Bob and Marcia discuss various trivia and facts, including the tallest sand dunes in North America, which are in Colorado’s Great Sand Dunes National Park, with the Star Dune reaching 750 feet. They explore the measurement of a “smidgen,” which is 1/32 of a teaspoon. They delve into historical and geographical trivia, such as the return on investment for Christopher Columbus’s voyage, the prohibition of pants in ancient Rome, and the geographical significance of the Eastern and Central time zones. They also cover scientific advancements like graphene and archaeomagnetism. Additionally, they discuss the financial success of video games like Modern Warfare 2 and the extreme measures actors take for roles, such as Brendan Fraser gaining 50 pounds for “The Whale.”
Outline
Tallest Sand Dunes in North America
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith where the tallest sand dunes in North America are located.
- Marcia Smith initially guesses Michigan, but Bob corrects her, stating it is Colorado.
- Bob reveals that the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado has the tallest sand dunes, with the Star Dune reaching 750 feet.
- The dunes were formed when prehistoric lakes dried up, leaving a 30-square-mile dune field.
- The dunes are relatively stable, with water from underground aquifers keeping them in place.
Exploring the Concept of a “Smidgen”
- Bob Smith and Marcia Smith discuss the term “smidgen,” with Marcia initially guessing it is measured by a yardstick.
- Marcia explains that a “smidgen” is a cooking term, with specific measurements: a dash is an eighth of a teaspoon, a pinch is a sixteenth of a teaspoon, and a smidgen is a thirty-second of a teaspoon.
- Bob finds the measurements fascinating and discusses how they are used in cooking.
- Marcia humorously notes that she often uses her fingers to measure ingredients like a smidgen.
Holiday Trivia and Fun Facts
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the names of Santa’s reindeer, revealing that L. Frank Baum named them in 1902.
- Marcia and Bob discuss the names Baum gave to the reindeer, such as Flossy, Glossy Racer, and Pacer.
- Bob shares a fun fact about the first song played in space, which was Jingle Bells sung by Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra in 1965.
- Marcia mentions that Santa has his own address: 123 Elf Road, North Pole, 8888.
Graphene: A Fascinating Material
- Marcia Smith asks Bob Smith about graphene, describing it as the strongest, lightest, and most electrically conductive substance on Earth.
- Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel by weight, 1000 times lighter than paper, and 98% transparent.
- It was discovered in 2004 by two scientists from the University of Manchester using sticky tape to isolate a single sheet of carbon.
- The scientists won a Nobel Prize in Physics for their discovery.
Historical and Geographical Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the return on investment for Christopher Columbus’s voyage, revealing that Spain made a substantial profit over time.
- Marcia explains that pants were prohibited in ancient Rome, with civilians risking exile for wearing them.
- Bob and Marcia discuss the geographical trivia, including which time zone touches the most US states and why Colorado is called the Centennial State.
- They also discuss the oldest continuously used public building in the US, which is the Palace of Governors in Santa Fe.
Film and Science Trivia
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the water location for the movie Titanic, revealing that it was filmed in a massive tank in Mexico.
- Marcia shares a fun fact about bananas being radioactive due to the potassium in them.
- Bob and Marcia discuss archaeomagnetism, a new dating method for ancient artifacts using the Earth’s magnetic field.
- They also discuss Madame Curie, who won two Nobel Prizes in different sciences and whose papers remain radioactive for thousands of years.
Video Game Industry and Actor’s Extreme Preparation
- Bob Smith asks Marcia Smith about the size of the video game industry, revealing that Modern Warfare 2 made $1 billion in its first 10 days.
- Marcia discusses Microsoft’s attempt to buy Activision Blizzard for $68 billion.
- Bob shares that actor Brendan Fraser gained 50 pounds for his role in The Whale, with prosthetics adding an additional 300 pounds to his frame.
- Marcia wraps up the episode with a humorous quote about New Year’s resolutions.
Bob Smith 0:00
Where are the tallest sand dunes in North America?
Marcia Smith 0:04
And how much is a smidgen?
Bob Smith 0:06
A smidgen is actually something that can be measured absolutely amazing. Capital smidgen, measuring a smidgen of this smidgen well answers to those and other questions coming up in this smidgen of the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith.
Welcome to the off ramp, a chance to slow down, steer clear of crazy and take a side road to sanity. Well, Marcia, as we begin our new year, I’ve got some leftover holiday questions to ask. Got one too, and a vacation question, where would you have to go to find the tallest sand dunes in North America? Would
Marcia Smith 0:56
it be Michigan?
