QUIZ for Children

LOWER INTERMEDIATE

SCIENCE
What does your heart pump? Check the answer blood
Which is the nearest star? Check the answer the sun
Which is heavier, gold or silver?Check the answer gold
How many sides does a triangle have? Check the answer three
What is H2O? Check the answer water
How many legs does a butterfly have? Check the answer six
GEOGRAPHY
Which is bigger, a lake or an ocean? Check the answeran ocean
Which country has the most people? Check the answer China.
What is the capital city of Norway?Check the answer Oslo
What is the biggest state in the U.S.A.? Check the answer Alaska
Which country has the biggest land area? Check the answerRussia
In which ocean is Hawaii? Check the answerthe Pacific
SPORTS
What sport is played at Wimbledon? Check the answer tennis
In which country were the 2008 Olympic Games held? Check the answer China
What country does the football player Romario come from?Check the answer Brazil
What is the most popular indoor sport in the U.S.A.?Check the answer basketball
In which sport was Muhammad Ali the world champion? Check the answer boxing
Which famous golf player's mother comes from Thailand?Check the answerTiger Woods
MUSIC
How many strings does a violin have?Check the answer four

How do speed traps work?

How do speed traps work?
Speed trap is a device used by the officers to measure the speed of your vehicle in a particular area where speed limit is enforced. Radar or laser is used to measure the speed while speed trap is a stationary thing in itself.
The element of stealth is used in the working of a speed trap and can surprise the driver running their vehicle more than the speed limit. The policeman using speed trap mostly remains hidden from the sight so that they cannot be located and can easily trap the speed. Mostly these devices are used in the blind corners, near a turn or under an underpass. In such regions officers have the laser gun which is a radar to trace the speed of moving vehicles that pass from there.
Another type of speed trap is placed on the highway passes or off ramps. Generally a driver drives by looking straight in front and he cannot recognize a laser gun or radar in the hands of an officer pointed towards their vehicle and tracing its speed. To know that a vehicle has passed through a speed trap is a flashing light is seen in the mirror of rear view.
Radar speed traps are used by one officer at a time. One traces the speed of vehicle and informs the other about it. Then driver can be investigated ahead.
Stationary speed traps are also used and are also called as photo radar camera. They are placed near the road or inside another vehicle of the officers, parked near the road. This speed trap not only measures the speed but also take the photographs of driver and license plate as the vehicle passes through the area of speed trap. This helps to find the owner through the photographs of license plate. Now the speeding ticket can be posted

ROBOT used in a complicated heart operation.

CHENNAI: A rare heart surgery using a robot was recently perormed in a city hospital on 23-year-old D Vijayakanth, an auto driver from Vellore.

Dr R Ravi Kumar, director of the institute of cardiovascular disease, robotic surgery centre at the Chettinad Health City who controlled the surgery, said on Friday that the robotically-assisted procedure involves replacing both the mitral and the aortal valve simultaneously. The surgery, done by a three armed robot, took four hours and cost Rs 2.25 lakh. "The best part about using a robot in cardiac surgery is that the patient's heart need not be opened and the surgery can be done using a small 4cm incision. This is not possible with normal surgeries without a robot," said Dr Ravi Kumar.
Robotic surgery, which is fairly new in the country, can be used for a gamut of medical procedures, said Dr Ravi Kumar. "It requires a lot of precision and intense training because though the robotic hands do the surgery, it has to be controlled by a trained surgeon. One of the biggest disadvantages is the lack of sensory perception which is there when the surgeon actually does the surgery himself," said Dr Ravi Kumar.
Talking from New Delhi where he is chairman and managing director of Medanta the Medicity, Dr Naresh Trehan, who pioneered robotic surgery in the country, said from a three-armed robot in 2002 to a four-armed robot now, robotic surgery has come a long way. "We have an institute where we train doctors to perform robotic surgeries. There are people who are doing colon surgery, prostate surgery and cardiac surgery using robots almost on a daily basis," he said.
The biggest advantage in this field, said Dr Ravi Kumar, was the time of recovery. He predicted that in the next 10 years almost 80% of the procedures in the country would be done using robots.

Always look for simple solutions.

