The Book Of General Ignorance Part 5

Neither. Nelson never wore an eye-patch.

He didn't wear anything at all over his damaged right eye, though he had an eye-shade built into his hat to protect his good left eye from the sun.

Nelson didn't have a 'blind' eye. His right one was badly damaged (but not blinded) at the siege of Calvi in Corsica in 1794. A French cannon ball threw sand and debris into it, but it still looked normal so normal, in fact, he had difficulty convincing the Royal Navy he was eligible for a disability pension.

There is no contemporary portrait of Nelson wearing an eye-patch, and despite what most people recall having 'seen', the Trafalgar Square column shows him without without an eye-patch. It was only after his death that the eye-patch was used to add pathos to portraits. an eye-patch. It was only after his death that the eye-patch was used to add pathos to portraits.

He used the damaged eye to his advantage. At the battle of Copenhagen in 1801, he ignored the recall signal issued by his superior Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. Nelson, who was in a much better position than Parker to see that the Danes were on the run, said to his flag-captain: 'You know, Foley, I only have one eye I have the right to be blind sometimes.'

He then held his telescope to his blind eye and said: 'I really do not see the signal!' This is usually misquoted as: 'I see no ships.'

Nelson was a brilliant tactician, a charismatic leader and undeniably brave had he been alive today he would have been eligible for at least three Victoria Crosses but he was also vain and ruthless.

As captain of HMS Boreas Boreas in 1784 he ordered 54 of his 122 seamen and 12 of his 20 marines flogged 47 per cent of the men aboard. In June 1799, he treacherously executed 99 prisoners of war in Naples, after the British commander of the garrison had guaranteed their safety. in 1784 he ordered 54 of his 122 seamen and 12 of his 20 marines flogged 47 per cent of the men aboard. In June 1799, he treacherously executed 99 prisoners of war in Naples, after the British commander of the garrison had guaranteed their safety.

While in Naples, Nelson began an affair with Lady Emma Hamilton, wife of the British amba.s.sador. Her father had been a blacksmith and she a teenage prost.i.tute in London before marrying Sir William. She was enormously fat and had a Lancashire accent. Another admirer of Nelson was Patrick Brunty, a Yorkshire parson of Irish descent, who changed his surname to Bronte after the King of Naples created Nelson Duke of Bronte. Had he not done so, his famous daughters would have been Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brunty.

In contrast to the public grief at news of Nelson's death, Earl St Vincent and eighteen other admirals of the Royal Navy refused to attend his funeral.

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How many senses does a human being have?

At least nine.

The five senses we all know about sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch were first listed by Aristotle, who, while brilliant, often got things wrong. (For example, he taught that we thought with our hearts, that bees were created by the rotting carca.s.ses of bulls and that flies had only four legs.) There are four more commonly agreed senses: 1 Thermoception Thermoception, the sense of heat (or its absence) on our skin.

2 Equilibrioception Equilibrioception our sense of balance which is determined by the fluid-containing cavities in the inner ear. our sense of balance which is determined by the fluid-containing cavities in the inner ear.

3 Nociception Nociception the perception of pain from the skin, joints and body organs. Oddly, this does not include the brain, which has no pain receptors at all. Headaches, regardless of the way it seems, don't come from inside the brain. the perception of pain from the skin, joints and body organs. Oddly, this does not include the brain, which has no pain receptors at all. Headaches, regardless of the way it seems, don't come from inside the brain.

4 Proprioception Proprioception or 'body awareness'. This is the unconscious knowledge of where our body parts are without being able to see or feel them. For example, close your eyes and waggle your foot in the air. You still know where it is in relation to the rest of you. or 'body awareness'. This is the unconscious knowledge of where our body parts are without being able to see or feel them. For example, close your eyes and waggle your foot in the air. You still know where it is in relation to the rest of you.

Every self-respecting neurologist has their own opinion about whether there are more than these nine. Some argue that there are up to twenty-one. What about hunger? Or thirst? The sense of depth, or the sense of meaning, or language? Or the endlessly intriguing subject of synaesthesia, where senses collide and combine so that music can be perceived in colour?

And what about the sense of electricity, or even impending danger, when your hair stands on end?