Bob Smith 0:57
No, it’s not Michigan, because
Marcia Smith 0:59
I remember seeing some as we pulled in the seaside resort
Bob Smith 1:03
of Michigan. No where the tallest sand dunes of North America California would be the California that would be an obvious place. No, it’s not. No, it isn’t. Tell Marcia, it is in the seaside state of Colorado.
Unknown Speaker 1:18
Can you believe that? Lose that voice. Bob,
Bob Smith 1:21
yes, the Great Sand Dunes National Park. That’s the name of it. We got to go visit there sometime. It has the tallest sand dunes in North America with at least five more than 700 feet oh
Marcia Smith 1:33
my gosh,
Bob Smith 1:34
wow. The star Dune is 750 feet high. That’s amazing. It’s so large the National Park Service said it would take you five hours round trip to hike, it really and it’s in Colorado. So how did those dunes come about? Well,
Marcia Smith 1:48
that’s 9x question. How did they come about?
Bob Smith 1:51
Oh, well, that’s a good question. The dunes were formed when the large lakes that were once covering the region back in prehistoric times dried up and they left a 30 square mile dune field in their wake. Happy dune today, the dunes are relatively stable, with just a few inches of dry, movable sand. The rest of it, they just stay in place. Is there any water? Not anything left from that lake? It’s just, you know, so beach toys and things like that left over there from prehistoric times? Yes. Jet skis, prehistoric jet skis.
Marcia Smith 2:25
They were on bones. So
Bob Smith 2:26
if you want real tall sand dunes, you don’t go to Florida, you don’t go to California, you go to Colorado.
Marcia Smith 2:32
Well, look at, where do we go here? At often, up in Door County. White dunes park right, yeah, but it’s
Bob Smith 2:37
on Lake Michigan, yeah. This dune field is in a valley between two mountain ranges, and there’s only a small, shallow met, no creek that’s right next to it, so there’s a beach there, but the dunes rest on huge underground aquifers, so there’s water that goes miles deep, and there’s water in the base of the sand dunes that keeps them there. But opposing winds batter these sand dunes from both sides. They blow sand from the mountains under the sand that’s already there, and keep the dune size consistent. And it’s a vacation place. The National Park Service lets you walk all over it. You can climb them and everything else. It’s in a very unusual setting, but it is a paradise of sorts.
Marcia Smith 3:17
That is a weird, okay, smidgen, Bob,
Bob Smith 3:20
A smidgen. A smidgen has got to be a tiny little thing. Tiny. Is there some kind of an instrument that measures a smidgen? Yes, is it a microscope? No, is it a tape measure?
Marcia Smith 3:31
I don’t know, a yardstick. No, it’s tweezers. Let
Bob Smith 3:35
me tell you. Tell me about a smidgen cooking,
Marcia Smith 3:37
which I don’t do very well, as we can tell from the burn marks on
Speaker 1 3:41
my arm here. Happy holidays.
Marcia Smith 3:44
Marsh is in the kitchen. Oh, my God, okay. A dash, a pinch and a smidgen are often used in recipes, meaning a little, but all those terms actually have real measurements associated with them. A dash is an eighth of a teaspoon. A pinch is a 16th of a teaspoon. Wow. And a smidgen is 1/32 of a teaspoon.
Bob Smith 4:08
How can you actually grab that?
Marcia Smith 4:10
Well, you can’t. I would, I would? I just use my fingers and I use a smidge.
Bob Smith 4:16
That’s pretty cool, though. So you can actually empirically measure what a smidgen is, yeah, 1/32 of a tease. So when you say a smidge, is that 1/64 instead of 1/32 is it like smidge? Is just a half of a smidgen? Jesus, oh. Where do you find these things? Marcia, me
Marcia Smith 4:33
a smidge of wine. Not okay.
Bob Smith 4:37
I’ve got some holiday questions left over. Kind of fun? Did you know that Santa’s reindeer had other names, Ralph, Harry, Bob, well, kind of like that, and they were given to them by another famous author. Now we think of Dasher and Dancer, Prancer and Vixen. That was from what Night Before Christmas? Yeah. Clement Moore, right. Clement Moore,
Marcia Smith 4:57
isn’t that what I call you a Prancer?
Bob Smith 4:59
Yes, you do. I. Guess
Marcia Smith 5:02
I started, sorry.
