Categories
Old

Things 43: Indian Superman, Pub Quiz Physics, Star Wars Collection

(Originally sent March 2009)

Video
The joy of cultural differences – Indian Superman (sound essential for when they get to the musical number):

(Note that their superman does not wear red pants on the outside – clearly they thought that would just be silly)

Link
A link to the non-text bit of another video, also showing the joy of cultural differences – a hard-hitting realistic portrayal of modern warfare featuring large-headed anthropomorphised animals, with a dramatically incongruous title:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gr4QBZfjtqs

[Video has been removed – try this link and make a cup of tea or something while the 90s pre-roll advert happens – T.M. 16/4/11]

[That video was removed too, try this search on Youtube – T.M. 17/5/22]

Quote

H. G. Wells: “History is the race between education and catastrophe.”

Last Week’s Puzzle
Last week
I asked how much longer a string stretched around the earth’s equator would need to be if it were to be raised by one meter (or indeed metre). Since the circumference of a circle is 2*pi*r, the new circumference would be 2*pi*(r+1) = 2*pi*r + 2*pi*1, i.e. 2*pi longer – under 7 metres.

This is counterintuitive since it seems very small, and it also doesn’t depend on what the radius of the earth is. A way to comprehend this intuitively is to imagine a square instead of a circle – to extend a string wrapped around a square of any size by one metre would always need two metres of string to be added at each corner.

Puzzle
This week
: pub quiz physics. The most abundant element in the universe is Hydrogen which has 1 proton. The next most abundant is Helium with 2 protons. What is the third most abundant element in the universe?

Picture
Apparently some people didn’t know about my Star Wars collection. Here it is – click to view full size:

One reply on “Things 43: Indian Superman, Pub Quiz Physics, Star Wars Collection”

Holy flip tim, how long has this blog been going at 1 entry per week with next to no one reading it? I’m going to read some of it. So look out for new comments.
Why with all this writing energy, didn’t you reply to my awesome conspiracy emails?!?! I assumed you were too busy laughing with great mates… not writing about random stuff! Looks like my other theory was right.

pub quiz :
I’m guessing nitrogen, cos that’s in the NCO cycle, and it’s reckoned to be the slow link.

Comments are closed.