. We lose 70% of our body heat through our heads
No, according to the studies it’s proven to be wrong.
4. An ostrich buries its head in the sand when afraid
There are some misperceptions about these animals and this is one of them
5. The “planet” Pluto got its name after a close friend of Walt Disney suggested it
No, it was the other way around
6. A lump of pure gold the size of a matchbox can be flattened into a sheet the size of a tennis court
This is true! True - gold can be rolled thin enough to be translucent, so thin that it is used as a filter on the helmets of astronauts. According to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), a little gold goes a long way: “Gold is malleable, so it can be flattened into extremely thin sheets. […] Gold leafing—also known as gilding—is an ancient technique. Traditional artisans beat raw gold between pieces of leather until it was almost too thin to be seen. One ounce of gold may be hammered thin enough to cover more than 9 square meters (96.9 square feet) of a surface. The gold leaf may be only 0.18 microns (seven millionths of an inch) thick; a stack of 7,055 sheets would be no thicker than a dime.”
7. The drink Fanta was developed in Germany in the 1930’s. The name came about when the team that had to name it were told (in German!) to use their imaginations
Yes! From “fantastisch” word
8. The liquid inside a coconut is coconut milk
9. The commonest bird in the world is the penguin
In Antarctic, but not the world. The most common bird is domesticated chicken.
10. The first person to win two Noble Prizes for Science was a woman
Yes, Maria Curie is the only person to win twice in multiple sciences (received the Physics Prize in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity and the Chemistry Prize in 1911 for the isolation of pure radium making her the only person to win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences), and was part of the Curie family legacy of five Nobel Prizes. She was also the first woman to become a professor at the University of Paris, and in 1995 became the first woman to be entombed on her own merits in the Pantheon in Paris.
11. The Canary Islands take their name from a bird
Nope, the opposite
12. You can see the Great Wall of China from the moon
No. The wall is a maximum 9.1 m (30 ft) wide, and is about the same color as the soil surrounding it. Based on the optics of resolving power (distance versus the width of the iris: a few millimeters for the human eye, meters for large telescopes) only an object of reasonable contrast to its surroundings which is 70 mi (110 km) or more in diameter (1 arc-minute) would be visible to the unaided eye from the Moon, whose average distance from Earth is 384,393 km (238,851 mi). The apparent width of the Great Wall from the Moon is the same as that of a human hair viewed from 3.2 kilometres (2 mi) away. To see the wall from the Moon would require spatial resolution 17,000 times better than normal (20/20) vision.
13. The very first living things sent to space were mice
You might think it was dog laimed Laika, since it is such a famous story, but these were food flies Drosophilas aboard a U.S.-launched V-2 rocket on February 20, 1947 from White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico. Laika was sent into space on November 7, 1957 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of Bolshevik revolution. On August 31, 1950, the U.S. launched a mouse into space.
14. Camels store water in their humps
No. Camels do not directly store water in their humps as was once commonly believed. The humps are actually reservoirs of fatty tissue: concentrating body fat in their humps minimizes the insulating effect fat would have if distributed over the rest of their bodies, helping camels survive in hot climates. When this tissue is metabolized, it yields more than one gram of water for every gram of fat processed. This fat metabolization, while releasing energy, causes water to evaporate from the lungs during respiration (as oxygen is required for the metabolic process): overall, there is a net decrease in water.
15. The word “electricity” comes from the Greek word for lightning
No. It means “amber”.
16. A coin dropped from the Empire State building would kill you if it landed on your head
No. It is an urban legend. When an object falls to earth it gains speed. It eventually gains so much speed that it doesn't accelerate anymore, this is called Terminal Velocity. If a human were to jump off a plane he would accelerate to his terminal velocity. If you take the mass of an average grown human, his terminal velocity would be about 100 something miles per hour. But the mass of a penny is only about 1 gram, so its terminal velocity would only be about 56mph. That means that the penny would accelerate to this speed and then it won't accelerate any more and it will maintain this current speed. You also have to take into consideration that on a building as high as the empire state building wind rushes up the sides so your measly little penny would simply be blown away. In the slim chance that it would hit a pedestrian, it would more than likely sting but he would be able to walk away and live another day. It is unlikely that the penny would even penetrate the skin of the human.
17. India has more tigers than any other country
The way question is posed, it is not since India is the world’s largest habitat of wild tigers.
18. The sun is white
Yes! From our perspective it does look a little yellow, especially after sunrise or shortly before sunset. If you could travel into space and look at the Sun without going blind, you’d find that it’s actually white, and not yellow.
Using a prism, you can see how sunlight can be broken up into the spectrum of its colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When you mix all those colors together, you get white.
19. Cats are not mentioned in the Bible
They are! Namely Bar., vi, 21.
20. The largest living life form is a fungus
It’s TRUE! Because of their underground root system some fungus can be spread for kilometers