Bob Smith 5:04
Well, l Frank Baum, the author best known for the Wizard of Oz in 1902 wrote The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. Did you know this? I didn’t, but I have the names of the reindeer. Okay, let’s hear it. New reindeer names, because the old ones were named in the 1830s actually, these are kind of cute. What year is this? 1902? Okay? L Frank Baum, okay. Flossy, glossy racer, Pacer, fearless, peerless, ready and steady. Oh, God, feckless and specless.
Marcia Smith 5:36
I sense a pattern here. Yeah,
Bob Smith 5:40
names that never stuck. Yeah? Oh, my God, isn’t that funny? Yeah? Those are the reindeer names, the alternate reindeer names.
Marcia Smith 5:47
Why did he try to do that?
Bob Smith 5:48
I don’t know. Maybe he was a little bit of an egotist. Name my own reindeer.
Marcia Smith 5:53
Kids all over the world aren’t going to redo their thinking, are they? That’s right. All right. Okay. Bob, ready? Uh huh. Okay, say if you go from scrawny to buff,
Bob Smith 6:02
okay, like me, yeah,
Marcia Smith 6:04
got it or backwards. What? Why do we say, Bob, they’ve been whipped into shape.
Bob Smith 6:09
I always thought it had to do with, like, whip cream. Whipping cream, you know, you whip stuff up with in the kitchen, you know, yeah,
Marcia Smith 6:15
changes something, yeah, with a whisk or egg beater or something. So you
Bob Smith 6:20
take an egg beater to a person and you beat them into shape.
Marcia Smith 6:24
Well, you got the last part right. During ancient Olympics, athletes were expected to go into training 10 months before the start of the games. The last month was spent at the site of the games, and regardless of the weather or your bodily injuries, you went on a strict diet and without shoes, shorts, no shorts or the right to complain whenever they faltered while they were practicing, they were whipped by their trainers. Oh no, these Olympians were literally whipped into shape.
Bob Smith 6:58
Jeez. That’s just horrible. So much for the competitive spirit of people who just want to get ahead. Holy cow, so that’s an ancient Greece. Yeah, I’ll be dying. All right, I have another leftover holiday question here. It’s kind of fun. What country has a special lottery drawing just for Christmas? Really? Yes, China, Italy, Spain or Norway. One of those countries has a lottery during the holiday Norway, no
Marcia Smith 7:28
go. Little south, such glee.
Bob Smith 7:30
What were the other ones? Spain, Italy, China.
Marcia Smith 7:32
Okay, any of those? I’ll say Italy, Spain.
Bob Smith 7:35
Thank you. Yes, it’s Spain. Spain’s favorite holiday tradition. One is Loteria de Navidad, or the Christmas lottery. Reportedly, about 75% of the country’s population purchases a lottery ticket for the drawing, and locals have named it El Gordo, the fat one, because it’s the largest annual lottery in Spain. So every December, 22 families across the country gather around their Christmas tree. Uh huh. No, they gather around their televisions to watch the results of the lottery, and the payout is usually about 2 billion euros, about 2.1 billion US dollars. So million dollars, billion, 2.1 billion total. Oh, my God. So there’s quite a merry christmas indeed for
Marcia Smith 8:19
somebody, yeah, wow. Well, you know what I do every Christmas, I put a lottery ticket and everybody’s stocking, just in case they’re disappointed with their presence. There’s always a chance something,
Bob Smith 8:30
something bigger way, there’s something out there. Maybe you’ll get $2
Marcia Smith 8:35
yeah, that’s all we’ve ever won. And one
Bob Smith 8:37
more holiday question, what’s your very first song played in space.
Marcia Smith 8:41
It was religious, wasn’t it? No, it wasn’t what was and it wasn’t a recording. That’s somebody saying it, somebody
Bob Smith 8:48
sang it. The very first song played in space was actually sung in space, and it was in 1965 now you probably don’t know the names of the astronauts, so I’ll tell you who it was. The performers were Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra, and the date was December 16, 1965 the crew claimed to see an unidentified object while in orbit. Oh, Santa. Then they began playing Jingle Bells using a harmonica and bells that they’d snuck aboard. Oh, really, how cool is that? So Jingle Bells was the first song played by humans in space, and the artists were two astronauts, Tom Stafford and Wally Schirra.
