What are the highest clouds in the sky?

High clouds include cirrus, cirrostratus and cirrus cumulus. These clouds are formed mainly of ice crystals.Cirrus clouds are wispy clouds and can form at heights up to 10,000 meters. The rare nacreous or mother - of peral clouds can be over 20,000 meters high.

What famous document begins: "When in the course of human events..."?
A: The Declaration of Independence.

What current branch of the U.S. military was a corps of only 50 soldiers when World War I broke out?
A: The U.S. Air Force.

Who said: "I'm the president of the United States and I'm not going to eat any more broccoli"?
A: George Bush.

What so-called "war" spawned the dueling slogans "Better Dead Than RED" and "Better Red Than Dead" in the 1950's?
A: The Cold War.

What president was shot while walking to California Governor Jerry Brown' office?
A: Gerald Ford.

Who earned infamy for noting: "A billion dollars isn't worth what it used to be"?
A: J. Paul Getty.

What ethnic group was largely responsible for building most of the early railways in the U.S. West?
A: The Chinese.


What former speaker of the U.S. House has a chair in peace studies named for him at the University of Ulster?
A: Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill.

What was a gladiator armed with, in addition to a dagger and spear?
A: A net.

What future Soviet dictator was training to be a priest when he got turned on to Marxism?
A: Joseph Stalin.

What election year saw bumper stickers reading "Wallace, Wallace, Uber Alles"?
A: 1968.

What 20th-century conflict was dubbed the "forgotten war" despite 54,246 U.S. deaths?
A: The Korean War.

What single name is more commonly applied to Holy Roman Emperor Charles the Great?
A: Charlemagne.

Who was the last president of the Soviet Union?
A: Mikail Gorbachev.

What had Pliny the Younger seen erupt when he wrote: "We were terrified to see everything changed, buried in ashes like snowdrifts"?
A: Mount Vesuvius.

Who saw the turtleneck he wore at cease-fire talks in Bosnia fetch $5,000 at auction?
A: Jimmy Carter.

What Alabama city saw state troopers attack Civil Rights marchers on Edmund Pettis Bridge?
A: Selma.

What Texan ended up with one delegate after spending $12 million of his own money running for president in 1980?
A: John Connally.

What congressional award was Dr. Mary Edwards Walker the first woman to receive?
A: Medal of Honor.

What modern vehicle was invented to circumvent trench warfare?
A: The Tank

What California city did the last Pony Express ride end in?
A: Sacramento.

Who was the first U.S. president to adopt the informal version of his first name?
A: Jimmy Carter.

What civil rights leader did Dorothy Parker leave the bulk of her estate to?
A: Martin Luther King Jr.

What did Republicans call the platform they hyped in the 1994 Congressional elections?
A: The Contract With America.

What brave-hearted Scottish patriot led soldiers to a defeat of the English at the Battle of Cambuskenneth in 1297?
A: William Wallace.

What nation issued the five-dollar bill found in Abraham Lincoln's pocket when he was shot?
A: The Confederate States of America.

What political system was gradually dismantled in South Africa, starting in 1989?
A: Apartheid.

What was 11th-century Spanish military leader Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar better know as?
A: El Cid.

QUESTION: How does a computer use its memory?


A computer has four main parts. It has a central processing unit or 'brain'. It has an input that feeds in data (usually linked to a keyboard), and an output unit that produces finished work (for example, as a print out on paper). The fourth and the vital part is the memory unit, where the computer stores the information it needs to carry out its work. The computer stores this data as electrical charges on magnetic disks.


QUESTION: How do bar codes work?


In asupermarket, the checkout assistant 'reads' each item in your troley electronically by scanning the pattern of black and white stripes marked on the package. This pattern is the bar code, containing information which is passed automatically to a main computer, recording each item sold.


QUESTION: What is light?


No one really knows what light is made of. In the 1600s Sir Isaac Newton thought light was made up of bullet-like particles which he called corpuscles. The Dutch scientist Christian Huygens thought light was made up of pulses, or waves, travelling through space. Modern science has found truth in both theories. Light certainly does travels in waves, but it also behaves as if it were made of particles. Scientists now call these light particles photons.

Light is a form of energy, similar to heat. It is the only type of energy we can see. Light comes from a start such aas the Sun and travels trough space. Stars shine as a resilt of their immense nuclear energy.


QUESTION: How does light travel?


Light travels at enormous speed, at roughly 300,000 kilometers a second (186,000 miles a second). At this speed, the light from the Sun still takes more than eight minutes to reach the Earth. The speed of light was first measured accurately in 1676, by Olaf Roemer of Denmark. Nothing travels faster than light.


