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Stump
Me Questions Answered in April 2004
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Q.: What does it mean when the horse's front feet are both in the air on a statue of a horse and rider?
- Ken L.
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A.: OK,
let's disprove this one once and for all. The first rule
of thumb is not to believe trivia sent to you via e-mail.
Snopes.com actually did some research on this and I'm going to
quote them for the answer:
"To the best of anyone's knowledge, the position and pose of the statue do not signify anything," said Frances Pollard, a curator at the Virginia Historical Society.
If you need any more proof just take a look at Washington, DC,
where 10 out of 30 statues don't follow the "code."
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Q.: My friend and I recently watched the new movie
Unfaithful and got into quite a dispute over what actually happened in the
end. I was wondering if you could find out whether the conversation at the end about
Mexico was fantastical and the guy went and turned himself in,
or did they really just take off to Mexico.
- KG
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A.: In
another one of those movie moments where the audience is left to
decide, you're never told what happens. All you know is
that Edward and Connie discuss what to do and that the traffic
light they're stopped at just happens to be next to a police
station.
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Q.: What's bandwidth?
- No Name Given
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A.: I'm
going to assume that you're asking me for the definition as it
relates to the online world since you didn't specify the usage
of the word. Webopedia defines bandwidth as being the amount of data that can be transmitted in a fixed amount of time.
For digital devices, the bandwidth is usually expressed in bits per
second (bps) or bytes per second. For analog devices, the bandwidth is expressed in cycles per second, or Hertz (Hz).
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Q.: 1)
How old are you?
2) What is your wife doing while you're answering all these questions?
3) Do you make this stuff up - the answers?
- Page
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A.: 1)
I turned 34 last November.
2) Either watching TV, playing with Jarrett, reading,
sleeping or hanging out with friends.
3) As much as I would love to sometimes, the answers
are not made up. This explains why there are so many
unanswered questions. It takes a long time to track things
down using reputable sources.
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Q.: Are you religious?
- No Name Given
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A.: Not
really. I'm Jewish and I participate in the major holidays
(fasting on Yom Kippur, opening presents on Chanukah, etc.) but
I don't go to temple or practice beyond that.
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Q.: What question can I ask you that obeys your one rule will you never be able to answer?
- Peter N.
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A.: How about
defining Pi rounded to 10,000 places?
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Q.: How many water (H2O) molecules fit in a volume?
Any volume will do, but let's use a milliliter or a teaspoon.
- Craig A.
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A.: Assuming standard temperature and pressure conditions
apply, 18 grams of water have 6.0225 * 10^23 water molecules in it.
One milliliter of water has a mass of one gram. Therefore,
1 ml of water has about 3.346 * 10^22 water molecules in it.
Thanks to Geoffrey E. of Cornell University for sending in the
answer.
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Q.: Here's the question
I've been pondering: Is there something that there can be less of, but weigh more?
- No Name Given
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A.: Uh, there
are thousands of potential answers here. One average human
is less than five 12 oz. cans of Coke, but the human weighs
more.
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