Marcia Smith 9:25
That’s great little tidbit. So here’s a Christmas factoid. The United States Post Office gives Santa his own address. It’s 123, elf Road, North Pole, 8888, that’s he’s got a zip code and everything. Wow. And Canada has a postal code for the North Pole, and it is H O, H O, H O,
Bob Smith 9:46
that’s great. I think I read that somewhere. That’s a great one. That’s funny. All right, Bob, what
Marcia Smith 9:53
is graphene?
Bob Smith 9:55
Graphene?
Marcia Smith 9:56
Uh huh, G, R, A, P, H, E, N, E,
Bob Smith 9:58
graph. 15 graph means writing, or something to do with writing, because
Marcia Smith 10:03
of the graph fight right, correct
Bob Smith 10:06
graphene is it’s a fear of graphite. That’s a good one.
Marcia Smith 10:13
Oh, this is fascinating. It’s believed to be the strongest, lightest and most electrically conductive substance on Earth, hmm, check this. Graphene is 200 times stronger than steel by weight. Wow, it’s 1000 times lighter than paper.
Bob Smith 10:30
This is an actual substance. Yeah, it’s
Marcia Smith 10:32
98% transparent. It conducts electricity better than any known material at room temperature. It can convert light at any wavelength into current. And last but not least, graphene is made from carbon, the most abundant element in the universe. Do we use this stuff? Well, that’s just sit there trying to figure out something. So graphene was discovered in 2004 by two scientists from the University of Manchester. So this is recent. I didn’t know that 2004 okay, they wanted to create a carbon substance less than an atom thick, wow. So they put sticky tape on top of bits of graphite, okay, you know, like in your pencil. And then they peeled off the tape, leaving flakes on the tape. Then they folded the tape in half, and they stuck the flakes back onto the top and split them again. They kept folding it 1020 times. They kept folding sticky tape onto the flakes of graphite, and long story short, they isolated a single sheet of carbon and created a brand new material called graphene. And both of them won a Nobel Prize in Physics for it. Wow.
Bob Smith 11:40
And this is just two scientists with some cellophane tape having some fun one day and go fight. That’s the fun of it all. Scotch tape and a pencil. Look, imagine the things you can figure out. Well,
Marcia Smith 11:51
this is inspiration to children everywhere.
Bob Smith 11:55
Hey. Speaking of inspiration, this is an inspirational story. This is history. Okay, sure,
Marcia Smith 11:59
I love it.
Bob Smith 12:00
How did the daughter of Catherine, the first of Russia, get around the rule that young ladies of the Royal Court should never be drunk?
Marcia Smith 12:08
Oh, dear. What a terrible rule. So how did she get around that? Yeah, well, she drank alone.
Bob Smith 12:14
Well, they did something. This is back in 1727, tell me, okay. Well, the rule back then in the Russian court was that young men of the court could get drunk, but they had to wait until after nine o’clock so ladies couldn’t get drunk anytime. So Catherine’s daughter and her girlfriends held transvestite balls.
Marcia Smith 12:32
They dressed as men and drank to their hearts exactly as young
Bob Smith 12:36
men and circumventing the rules. So this is, this is like that series that’s on Netflix. Yeah, Catherine the Great. So it was a quite right balled time back then. Isn’t that funny?
Marcia Smith 12:46
It is That is crazy. Isn’t that crazy? I love, I love the work around.
Bob Smith 12:50
It is a work around. It’s
Marcia Smith 12:51
a hack.
Bob Smith 12:52
Speaking of work around, let’s take a break, and then we’ll be back with more in just a moment. You’re listening to the off ramp with Bob and Marcia Smith. We’re back. You’re listening to the off ramp. We do this for the Cedarburg public library every week. We have taken a couple of weeks off here over the holidays, but we’re back in fighting shape, indeed, after about with COVID.
Marcia Smith 13:12
That was you. Oh dear. I got mine last New Year’s. Yes, you did. Seems like we spaced these things we did from
Bob Smith 13:19
the beginning of the year to the end of the year, we both had it so not unusual, I guess anymore. Another history question for you, Yes, dear. You look back at the Christopher Columbus, we always think about how his voyage was funded by Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. Remember, he went to all the monarchs of Europe and tried to get somebody to fund him. What was the return on the royal investment in Columbus’s voyage in terms of, in terms of gold and how much it was worth?
Marcia Smith 13:47
Yeah. How do you want the answer?
Bob Smith 13:49
If you look at it in terms of dollars spent and the amount of gold that came back to the old world, it was a substantial amount. How much was it?