QUESTION: What makes a light bend?


Light is bent when it is bounced back from a surface, such as mirror. This bending is called reflection. Light is also bent when it travels from one transparent surface to another. This bending is called refraction. It explains why a pencil standing half in and half out of water looks broken.


QUESTION: What makes the colours of the rainbow?


The rainbow is a nature's spectrum. Falling drops of rain behave like tiny prisms. They break up white sunlight into the colours of the spectrum. The first person to show that white light is a mixture of colours was Sir Isaac Newton. Between 1665 and 1666, he carried out experiments in a darkened room. He put a glass prism in a beam of sunlight streaming trough a small hole in the wall, and saw it split into the colours of the rainbow : red, orange, yellow, green, indigo and violet. When he placed a second prism in the coloured beam, he saw the light rays bend back and become white again.


QUESTION: Why do mirrors reflect our images?


Everything reflects light but most surfaces are rough, so the light is diffused or spread in all directions. A mirror's smooth, shiny surface reflects light much more accurately as parallel rays so giving a clear image.


QUESTION: When was the first photograph taken?


The earliest known photograph was taken by the French scientist Joseph Niepce in 1826. It was made on an asphalt-coated pewter plate, and shows a view from a window. The exposure took eight hours.

In the 1830s and 1840s two new photographic processes were developed. They were the daguerreotype of the Frenchman L.J.M. Daguerre and the calotype of the Englighman W.H. Fox Talbot. The Daguerreotype used a silver-copper plate instead of glass. It took a minute to expose the plate. In 1888 the American George Eastman invented the Kodak camera, which used rolled films instead of plates.


QUESTION: Who discovered X-rays?


The German scientist Wilhelm Roentgen discovered X-rays by accident in 1895. He was experimenting with a cathode ray tube and noticed that crystals in the same room glowed when the tube was switched on. Even when he moved the crystals to the next room, they still glowed. Roentgen realizedf that invisible rays were causing the glow. The rays could even penetrate solid walls. he called them x-rays (X = unknown).


QUESTION: How radar was invented?


Radar was invented in the 1930s. It worked by transmitting a radio beam from the gorund. Any object crossing the beam (such as an aircraft) produced an 'echo', and this could be recieved on the ground and used to work out the height and position of the aircraft.


QUESTION: How did the laser get its name?


The first laser was made in 1960 by an American scientist, Theodore H. Maiman. Its name caomes from a set of initials that stand for a Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation. A laser produces a powerful beam of light so powerful it can burn a hole through metal. Unlike the light from the torch, a laser beam spreads hardly at all.

QUESTION: Who proved that lightning was electric?


In 1752, the American scientist Benjamin Franklin determined to find out if electricity and lightning were connected. He carried out a very dangerous experiment. He took a kite and attached to it a metal rod. Then he tied the end of the kite string to a door key and went out into a thunderstorm. When he flew the kite into a thunder cloud, he saw sparks from the cloud passed from the kite down the string to the key. Never try this experiment yourself.
After this, Franklin made and tested the first lightning conductor. Today, all tall buildings are fitted with lightning conductors, which attract lightning more readily than the buildings. The connecting cable safely carries the electricity to the ground, preventing damage to the building.


QUESTION: Who made the first battery?

Alessandro volta (1745-1827) was an Italian scientist interested in electricity. In 1799, Volta used zinc and copper discs seperated by damp paper to make a 'cell' that produced an electrical current. By standing several cells in a pile, He discovered that he could produce a stronger current. Volta improved his 'voltaic pile' by using acid or salt solution instead of water to moisten the paper. He made the first battery.


QUESTION: What is a magnet?


A magnet is a piece of metal with the power to attract other sunstances. Iron and steel make good magnets. A magnet has two poles, north and south, near to its ends. Unlike poles (north and south) attract each other, just as opposite (+) and (-) electrodes do. Like poles (north and south) repel each other. Try putting two bar magnets together and watch waht happens. Can you tell which are the magnets' like poles?


QUESTION: Who discovered electromagnetism?


In 1820 a Dane, Hans Christian Oersted, discovered the magnetic effect. He was working with a battery and an electrical circuit, when he noticed that every time
he bought a wire through which current was flowing near a magnetic compass, the compass needle jumped. When he disconnected the wire from the battery, the compass needle jumped again. Oersted's discovery that magnetism and electricity were closoely connected, and that one could produce the other, was of immense scientific importance.


QUESTION: How does a simple dynamo work?


