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Stump
Me Questions Answered in January 2002
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Q.: 1)
Who built the first Aircraft Carrier? When?
2) What was the first computer program to be pirated and who wrote it?
3) What are the top ten (in order) winningest college football programs?
What are their respective records?
4) What are the top five (in order) colleges with the most "National
Titles"?
5) Who has to longest winning streak? When?
6) Who in college football has to longest winning streak at home games (not counting away games)?
7) What was the most lopsided victory in college football
history?
8) What were the most points ever scored in a college
football game?
9) Who was the first woman to score points in a Division I
college football game?
10) What is the record longest field goal in a college football game?
11) What is the longest recorded college football game? who played it, and what was the final score?
12) What causes heat when an electron moves through a wire?
- Chris D.
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A.:
1) The George Washington Parke Custis Class Balloon Carrier,
which supported one hot air balloon, was built by the U.S.
around 1861. It had a crew of 30 and had a maximum speed
of 10 knots.
2) Altair BASIC was the first product sold by Microsoft corporation, and also the first major case of software piracy - It was copied widely even before Microsoft made it available (Bill Gates lost track of a copy on paper tape during a computer show).
The roots of software piracy may lie in the early 1960s, when computer programs were freely distributed with mainframe hardware by hardware manufacturers (e.g. AT&T, Chase Manhattan Bank, General Electric and General Motors).
In the late 1960s, manufacturers began selling their software separately from the required hardware.
3) I'm not sure if you meant this to be a trick question
or not, so I treated it as if it were and included every school
with a college football program. By winning percentage (through 2000):
Notre Dame - .753 (776-241-42)
Michigan - .746 (805-262-36)
Robert Morris (Division 1-AA) - .739 (52-18-1)
Alabama - .718 (737-276-43)
Yale (Division 1-AA) - .717 (806-301-55)
FAMU (Division 1-AA) - .711 (483-191-18)
Nebraska - .708 (753-299-40)
Ohio State - .705 (724-287-53)
Oklahoma - .705 (702-278-53)
Texas - .705 (744-302-33)
4) The following are based on the polls that are most recognized as being valid
national championship-awarding rankings, dating back to 1869. They are:
1869-1882 National Championship Foundation
1883-1935 Helms Athletic Foundation
1919-1935 College Football Researches Association
1936-Current Associated Press Poll
1950-Current Coaches Poll
The following lists are based on the years they were champions, not the total number of championships awarded
(i.e. more than one poll awarded the national title in the same year).
Through 2000:
Yale - 18
Princeton - 15
Notre Dame - 11
Alabama - 10
Harvard - 8
The modern national title picture (AP & Coaches polls) are:
Notre Dame - 8
Alabama - 7
Oklahoma - 7
Nebraska - 5
Southern Cal - 5
5) 54 straight by Mount Dora (Division III), 1996-1999.
6) 58 straight games by the
University of Miami (FL) between 1985-1994.
7) The Cumberland University Bulldogs lost 222-0 to Georgia Tech on Oct. 7, 1916, in what remains the most lopsided score in college football history.
8) See #7.
9) Liz Heaston. She kicked two extra points for then-NAIA Williamette University in 1997.
10) 67 yards by four people:
Russell Erxleben, Texas vs. Rice on October 1, 1977
Steve Little, Arkansas vs. Texas on October 15, 1977
Joe Williams, Wichita State vs. Southern Illinois, October 21, 1978
Tom Odle, Fort Hays State vs. Washburn, November 5, 1988 (Division II)
11) 58-56 in 7 OT - Mississippi vs. Arkansas, November 3, 2001.
12) Some kinds of atoms have electrons that are loosely
attached which can easily be made to move from one atom to another.
When those electrons move among the atoms of matter, a current of electricity is created.
Electricity flows through some things better than others.
How well something conducts electricity is measured by its resistance.
Resistance in wire depends on how thick it is, how long it is, and what it's made of.
The lower the resistance of a wire, the better it conducts electricity.
When the electricity flows, the resistance causes friction and the friction causes heat. The higher the resistance, the hotter it can get. So, a coiled wire that is high in resistance, like the wire in a hair dryer, can heat up.
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Q.: On
The Simpsons, how many stickers is Moe's face covered by in the Duff
calendar?
- No Name Given
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A.: Six.
They are:
Drink Duff
Duff Enuff
Viva La Duff
Kiss Me I'm Duff
Ich Bin Ein Duff
I'Mo Duff You Up!
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Q.: Who was the last U.S. General awarded the 5-star designation of "General of the Army"?
- Zach V.
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A.: According to the U.S. Army's Web
page, it's General of the Army Omar N. Bradley on September 20, 1950.
However, in 1976, Congress posthumously awarded a fifth star for the General of the Army to George Washington.
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Q.: What do the Chinese believe they must do to make themselves "bulletproof?"
- Dominique
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A.: Every martial art at one time or another has claimed that, at
its highest levels, its practitioners cannot be defeated. This was what the Chinese Boxers of "Boxer Rebellion" fame spread as their propaganda; through exercises called qigong or "chi kung," they would become immune to bullets.
In this particular branch of history, British guns proved beyond a doubt that nobody is invulnerable.
