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Show ji I Well, What Do you Know 2 run, games and knowledge y by MARTHA GLAUBER SHW, Editor, The New Boofc of Knowledge What is a lunar eclipse? An eclipse of the moon is called a lunar eclipse. It takes place when the earth passes directly between the sun and the moon. ("Lunar" comes from the Latin word for "moon.") The moon moves into in-to the shadow that the earth casts in space. When this happens, hap-pens, the moon is almost blacked out. An eclipse of the moon may last as long as 3V2 hours. You can demonstrate how a lunar eclipse takes place with a flashlight, a Ping-Pong ball, and a tennis ball. Tape a string to the tennis ball ("earth") and hold it aloft. Aim flashlight ("sun") at Ping-Pong ball. Move the tennis ten-nis ball so that the "earth's" shadow covers the "moon." This is the way a lunar eclipse occurs. Do you know how 4 feet 8'2 inches came to be picked for the width of railroad track? Railroads were born in England, and the greatest of the early English railroad builders was George Stephenson. Stephen-son. When Stephenson was called upon to build the Stockton Stock-ton & Darlington railroad, he made its gauge 4 feet 8 inches, the same as that of the tracks of the railroad at the coal mine where he had formerly worked. Later he added another an-other Y2 inch to reduce the binding of the wheels by the rails. Stephenson used this '4-foot-8Vs! inch gauge for all the other railroads he built, and he built more than anyone else in England. Early railroad companies in the United States and other countries bought English locomotives lo-comotives and laid their tracks to fit the locomotives' wheels. In this way the Stephenson standard gauge became the most common in the world. What is infinity ? At some time you have probably prob-ably wondered about space and how it stretches on and on, past stars and galaxies. It must surely come to an end somewhere, you think. Yet if it did, what would lie beyond? When you try to imagine the endlessness of space you can get some feeling of the idea of infinity. There is a mathematical way of talking about infinity. Suppose that you started listing list-ing the whole numbers: 1, 2, 3, and so on. What is the largest larg-est number you would finally reach? The answer is that there is no largest number. However large a number you write, you can always add another an-other number to it and get a still larger number. Also, between be-tween any two numbers you may choose there is an infinity infin-ity of other numbers. You can always divide a number, no matter how small it is, into still smaller numbers. Infinity is not a number. It does not tell you "how much." It tells you that something is endless. Mathematicians have a symbol for infinity. The symbol isQO- What is the "lead" in a lead pencil? The lead in a lead pencil is not lead at all. It is graphite, a soft form of the element carbon. Graphite leaves a black streak on almost everything every-thing it touches. To keep the graphite from wearing away too fast, it is mixed with clay. Why then is a lead pencil called a lead pencil? The answer an-swer is that long ago lead was used in pencils. Lead, being soft, makes a gray streak when it is rubbed on paper. Before graphite was discovered, discov-ered, lead was one of the best markers people had. What is "sterling" silver? The word "sterling" possibly possi-bly has been used for high-quality high-quality silver ever since the 1200's. At that' time merchants mer-chants in northern Germany were making coins containing a high percentage of silver. The coins made in England contained very little silver. Since both types of coins were common in England, the English Eng-lish began to distinguish the better-quality German coins from their native coins by calling the German coins east-erlings, east-erlings, because they came from the east. It is likely that common English speech gradually grad-ually turned the word "easter-ling" "easter-ling" to "sterling." The standard stan-dard for English sterling was set in the 1500's by Queen Elizabeth I. It is now accepted all over the world. Your Utah Heart Association Associa-tion reminds all hunters whether they have heart disease di-sease or not; never hunt alone. We build our lives each day with the bricks of habit we have made. Megiddo Message. |