Marcia Smith 13:56
Do you think that they made? Yes, trip, and
Bob Smith 13:58
this is their dollars, not our dollars? Yeah, I’ll
Marcia Smith 14:00
save $5 million
Bob Smith 14:02
what was about that? Yeah, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, they invested $6,000
Marcia Smith 14:08
Oh, and got 5 million back, and he got $1.7 million back.
Bob Smith 14:11
We’ll see now that was over a century or so, 2 million after a century, Spain had a return of nearly $2 million in gold. So that took a long time to have a return on investment. But then, of course, Spain got gold and silver like crazy over the years.
Marcia Smith 14:27
Okay, what’s our ROI here, Columbus.
Bob Smith 14:32
So again, after one century, Spain had a return of nearly $2 million in gold, and then it went up from there. And that’s according to the Isaac Asimov book of facts.
Marcia Smith 14:39
All right, okay, Bob, when and or where were pants or trousers prohibited from being worn?
Bob Smith 14:47
Where were they prohibited from being worn? Well, I remember in school they were prohibited. Girls couldn’t wear pants. Oh, that’s trousers when I was going to high school, high school, yeah, I
Marcia Smith 14:58
guess we didn’t either. No, yeah, wear some kind
Bob Smith 15:01
of a skirt. Yeah, women always had our dress or dress, right? Yeah, exactly. Wow, so that was one, but that’s not what you’re talking about.
Marcia Smith 15:07
I’m talking about guys. This is in the United States. No, no, no. Where was it ancient Rome? Oh, really. No, no, trousers, no. What did they wear? Togas and togas and what were those other things? Togas and tunics, yeah? And pants were strictly for military guys. Oh,
Bob Smith 15:25
is that right? It was a so it was a military uniform, yeah,
Marcia Smith 15:28
it was, yeah. The powers that be issued edicts against trouser wearing. Many Romans considered the foreign garments of pants to be aggressive and uncouth. The fourth century, Ban prohibited civilians from donning pants, and doing so meant risking permanent exile, wow, just because you wore pants, yeah, yeah, they became a regular part of Roman wear and court clothing during the fifth and sixth centuries. Took that long no pants in the fourth century, no pens for you. Pens for you.
Bob Smith 16:01
Okay. Marcia, I have another geographical question. I know this is your favorite time indeed. So look at the United States I am. Think of the time zones. Which time zone touches the most US states? Is it the Pacific? The Eastern, the central or the mountain? Central?
Marcia Smith 16:18
Central? No, Eastern,
Bob Smith 16:23
Eastern, yes, yes. I thought you’d try another one. Yeah. Eastern time zone includes 23 states plus the District of Columbia, so and it covers the largest percent of the US population. Yeah, but Central Time comes in a close second, it touches 20 states and encompasses the most lander. I
Marcia Smith 16:44
was going to say the states are so much bigger, so combined the
Bob Smith 16:47
Eastern and Central Time Zones touch 43 states. Wow. But here’s where it gets complicated. They don’t touch the entirety of those states because many states straddle two time zones. In the Central Time Zone. For example, only half the states fall entirely within that zone. The other half have parts in the Eastern or the mountain zones. Okay? Federal law recognizes nine official time zones, six of them cover the 50 states. The other cover territories, US territories,
Marcia Smith 17:16
sticking to states Bob, which you love, okay? Why is Colorado called the Centennial State? Because
Bob Smith 17:23
it came into the union in seven. I see 18. Is it 1887 No, 1883 think about it, 1876 That’s it. Okay, so it’s the centennial of the so it’s not the centennial the country, but it’s a centennial of the Declaration of Independence, correct?
Marcia Smith 17:39
Gotcha correct. And exactly 100 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence, they became known as the Centennial State. Yeah. So there you go. Bob. Okay.
Bob Smith 17:50
One more state question. Oh, geez. In what state is the oldest continuously used public building in the United States? St Augustine. No, not St Augustine. There is another city that holds that distinction, Santa Fe. Santa Fe, yeah, in Santa Fe, their palace of governors that was built in the 1600s when New Mexico was still a Spanish territory in 1609 okay, it was called New Mexico then. So
Marcia Smith 18:16
it’s still being used functionally, not like in St Augustine, where we went, that fort. That’s more like a tourist, right?
Bob Smith 18:22
Yeah, the palace of governors in Santa Fe it was the capital until 1885 but it’s a museum, the Museum of New Mexico.
Marcia Smith 18:31
Okay, gotcha ready?
Unknown Speaker 18:33
Yes.