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Q.: My gram said if you put a wooden spoon over a boiling pot it will keep it from boiling over.
Is this true and if so how does it work?
- Eric B.
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A.: You can't stir down a rolling boil, which means if you take a wooden spoon and stir around the pot in a circular motion, the bubbles will keep coming
up. Small bubbles can be stirred down (made to disappear) this way.
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Q.: What does Skogen mean in Norwegian?
- Stephanie S.
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A.: According
to a translation of Laere Med Skogen, it means
"forest."
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Q.: How many grooves are on a single side of a record album regardless of size and speed?
- Matthew L.
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A.: Reminds me of this IQ test question... How many grooves on a
record? The answer is 2: one on one side, one on the other.
So the answer to your question is 1, since you're asking about a
single side.
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Q.: Who was the "King of
Hillbillies"...Roy Acuff or Hank Williams?
- No Name Given
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A.: The
following is from a Nashville, TN newspaper: "Hank Williams, singer and composer called
'King of Hillbillies' by his followers, died today in his automobile on his way from Knoxville, Tenn., to fill an engagement in Marion, Ohio."
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Q.: How come the Dolphins can't beat the Jets?
- Rex M.
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A.: Before the Stinking Jets (you have to be a Dolfan to understand how we feel about them) won 8 straight, the Fins held the all-time advantage 35-29-1. And that includes the Dolphins' 8 game losing streak (from 1966 to 1969) to the Jets when the Fins franchise first began. Take the 16 games from those two streaks out of the equation (making it 35-21-1), and the Dolphins have been bitch-slapping the Jets for years. And by the way, prior to the current Jet winning streak the Dolphins had won 7 of 8 games.
My answer: they were due. But with the Jets being the Jets, that streak will end soon, and all those crybaby Jet fans will be back to complaining about how the Dolphins can't win the big one (as if the Jets ever will again).
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Q.: Please help with the
punch line of this joke, as the office I work in has not been able to get any work done for the past week out of pure frustration at not being able to remember it.
What do you call a women with a washing machine on her head?
- Alistair K.
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A.: No
wonder you couldn't find the answer. I've looked around and you actually have the joke wrong.
It's:
What do you call a nun with a washing machine on her head?
Sister-Matic.
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Q.: What was the name of the ghost dog (a St. Bernard) in the TV show
Topper (about a couple [George and Marion] and their dog who were killed in an avalanche)?
- Chris B.
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A.: Neil
(played by a dog named "Buck").
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Q.: In reference to military servicemen, what do the initials "G.I." stand for?
- No Name Given
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A.: The
initials "GI" stand for "Government
Issue." In the 1800's, supplies for the Army were
marked with the initials "GI," and soon these initials
came to be used for anything connected with the Army.
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Q.: What classic Christmas movie did the following quote come from:
Well how do you like that? Not so much as a "kiss my foot" or "have an
apple!"
- Lori M.
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A.: White
Christmas.
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Q.: How many
English words are derived from the Spanish
language?
- Zach
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A.: English uses
tons of words of Spanish origin. Some scholars say Spanish has contributed 10,000 words to English.
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Q.: Why doesn't glue stick to the inside of the
bottle?
- Andrew
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A.: Glue is made up of
a substance that sticks to things and a solvent that keeps it liquid until you want it to stick.
When you put glue on a piece of paper, the solvent gradually evaporates until the glue becomes sticky.
When the glue is in a bottle, there is a space inside the bottle above the
liquid that is full of air. So why doesn't the glue dry out?
Well there's a limit to the amount of solvent that can evaporate to fill the space in the bottle. Once the space is full of solvent gas, no more solvent evaporates from the glue and the glue stays runny.
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Q.: If
you were inside a massive hollow sphere, in a perfect vacuum,
with edges of uniform thickness, which direction would you go
because of gravitational pull between you and the edge of the
sphere? (i.e. you are in a big sphere in the center of the
earth)?
- No Name Given
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A.: Ahhh,
another homework assignment. The answer may surprise you. Almost 400 years ago, Isaac Newton derived the basic equations for gravitational attraction.
He was also curious about gravity inside a spherical shell, so he worked out the math.
To his surprise, he found that there is no net gravitational attraction anywhere inside the
sphere. In other words, no matter where you are in the
sphere - in the middle, or really close to the wall - you feel no gravity.
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Q.: What is the deepest possible periscope depth for
current U.S. submarines?
- Kelly G.
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A.: Periscopes on submarines may be as long as 60 feet (18 m).
When a submarine is submerged to a depth that is equal to the length of the periscope tube, it is considered to be at periscope depth.
By the way, periscopes are on their way out. The Navy is
building a new system using non-penetrating imaging devices called photonics masts to perform surveillance tasks.
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Q.: Ok, my 10th grade English teacher gave a list of riddles to our class, here is an example:
"26=L of the A".....26 letters of the Alphabet.
Here are some riddles to try:
1000=W on a U
21=D on a D
7=B for SB?
- Amanda M.
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A.: Here's
your homework:
1000=W on a U (Should be 1=W on a U)
Wheel on a Unicycle
21=D on a D
Dots on a Dice
7=B for SB
Brides for Seven Brothers
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