Tuesday Trivia

It's nearly that time of the year when our systems go wonky because the clock are rolled back. No, they go forward, right? No, I was right in the first place, "Spring forward" "Fall back." OK we fall back into weariness because everything in our lives is off schedule overnight. Anyway, I though some trivia about time might be appropriate. I have just a short list of time trivia, so I supplemented with odd and ends. Hear ya go!

ABOUT TIME:

The wristwatch was invented in 1904 by Louis Cartier.

There are 31,557,600 seconds in a year.

A jiffy is an actual measurement equal to 1/100th of a second.

There are 86,400 seconds in day.

Clocks made before 1660 had only one hand - an hour hand.

Perfect Timing - The second is defined as exactly 9,192,631,770 oscillations or cycles of the cesium atom's resonant frequency, replacing the old second that was defined in terms of the Earth's motions. The newest generation of the "Atomic Clock" is accurate to 30 billionths of a second a year. It is the most accurately measured physical quantity in science.

A chronometer is a watch or clock whose movement has been tested and certified to operate within a certain standard of accuracy.

The first battery-powered watch, the Hamilton Electric 500, was released in 1957 by the Hamilton Watch Company of Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

Horologe - This word still used in French for large clocks. It is derived from the Greek 'hora' meaning hour and 'legein' meaning to tell.

Average Life Span... of a professional football, when used in an NFL game, is 6 minutes. of an American male in 1900 was 46.3 years. of a dollar bill in circulation is 18 months or 4000 folds.

A leap year is a year in which one extra day has been inserted, or intercalated, at the end of February. A leap year consists of 366 days, whereas other years, called common years, have 365 days.

The vernal equinox is the time when the sun is directly above the Earth's equator, moving from the southern to the northern hemisphere. The mean time between two successive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year–also known as a solar year–and is about 365.24 days long. Using a calendar with 365 days every year would result in a loss of 0.24 days, or almost six hours per year.

By adding a leap year approximately every fourth year, the difference between the calendar and the seasons can be reduced significantly, and the calendar will align with the seasons much more accurately.

ABOUT TIME ZONES:

Not all time zones are in one hour increments. Some countries use 30 minute offsets. When the time in Greenwich is 12:00 noon, it is 8:30am in Newfoundland and 9:30pm in Australia. In Nepal, however, they use a time offset in quarter hours, so the time there would be 5:45pm.

Talk about confusing... Prior to 1995, International Date Line split the country of Kiribati. The result was that the eastern part of Kiribati was a whole day and two hours behind the western part of the country where its capital is located.

And a collection of a bit of everything:

In space a person cannot cry because there is no gravity to make the tears flow.

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are useable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

There are more plastic lawn flamingos in the United States than real ones.

The surface speed record on the moon is 10.56 miles per hour. It was set in a lunar rover.

The first telephone book was one page long and had only 50 names in it.

When Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1912, 6 replicas were sold as the original, each at a huge price, in the 3 years before the original was recovered.

A mile on the ocean and a mile on land are not the same distance. On the ocean, a nautical mile measures 6,080 feet. A land or statute mile is 5,280 feet.

To clean tarnished copper bottoms of pots and pans, spread a little ketchup onto the bottom. Let it sit for about one minute. Wipe it clean and rinse.

Since the Second World War, 851 medals of honor have been awarded, 525 posthumously. The Congressional Medal of Honor is awarded for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

The first American to enter Germany after the signing of the Armistice of World War 1 rode in on a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Because radio waves travel at 186,000 miles per second and sound waves saunter at 700 miles per hour, a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 13,000 miles away than it can be heard at the back of the room in which it originated.

In ancient Rome it was considered a sign of leadership to be born with a crooked nose.

The average person will spend two weeks over their lifetime waiting for the traffic light to change.

The cruise liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, QE2, moves only six inches for each gallon of diesel that it burns.

Abraham Lincoln is the only US president facing right on an American coin.

West Side Story is based on Romeo and Juliet.

The world's biggest canyons are submerged beneath our oceans.

Substances containing high levels of protein will glow under a black light because they're on the same ultraviolet wavelength as the black light.

Until the nineteenth century, solid blocks of tea were used as money in Siberia.

The yo-yo was originally a weapon used in the Philippine jungles.

The Nobel Peace Prize medal depicts three naked men with their hands on each other's shoulders.

The only married couple to fly together in space were Jan Davis and Mark Lee.

OK, that's it! Go forth and spew trivia at everyone you know!