There are also senses which some animals have but we don't. Sharks have keen electroception electroception which allows them to sense electric fields, which allows them to sense electric fields, magnetoception magnetoception detects magnetic fields and is used in the navigation systems of birds and insects, detects magnetic fields and is used in the navigation systems of birds and insects, echolocation echolocation and the 'lateral line' are used by fish to sense pressure, and infrared vision is used by owls and deer to hunt or feed at night. and the 'lateral line' are used by fish to sense pressure, and infrared vision is used by owls and deer to hunt or feed at night.

ALAN What about the 'sixth sense' What about the 'sixth sense'?

STEPHEN That's right. Yeah, it's an old phrase, because in those days, they only thought of five senses That's right. Yeah, it's an old phrase, because in those days, they only thought of five senses.

ALAN So, what, it'd be So, what, it'd be ... ... It should be the 'twenty-second sense' It should be the 'twenty-second sense'?

How many states of matter are there?

Three, that's easy. Solid, liquid, gas.

Actually, it's more like fifteen, although the list grows almost daily.

Here's our latest best effort: solid, amorphous solid, liquid, gas, plasma, superfluid, supersolid, degenerate matter, neutronium, strongly symmetric matter, weakly symmetric matter, quark-gluon plasma, fermionic condensate, Bose-Einstein condensate and strange matter.

Without going into impenetrable (and, for most purposes, needless) detail, one of the most curious is Bose-Einstein condensate.

A Bose-Einstein condensate or 'bec' occurs when you cool an element down to a very low temperature (generally a tiny fraction of a degree above absolute zero (273 C, the theoretical temperature at which everything stops moving).

When this happens, seriously peculiar things begin to happen. Behaviour normally only seen at atomic level occurs at scales large enough to observe. For example, if you put a 'bec' in a beaker, making sure to keep it cold enough, it will actually climb the sides and de-beaker itself.

This, apparently, is a futile attempt to reduce its own energy (which is already at its lowest possible level).

Bose-Einstein condensate was predicted to exist by Einstein in 1925, after studying the work of Satyendra Nath Bose, but wasn't actually manufactured until 1995 in America work that earned its creators the 2001 n.o.bel Prize. Einstein's ma.n.u.script itself was only rediscovered in 2005.

What is the normal state of gla.s.s?

It's a solid.

You may have heard it said that gla.s.s is a liquid which has cooled but not crystallised, and which just flows fantastically slowly. This is untrue gla.s.s is a bona fide bona fide solid. solid.

In support of the a.s.sertion that gla.s.s is a liquid, people often point to old church windows, where the gla.s.s is thicker at the bottom of the pane.

The reason for this is not that the gla.s.s has flowed over time, but that medieval glaziers sometimes couldn't cast perfectly uniform sheets of gla.s.s. When that happened, they preferred to stand the gla.s.s into the window with the thick edge at the bottom, for obvious reasons.

The confusion about whether gla.s.s is a liquid or solid stems from a misreading of the work of German physicist Gustav Tammann (18611938) who studied gla.s.s and described its behaviour as it solidifies.

He observed that the molecular structure of gla.s.s is irregular and disordered, unlike the neat arrangement of molecules in, say, metals.

Reaching for an a.n.a.logy, he compared it to 'a frozen supercooled liquid'. But saying gla.s.s is like a liquid doesn't mean it is a liquid.

These days, solids are categorised as either crystalline or amorphous. Gla.s.s is an amorphous solid.

Which metal is liquid at room temperature?

As well as mercury, gallium, caesium and francium can all be liquids at room temperature. As these liquids are very dense (being metals), bricks, horseshoes and cannon b.a.l.l.s theoretically float in them.

Gallium (Ga) was discovered by French chemist Lecoq de Boisbaudran in 1875. Everyone a.s.sumed it was a patriotic name but gallus gallus is Latin for 'a Gaul' is Latin for 'a Gaul' and and 'rooster' as in 'Lecoq'. It was the first new element to confirm Dmitri Mendeleev's prediction of the periodic table. Gallium is used chiefly in microchips because of its strange electronic properties. Compact disc players also make use of it because when mixed with a.r.s.enic it transforms an electric current directly into laser light, which is used to 'read' the data from the discs. 'rooster' as in 'Lecoq'. It was the first new element to confirm Dmitri Mendeleev's prediction of the periodic table. Gallium is used chiefly in microchips because of its strange electronic properties. Compact disc players also make use of it because when mixed with a.r.s.enic it transforms an electric current directly into laser light, which is used to 'read' the data from the discs.