The Empty Soap Box
One of the most memorable case studies on Japanese management was the case of the empty soap box, which happened in one of Japan's biggest cosmetics companies. The company received a complaint that a consumer had bought a soap box that was empty.
Immediately the authorities isolated the problem to the assembly line, which transported all the packaged boxes of soap to the delivery department. For some reason, one soap box went through the assembly line empty.
Management asked its engineers to solve the problem. Post-haste, the engineers worked hard to devise an X-ray machine with high- resolution monitors manned by two people to watch all the soap boxes that passed through the line to make sure they were not empty.
No doubt, they worked hard and they worked fast but they spent whoopee amount to do so. But when a workman was posed with the same problem, did not get into complications of X-rays, etc but instead came out with another solution.
He bought a strong industrial electric fan and pointed it at the assembly line. He switched the fan on, and as each soap box passed the fan, it simply blew the empty boxes out of the line.
Moral of the story: Always look for simple solutions. Devise the simplest possible solution that solves the problem. So, learn to focus on solutions not on problems. "If you look at what you do not have in life, you don't have anything; if you look at what you have in life, you have everything.

How a sound amplifier works.

The purpose of an amplifier is to receive a small electrical signal and enlarge or amplify it. In the case of a pre-amplifier the signal must be amplified enough to be accepted by a power amplifier. In the case of a power amplifier, the signal must be enlarged much more, enough to power a loudspeaker. Although amplifiers appear to be a mysterious ‘black box’, the basic operating principles are relatively simple. Simply stated, an amplifier receives an input signal from a source (CD player or other source) and creates an enlarged replica of the original smaller signal. The power required to do this comes from the 110-volt wall receptacle. So, an amplifier has three basic connections: an input from the source, an output to the speakers and a source of power from the 110-volt wall receptacle.

The power from the 110-volts is sent to the section of the amplifier known as the power supply where it is converted from alternating current to direct current. Direct current is like the power found in a battery - electrons, or electricity flows in one direction only (alternating current flows in both directions). From the ‘battery’ or power supply the electrical current is sent to a variable resistor, also known as a transistor. The transistor is essentially a valve, like a water valve, that varies the amount of current flowing through the circuit based on the input signal from the source. A signal from the input source causes the transistor to reduce or lower its resistance and allowing current to flow. The amount of current allowed to flow is based on the size of the signal from the input source. A large signal causes more current to flow and results in more amplification than the smaller signal. The frequency of the input signal also determines how quickly the transistor operates. For example, a 100Hz tone from the input source causes the transistor to open and close 100 times per second and a 1,000Hz tone from the input source causes the transistor to open and close 1,000 times per second. So, the transistor controls level (or amplitude) and frequency of the electrical current sent to the speaker, like a valve, and this is how it achieves its amplifying action.

Add a potentiometer, also known as a volume control to the system and you have an amplifier. The volume control allows the user to control the amount of current that goes to the speakers and thus the volume level. There are different types and designs of amplifiers, but essentially they all operate in this manner.

Invention of the Microwave oven

This common kitchen appliance was discovered by accident. Working at Raytheon, Percy Spencer noticed a peanut chocolate bar he had in his pocket started to melt while he was working on an active radar set. It was the microwaves from the radar, not pocket pool,that caused the gooey mess. He then deliberately cooked popcorn, then an egg. Spencer then isolated the microwaves by feeding them into a metal box, rapidly heating the food placed in it. After Raytheon filed a U.S. patent it had the first microwave oven built in 1947. It was 6 feet (1.8m) tall, weighed 750 lbs (340 kg) cost about $5,000.00, and consumed 3000 watts (compared today's standard 1000 watt) Thankfully, today they are a tad smaller and a wee bit more economical. Because of the microwave, ordinary non-scientific types can now generate the heat of the sun's core with the apple cobbler in a Swanson's TV dinner.

Nikola Tesla..the forgotten Inventor.

NIKOLA TESLA
Courtesy Public domainIn 1901, inventor and electrical visionary Nikola Tesla began building a laboratory near New York’s Long Island Sound complete with a gigantic 18-story radio tower that he hoped would not only broadcast wireless communications to the world but also supply free electricity for everyone. His grand schemes, however, never really got off the ground. Before the year was out Guglielmo Marconi (using seventeen of Tesla’s patents) would claim to send the first radio signal across the Atlantic, and soon after, Tesla’s investors - including steel magnate J. P. Morgan - began to lose faith in the project and withheld further funding. Eventually mounting debts, lawsuits and loss of patent income began to take their toll on Tesla and his visionary plans.