A dynamo is a generator that turns the mechanical energy into electrical energy. Its has an armature ( a coil able to spin on its axis) positioned between the poles of a magnet. When the armature turns, a current flows in the coil each time it crosses the force field of the magnet.

An electric motor works in the opposite way to a dynamo. It turns electrical energy into mechanical energy. When the current is passed through the coil, the armature rotates and keeps moving for as long as the current continues to flow.


QUESTION: Where does electricity come from?


The electricity that we use is made by giant generators, or dynamos, in power stations. A thermal power station converts heat into electricity by burning fuel to boil water to produce steam. The steam drives turbine generators. The fuel may be oil, coal or nuclear fuel (uranium). A second kind of power station uses the energy of moving water to drive the generators and is called a hydroelectric power station.


QUESTION: How does a fuse act as a safety device?


A fuse cuts off the electricity supply in a circuit when something goes wrong. Inside the fuse is a thin wire, able to carry a safe amount of current but no more. If an electrical appliance overheats it will start to use more electricity. The thin wire in the fuse (usually in the plug) heats up and melts. This breaks the circuit and cuts off the electricity.


QUESTION: What makes a light bulb glow?


The thin wire, or filament, inside a light bulb resisit the flow of current through it. When electricity is passed through the bulb, the filament becomes hot and glows brightly. To prevent the filament burning away completely, the glass bulb is filled with a mixture if inert gases (usually argon and nitrogen). The filament in most light bulbs is made of tungsten.


QUESTION: How do 'electronic eyes' work?


When light strikes certain substances, an electrical effect is produced. This electricity is called photoelectricity. The 'magic eye' that automatically opens door as you approach, or operates a burglar alarm , is worked by photoelectricity. A beam light shines on a photoelectric cell. When the beam is interrupted (by someone walking through it) the cell activates an electrical circuit. The circuit may start a motor open a door or (in a burglar alarm) set off a bell.



QUESTION: What is an integrated circuit?

An integrated circuit is a complicated arrangement of transistors and other components on a single piece, or chip, of semiconductor material. The first one was made in 1958. Making circuits smaller and smaller allows an amount of electronic power to be contained in a tiny space. HUndred of electronic components can be fitted into an integrated circuit the size of aletter in this sentence.


QUESTION: Why do microchips work so quickly?


Inside a microchip, the components are crammed together into a very tiny space. Electricval charges can move between them in almost no time at all, sao the chip does it work at amazing speed.

QUESTION: What is the difference between nuclear fission and nuclear fusion?


Bothe of these are kinds of nuclear reaction. In fission a heavy nucleus {usually uranium} splits. In fusion, light nuclei fuse comes together. Fusion produces a thermonuclear reaction and is the most powerful source of energy known. Nuclear fission is used in nuclear power stations and in atomic bombs. Fusion is used in hydrogen bombs and may one day be harnessed to provide unlimited power, using a hydrogen like fuel called deuterium found in sea water.


QUESTION: What happened at chernobyl?


In April 1986 there was a serious accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power station in Ukraine (then part of USSR). A reactor exploded and radioactivity poisoned plants and animals. Some people died. Many others were moved to new homes away from the area. The reactor sealed in concrete forever.


QUESTION: What is an isotope?

Nearly all elements have atoms of two or more different weights. Atoms that belong to the same element, yet have different weights are called isotopes. For example, hydrogen has three isotopes which are called protium,deuterium and tritium.


QUESTION: Why can a nuclear submarines stay at the sea for such a long time?


A nuclear submarine is driven by turbine engines which use steam heated by a nuclear reactor. The reactor uses so little fuel the submarine seldom has to return to port to refuel. The world's fisrt nuclear-powered submarine was the US Navy's NAUTILUS (1955). A lump of uranium fuel the size of an electric light buld provied enough energy to drive the submarine 100,000 kilometers. In 1960 USS Triton circled the worl under water in three months without refuelling.


QUESTION: What is a mineral?


Gold, silver and mercury are examples of pure elements, but most chemical elements
react with other elements so readily that they are not found singly on earth. Instead, they combine with on another as minerals. Some 3,000 minerals are known.


QUESTION: Why does iron goes rusty?


When a piece of unpainted iron or steel is left outside in the damp air, it soon goes rusty. Rust can eat into the surface of meatal objects, such as car bodies. Rust is an example of chemical reaction, or combination, between the iron in the car bodywork and the oxygen in the air. This reaction is called oxidation and produces iron oxide, or rust. A coating of paint, of of a non-rusting meatal such as chrome, prevents rust by stopping oxygen reaching the iron.