Caesium (Cs) is most notably used in atomic clocks it is used to define the atomic second (see page 220) It also explodes extremely violently when it comes into contact with water. Caesium's name means 'sky blue' because of the bright blue lines it produces as part of its spectrum. It was discovered in 1860 by Robert Bunsen using the spectroscope he had invented with Gustav Kirchoff, the man who had earlier discovered that signals travel down telegraph wires at the speed of light.

Francium (Fr) is one of the rarest elements: it has been calculated there are only ever thirty grams of it present on Earth. This is because it is so radioactive it quickly decays into other, more stable elements. So it is a liquid metal, but not for very long a few seconds at most. It was isolated in 1939 by Marguerite Perey at the Curie Inst.i.tute in Paris. It was the last element to be found in nature.

These elements are liquid at unusually low temperatures for metals because the arrangement of electrons in their atoms makes it hard for them to get close enough to each other to form a crystalline lattice.

Each atom floats around freely, without being attracted to its neighbours, which is exactly what happens in other liquids.

DAVID MITCh.e.l.l Didn't Edward VII take a lot of mercury? Didn't Edward VII take a lot of mercury?

STEPHEN I think he might have done, yes. I think he might have done, yes.

DAVID I thought that was for constipation. Drink an incredibly heavy liquid and force the poo down. An alternative would be: stand on your hands and have a load of helium. [ I thought that was for constipation. Drink an incredibly heavy liquid and force the poo down. An alternative would be: stand on your hands and have a load of helium. [...] Just need some footmen with nets to catch the t.u.r.ds. 'Don't let it get on the tapestries!'

Which metal is the best conductor?

Silver.

The best conductor of both heat and electricity is also the most reflective of all the elements. Its drawback is that it is expensive. The reason we use copper wire in our electrical equipment is because copper the second most conductive element is much cheaper.

As well as its decorative uses, silver is now mostly used in the photographic industry, for long-life batteries and for solar panels.

Silver has the curious property of sterilising water. Only tiny amounts are needed just ten parts per billion. This remarkable fact has been known since the fifth century BC BC when Herodotus reported that the Persian king Cyrus the Great travelled with his own personal water supply taken from a special stream, boiled, and sealed in silver vessels. when Herodotus reported that the Persian king Cyrus the Great travelled with his own personal water supply taken from a special stream, boiled, and sealed in silver vessels.

Both the Romans and Greeks noticed that food and drink put in silver containers did not spoil so quickly. Silver's strong antibacterial qualities were made use of for many centuries before bacteria were discovered. This may also explain why silver coins are often found at the bottom of ancient wells.

A word of caution before you start filling your silver tankard.

First, while silver will certainly kill bacteria in the lab, whether or not it will do so in the body is controversial. Many of the supposed advantages are unproven: the US Food and Drug Administration has forbidden companies from advertising health benefits.

Second, there is a disease called argyria which is linked to the intake of silver particles diluted in water, the most obvious symptom of which is a conspicuously blue skin.

On the other hand, silver salts in swimming pools are a safe subst.i.tute for chlorine and, in the US, athletes' socks are impregnated with silver to stop their feet smelling.

Water is an exceptionally poor conductor of electricity, especially pure water, which is actually used as an insulator. What conducts the electricity is not the H2O molecules but the chemicals dissolved in it salt, for example.

Sea water is a hundred times better at conducting electricity than fresh water, but it's a million million times worse at conducting electricity than silver. times worse at conducting electricity than silver.

What's the densest element?

It's either osmium or iridium, depending on how you measure it.

The two metals are extremely close in density and have changed places several times over the years. The third-densest element is platinum, followed by rhenium, neptunium, plutonium and gold. Lead is way, way down the list it's only half as dense as either osmium or iridium.

Osmium (Os) is a very rare, very hard, silvery-blue metal discovered (along with iridium) in 1803 by the English chemist Smithson Tennant (17611815).

Tennant was a vicar's son from Richmond who was also the first man to show that diamond is a form of pure carbon.

He named osmium from osme osme, Greek for smell. It gives off highly toxic osmium tetroxide, which has a pungent, irritating odour and can damage the lungs, skin and eyes and cause intense headaches. Osmium tetroxide has been used in fingerprinting because its vapour reacts with minute traces of oil left by the fingers to form black deposits.