Known as Wardenclyffe, the site was designed by noted architect Stanford White. It operated for a few years in the early 1900s, even serving as the inventor’s main laboratory for a time. But by mid-decade Tesla himself abandoned the site, and for years it sat unoccupied falling to ruin. Inner machinery and equipment were salvaged and sold to satisfy monetary obligations, and the massive tower was dismantled for scrap during World War I leaving only its foundation. But the main building still stands today and, despite its dilapidated state, has the distinction of being the only remaining worksite of the brilliant Gilded Age inventor.

Now a group of Tesla devotees are pushing for the site to be preserved and designated as a historical site and memorial to a man they say is worthy of a monument.

Nikola Tesla

Courtesy WikipediaTesla contributions were certainly monumental. The Serbian-born inventor held over 700 patents and introduced to the world such things as fluorescent lighting, the first remote controlled robot, x-ray photographs, and wireless communications. One invention, the Tesla coil, is still used in today’s radios and television sets and other electrical devices. One of his greatest contributions, the development of alternating electrical current (AC) technology, went against his former employer Thomas Edison's big push for direct current (DC). The threatened Edison went so far as to hire a man to electrocute dogs, old horses, and even a rogue elephant(!) to show the public the dangers of AC current. But AC’s superior technology proved more efficient and cheaper, and near the end of his life, Edison admitted Tesla had been right.







Tesla in his element: Typical promotional photo of the inventor

Courtesy Public domainTesla was a bit of a showman when it came to promoting his inventions and theories, often portraying himself in composite photographs sitting peacefully in a display of electric current. During the height of his career he was a wealthy and dapper household name who hobnobbed with the scientific, artistic, and political elite of his day, and had several laboratories in the New York area. In the late 1890s he set up a lab in Colorado Springs to supposedly “transmit a radio signal from Pikes Peak to Paris”. With funding from Colonel John Jacob Astor (who later went down with the Titanic), Tesla built an 80-foot tower on the prairie for that very purpose. Whether or not he achieved his objective remains a mystery, but he and his assistant did manage to put on quite a lightshow for Colorado Springs residents. Reportedly, the tower discharged a high-voltage flurry of 145-foot sparks in every direction that subsequently blew out the power for the entire town. After nine months of experiments, he abandoned the lab and returned to New York to continue his experiments at Wardenclyffe. The Colorado Springs facility was eventually torn down and sold for scrap and no sign of it remains today,



A consortium of science enthusiasts, preservationists, and plain old fans of Tesla’s genius want the Wardenclyffe facilities preserved as a national monument and museum. The group includes Tesla biographer Marc Siefer who helped pen a letter to President Obama asking for the necessary funds to purchase the 10,000-square foot brownstone structure and surrounding acres from the Belgium-based Agfa Corp, which is eager to sell the property to soften the effects of the present economy.



But Siefer and his colleagues think Tesla’s many accomplishments warrant its preservations. For one thing the group contends it was Tesla - not Marconi - who was the true inventor of wireless radio. The issue of who owned the patents for radio broadcast has gone back and forth since the early 20th Century. In 1904 the US Patent Office ruled in favor of Marconi for the patents even though it had ruled in Tesla’s favor in the prior year. Marconi’s many powerful investors may have been the reason for this. After Marconi won the Nobel Prize in 1909 the furious Tesla sued him for infringement and lost again. But in 1943, the US Supreme court proclaimed Tesla was the inventor (probably because the Marconi Company was suing the US government for infringement of the same patents). Unfortunately, for Tesla, this final designation came two months after his death.



Even today, Tesla still seems to elude proper recognition, but Marc Seifer and his colleagues hope to change that by acquiring and preserving Wardenclyffe, a site they say has great historic significance as the last remaining trace of the eccentric inventor’s once grand vision.



“It’s hugely important to protect this site,” Seifer said. “He’s an icon. He stands for what humans are supposed to do — honor nature while using high technology to harness its powers.”

