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History Trivia Thread Reducks

Started by Admiral Yi, July 22, 2009, 03:15:40 PM

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Viking

#690
September 24, 2009, 08:09:49 AM Last Edit: September 24, 2009, 08:25:49 AM by Viking
Quote from: Maximus on September 24, 2009, 07:59:52 AM
Prior to his invention of the diesel engine, Rudolph Diesel built an external combustion engine using something other than water vapour as the gas. What did he use, and what happened to this engine? Either answer will suffice.

Alcohol and it exploded?

Edit: and just for caliga... my rationalisation. The boiler fluid had to be a fluid with a reasonably low boiling point. I'm assuming that this fuid has a lower boiling point than water (to make the engineering of the boiler easier and cheaper), stable at room temperature and was available in the late 1800s. So ethanol, petroleum etc.etc. of the various candidates ethanol is my preferred as it is a single compound so it boils at one temperature (as opposed to petroleum which will boil at many), boils at 78 degC (iirc) and can be distilled reasonably easily and cheaply into a pure form so as to avoid fowling in the boiler tubes.

Edit2: by Alcohol I mean Ethanol (C2H5OH)
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Grey Fox

#691
September 24, 2009, 08:22:25 AM
You have 1 right, the other is not.
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

Viking

#692
September 24, 2009, 08:31:25 AM
Quote from: Grey Fox on September 24, 2009, 08:22:25 AM
You have 1 right, the other is not.

Ethanol and it was destroyed when local drunks raided it for hootch?
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Viking

#693
September 24, 2009, 08:37:34 AM
but seriously my next 4 guesses.

Octane - it exploded
Heptane - it exploded
Hexane - it exploded
Pentane - it exploded
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Grey Fox

#694
September 24, 2009, 08:39:58 AM
Nope - Yes

but it's not my question.
Colonel Caliga is Awesome.

Caliga

#695
September 24, 2009, 11:11:49 AM
natural gas?
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Maximus

#696
September 24, 2009, 01:40:30 PM
Quote from: Viking on September 24, 2009, 08:37:34 AM
but seriously my next 4 guesses.

Octane - it exploded
Heptane - it exploded
Hexane - it exploded
Pentane - it exploded
Well obviously it exploded, it was a external combustion engine. :P Looking for something a little more detailed than that.

It wasn't an alkane gas.

Caliga

#697
September 24, 2009, 02:02:03 PM
Hydrogen?
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Savonarola

#698
September 24, 2009, 02:06:54 PM
Coal tar?
In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace—and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock

Maximus

#699
September 24, 2009, 10:11:31 PM
Nope. I'll give it to Viking since he got the explosion part. He used ammonia. The explosion nearly killed him, he was in the hospital for months and suffered permanent eye damage. Afterward he turned his attention toward internal combustion.

Viking

#700
September 25, 2009, 05:43:47 AM
Ok,

The Ptolmaic view of the "solar" system obviously had the earth in the middle and with the heavenly bodies orbiting the earth. While this works fine for the "stationary" sun it breaks down for the moon (since in reality remember the moon orbits the earth every month but transits the sky every night/day). It gets worse for mars, venus, jupiter, saturn and mercury; which the ancients were very much aware of.

How did the Ptolmaic system explain this. I'm just looking for the name, if you can add a comprehendable explanation of how it worked, so much better.   
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Syt

#701
September 25, 2009, 05:51:53 AM
I recently read an article in a history magazine about the evolution of the view of the solar system which touched on the subject and the increasingly difficult calculations court astronomers had to go through to properly predict the course of the planets.

As I don't have the article here (I borrowed said magazine to a coworker) I notice my memory isn't too keen, but I go out on a limb. They reasoned that the celestial bodies were attached to spheres around which they revolved while the spheres itself would also follow an (independent) motion?
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Eddie Teach

#702
September 25, 2009, 05:55:15 AM
Epicycles
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Viking

#703
September 25, 2009, 06:06:54 AM
First Maxim - "There are only two amounts, too few and enough."
First Corollary - "You cannot have too many soldiers, only too few supplies."
Second Maxim - "Be willing to exchange a bad idea for a good one."
Second Corollary - "You can only be wrong or agree with me."

A terrorist which starts a slaughter quoting Locke, Burke and Mill has completely missed the point.
The fact remains that the only person or group to applaud the Norway massacre are random Islamists.

Eddie Teach

#704
September 25, 2009, 06:09:44 AM
Syt can have it.
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?
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