Its extreme hardness and resistance to corrosion made osmium useful in the manufacture of long-life gramophone styluses, compa.s.s needles and the nibs of quality fountainpens hence the trade name Osmiroid.

Osmium also has an unusually high melting point of 3,054 C. In 1897, this inspired Karl Auer to create an osmium electric light-bulb filament to improve on the bamboo one used by Edison. Osmium was eventually replaced by tungsten, which melts at 3,407 C. The name Osram was registered by Auer in 1906. It derives from OSmium and WolfRAM, the German for tungsten.

Less than 100 kg (220 lb) of osmium are produced worldwide every year.

Iridium (Ir) is a yellowish white metal which, like osmium, is closely related to platinum. The name comes from iris iris, Greek for rainbow, because of the many beautiful colours its compounds produce.

Iridium also has an extremely high melting point (2,446 C) and is mainly used to make crucibles for metal foundries and to harden platinum. Iridium is one of the rarest elements on earth (eighty-fourth out of ninety-two) but improbably large amounts of it are found in the thin geological layer known as the KT boundary laid down about 65 million years ago.

Geologists have confirmed this can only have come from s.p.a.ce, and it adds support to the theory that an asteroid impact caused the extinction of the dinosaurs.

Where do diamonds come from?

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Volcanoes. All diamonds are formed under immense heat and pressure beneath the earth and are brought to the surface in volcanic eruptions.

They are formed between 160 km to 480 km (about 100 to 300 miles) underground. Most are found inside a volcanic rock called Kimberlite, and mined in areas where volcanic activity is still common. Any other diamonds are found loose, having been washed out of their original Kimberlite.

Twenty countries in the world produce diamonds. South Africa is now the fifth largest after Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Botswana and Russia.

Diamonds are made of pure carbon. So is graphite, the stuff that the 'lead' in pencils is made from, but with the carbon atoms arranged differently. Diamond is one of the hardest naturally occurring substances on earth with a score of ten on the Mohs Hardness scale, but graphite is one of the softest with a score of one and a half, only just harder than talc.u.m powder.

The largest known diamond is 4,000 km (2,500 miles) across and measures ten billion trillion trillion carats. Found directly above Australia (eight light years away) the diamond sits inside the star 'Lucy' in the constellation Centaurus.

'Lucy' got its nickname from the Beatles cla.s.sic 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', but its technical name is white dwarf BPM 37093. The Beatles song was named after a picture drawn by John Lennon's son Julian of his four-year-old friend Lucy Richardson.

Diamonds were once the world's hardest known material. However, in August 2005, scientists in Germany managed to create a harder one in a laboratory. Called aggregated carbon nanorods (ACNR), it was made by compressing and heating super-strong carbon molecules to 2,226 C.

Each of these molecules comprises sixty atoms that interweave in pentagonal or hexagonal shapes; they're said to resemble tiny footb.a.l.l.s. ACNR is so tough it scratches diamonds effortlessly.

How do we measure earthquakes?

The MMS Scale.

In the last decade, the Richter scale has been superseded in seismological circles by the Moment Magnitude Scale or MMS.

The MMS was devised in 1979 by seismologists Hiroo Kanamori and Tom Hanks (no relation) of the California Inst.i.tute of Technology, who found the Richter scale unsatisfactory because it only measures the strength of the shock waves, which do not fully describe an earthquake's impact. On the Richter scale, large earthquakes may have the same score but cause wildly different degrees of devastation.

The Richter scale measures the seismic waves or vibration as experienced 600 km (373 miles) away. It was devised in 1935 by Charles Richter, who was also, like Kanamori and Hanks, a Caltech seismologist. He developed it with Beno Gutenberg, the first man to measure accurately the radius of the Earth's core. Gutenberg died of flu in 1960 without living to measure the Great Chilean Earthquake (the largest ever recorded, which took place four months later).

The MMS, by contrast, is an expression of the energy released by an earthquake. It multiplies the distance of the slip between the two parts of the fault by the total area affected. It was designed to give values that make sense when compared to their Richter equivalent.

Both scales are logarithmic: a two-point increase means 100 times more power. A hand grenade scores 0.5 on the Richter scale, the Nagasaki atom bomb 5.0. The MMS is only used for large earthquakes, above 3.5 on the Richter scale.