When is the next leap year, and what is the opposite of a leap year called?

When is the next leap year, and what is the opposite of a leap year called?


 February 29th happens every four years and is known as a modern leap day (as opposed to the Medieval leap day: February 24th) or leap year. While the next intercalary year is a solar rotation away (not till 2012), it never hurts to be prepared with origin and precise meaning of the term.

The origin for the term “leap year” is derived from the Medieval Latin saltus lunae or “moon’s-jump” which describes the nineteen-yearly elimination of a day from the lunar calendar. Later, this was transposed into Old English as monan hlyp or “moon’s leap.”

(If you think this already sounds odd, consider the fact that September means “seven,” October means “eight,” yet these are the ninth and tenth months. Learn why this is so, here.)

The Gregorian calendar, modified from the Julian calendar used by the Romans, is the current standard calendar used by most of the world. In order to keep the common calendar cycle synchronized with the seasons, one extra day is added to a year. Adding an additional day to the calendar every four years tries to compensate for the fact that 365 days is actually six hours shorter than a solar year. The other three years are now known as common years.

Other calendars that synchronize with the Gregorian calendar include the Indian National calendar, the revised Bangla calendar and the Thai solar calendar, which uses the Buddhist Era (a lunisolar calendar) but has been synchronized with the Gregorian calendar since 1941.

If your birthday falls on a leap day you’re called a “leaper.” a tradition dating back over four centuries holds that on a leap day a woman may propose to a man. And if the man refuses said proposal? According to a 1288 law enacted by the then five-year-old Queen Margaret of Scotland, the fine for refusing a woman’s proposal was a kiss and a silk gown.

Fielding positions in cricket

I am always confused about te fielding positions in cricket and am not able to follow the commentary or where the ball is going. Let me try with this diagram to understand.

Interesting Facts about some common inventions

Before invention of the thermometer, brewers used to check the temperature by dipping their thumb, to find whether appropriate for adding Yeast. Too hot, the yeast would die. This is where we get the phrase " The Rule of the Thumb".

Sliced bread was patented by a jeweller, Otto Rohwedder, in 1928. He had been working on it for 16 years, having started in 1912.

Joseph Niepce developed the world's first photographic image in 1827. Thomas Edison and W K L Dickson introduced the film camera in 1894. But the first projection of an image on a screen was made by a German priest. In 1646, Athanasius Kircher used a candle or oil lamp to project hand-painted images onto a white screen.

Interesting Fact is that The Sumerians invented writing.

The Sumerians, who lived in the Middle East, invented the wheel in about 3450 BC.

Karl Benz invented the first gas powered car. The car had only three wheels. The first car with four wheels was made in France in 1901 by Panhard et LeVassor.

JOSEPH RECHENDORFER was the first person to think of putting a piece of rubber onto the top of a pencil which makes it real easy to rub out mistakes.

Interesting Facts is that India invented the Number System. Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

Bulletproof vests, fire escapes, windshield wipers, and laserbprinters,all were invented by women.

In Scotland, a new game was invented. It was entitled Gentlemen Only Ladies Forbidden.... and thus the word GOLF entered into the English language.

The first rocket was invented by the Chinese in the 13th century.

False eyelashes were invented by the American film director D.W. Griffith while he was making his 1916 epic, "Intolerance". Griffith wanted actress Seena Owen to have lashes that brushed her cheeks, to make her eyes shine larger than life. A wigmaker wove human hair through fine gauze, which was then gummed to Owen's eyelids. "Intolerance" was critically acclaimed but flopped financially, leaving Griffith with huge debts that he might have been able to settle easily - had he only thought to patent the eyelashes.

The fortune cookie was invented in 1916 by George Jung, a Los Angeles noodlemaker.

Everyone thinks it was Whitcomb Judson who invented the zipper but it was really Elias Howe. Elias was so busy inventing the sewing machine that he didn't get around to selling his zipper invention which he called a "clothing closure".

The Can opener wasn't invented until 48 years after the can.

Diet Coke was only invented in 1982.



Dry cereal for breakfast was invented by John Henry Kellogg at the turn of the century Inventor Samuel Colt patented his revolver in 1836.