QUESTION: What is a chemical reaction?

When two or more substances are put together, they may mix, as when you mix sand and water in a bucket, but remain seperate substances. However, if a chemical reaction takes place, they may undergo a chemical change and become a different kind of substance. For example, when zinc is added to hydrochloric acid, a reaction occurs. The products are hydrogen gas and zinc chloride.


QUESTION: What is a compound?

A compound is a substance made up of two or more elements which cannot be seperated by physical means. For example, water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen. Each water molecule is made up of two hydrogen atoms joined to one oxygen atom by invisible forces called bonds.


QUESTIONS: What are diamonds made of?


Diamond is a form of carbon. It is the hardest substance known. Natural, uncut diamonds look dull and have no lustre. The brilliant gems that are so valuable are made by careful cutting and polishing.


QUESTIONS: Which is the most abundant metal on Earth?

The metal found most plentifully in the Earth's crust is aluminum, which makes up about 8 percent of the crust. It is found not as a pure metal but as an ore called bauxite.


QUESTION: Which metals give color to fireworks?


Strontium burn with a red light, copper green, sodium yellow, barium green and magnesium a brilliant white light.


QUESTION: Why will carbon dioxide put out fire?


Carbon dioxide gas will not support combustion. Pure carbon doixide is also heavier than air. If sprayed on a fire from a fire extinguisher it forms a blanket,cutting off the oxygen which would otherwise feed the flames.


QUESTION: What is a metal?


Elements can be divided into basic group: metals and non metals. Metals can be made to shine or have a lustre, they conduct heat and electricity easily and thay are 'malleable'- they can be beaten into shape or pulled oput into wire. More than 70 of the known elements are metals.



QUESTION: What is electricity?

Electricity is a form of energy. It is produced when electrons, tiny atomic particles move from one atom to another. Although scientists had known that this mysterious energy existed, Its workings were not understood until the secretsa of the atom began to be revealed about a century ago.

Without electricity, our lives would be different. We would have no radios or televisions , no telephones, no computers. Our streets and homes would be lit by oil or gas lamps and we would have none of the gadgets that we take for granted today.

QUESTION: What is an atom?

An atom is the smallest chemical element - iron or copper. for example -to have its own recognizable identity.Scientist can tell the atoms of one element from those of another by their structure. Atoms are the building blocks of the elements which make up all the matter in the universe.

At the center of an atom is its nuclues, which made up of tiny particles called protons and neutrons. Orbiting the nucleus are the paricles called electrons, held by electrical charges. The arrangement of protons, neutrons and electrons is different for each kind of atom.

QUESTION: How big is an atom?


Atoms are too small to be seen with the naked eye.But scientists using high-powered electron microscopes have photographed atoms. They look like fuzzy white dots.
The nucleus is ten thousand times smaller than the atom itself. Electrons are smaller still.


QUESTION: How many different kind of atoms are there?

There are 92 different chemical elements found in nature. Therefore there are 92 different kinds of atom forming seperate elements. A few other elements and atoms have been made by scientist in the laboratory. An atom of uranium is 200 times heavier than an atom of hydrogen, but in fact all atoms are roughly the same size.

QUESTION: What are molecules?

A molecule is the smallest part of the substance that retains the nature of the substance.Take paper, for example. The thickness of each page of a book is roughly 100,000 paper molecules. If each paper molecule were broken up, it would no longer be a paper, just a random group of atoms. Every molecule of a substance is made up of exactly the same number of atoms linked together in exactly the same pattern.
Molecules are tiny. There are at least as many molecules in a teaspoon of water as there are teaspoonful of water in the Atlantic Ocean.

QUESTION? Who first tried to weigh atoms?

The British chemist John Dalton(1766-1844) worked out that a molecule of water always contains the same proportion of oxygen and hydrogen. He thought oxygen atoms must be heavier than hydrogen atoms. In fact an oxygen atom weighs 16 times more than an hydrogen atom.


QUESTION? Who discovered electrons?

Electrons were discovered in 1895 by Sir Joseph John Thomson, a british scientist. Thomson worked in the Cavandish Laboratory at Cambridge University and was investigating the rays produced when an electric current passed through a vacuum. For this discovery he recieved the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1906


QUESTION: Why is nuclear energy so named?

The word 'nuclear' comes from the 'nucleus', the core of the atom. When there is a change in the nucleus of an atom, energy is released. It is found naturally in the Sun and stars as well as on Earth. Scientists can also produce this energy in nuclear power station or a nuclear weapon.