Marcia Smith 18:34
Where was the water location for the movie Titanic?
Bob Smith 18:38
That was a big tank they built down in Mexico.
Marcia Smith 18:41
Well, aren’t you huge?
Bob Smith 18:43
It was the biggest tank ever built.
Marcia Smith 18:45
Just take it away from me. You’re
Bob Smith 18:46
right. He built a smaller one for his new movie. Avatar. Avatar, yeah, but that was a smaller tank, but they had a massive tank. They did for the Titanic,
Marcia Smith 18:55
yeah. According to the technical journal, J O M, the tank built for the film. It was the largest shooting tank in the world, holding how many millions gallons of water, I don’t know, 17.
Bob Smith 19:06
17 million gallons of water. Can you imagine that? Yep,
Marcia Smith 19:10
that Titanic model, which was 883 feet long or 1/6 of a mile, was 90% to scale and fit in here and looked like it was holy cow, and it weighed 46,328 tons, the model, the ship, the Titanic model, and so they needed 17 million gallons of salt water.
Bob Smith 19:33
That’s amazing. Okay. Bob, Quickie,
Marcia Smith 19:35
yeah, what fruit is radioactive?
Bob Smith 19:38
Fruit that’s radioactive. Got a problem with that both eat. This isn’t something that glows in the dark or anything. No, no, no, something we both eat. It’s radioactive. Would it be like raisins? No, okay, what fruit is radioactive? It’s
Marcia Smith 19:53
your namesake. Bob. Your namesake? Robert. Bob, banana. Bob, oh, it’s
Bob Smith 19:58
a banana. Banana. Those are radioactive. Just
Marcia Smith 20:01
a slight needle there. That’s because of the potassium in him. Wow, yeah, and they decay, and apparently it comes up with an isotope called K 40, and when that spontaneously decays, it releases beta and gamma radiation. The amount is harmless in one banana, but a truckload of bananas has been known to fool radiation detectors. Oh, my god, yeah, designed to sniff out nuclear weapons. Is
Bob Smith 20:28
that? Is that a truck with nuclear waste? Or is that a bunch of bananas going by exactly
Marcia Smith 20:32
they even, in fact, there’s even an informal radiation measurement named the banana equivalent dose. Oh, Ped bed. That’s hilarious, isn’t it? Oh, my goodness, you know what country grows the most bananas?
Bob Smith 20:46
I think it’s El Salvador or Nope. What
Marcia Smith 20:49
is it India?
Bob Smith 20:51
Oh, I didn’t know that. I wouldn’t have
Marcia Smith 20:53
guessed that. I thought they were all from Latin America. Yeah, wrong, wrong, wrong. They produce more than 25% of the world bananas in
Bob Smith 21:00
India, yeah,
Marcia Smith 21:01
I had no idea. You know, how many species of bananas there are
Bob Smith 21:05
no I don’t
Unknown Speaker 21:08
Am I full of it today? Are full of bananas?
Bob Smith 21:10
You are full of appeal. I would say 12, 1000 1000 different species of bananas. Yeah, think about that. Okay. Marcia, that was a good science question. Yeah, I have a science question. What is archaeo magnetism?
Marcia Smith 21:26
Let me think Archeo. What do you spell? Archeo, A, R, C, H,
Bob Smith 21:29
E, O, magnetism. All right,
Marcia Smith 21:33
it’s the magnetic force emanated from the St Louis arches. It’s
Bob Smith 21:37
magnetic. Yes. Archaeo, archeology,
Marcia Smith 21:41
archeology. Okay,
Bob Smith 21:46
so if it’s archeology and magnetism, yeah, what is it?
Marcia Smith 21:49
It’s, uh, it’s a handsome guy they dug up from
Bob Smith 21:53
Okay, let me go through. Let me give the answer here. Thank you. It’s a new dating method for ancient artifacts. This has just been developed by yof Wagner, who is a doctoral candidate at Tel Aviv University in the last year or so, and the Hebrew University at Jerusalem. And it’s helping archeologists refine the history of the holy lands, because they can use the Earth’s magnetic record, because there’s a record I didn’t know the Earth’s magnetic field moves around, and the Earth’s geomagnetic records are baked into objects baked. Turns out, when things were burned during massive biblical battles, and these ones you read about in the Bible, they actually did. They set fire to cities, and the ancient ceramics or mud bricks were heated to such a high temperature that the magnetic orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field was baked into the stone for all time. So they know that this magnetic field has traveled about, and they can pinpoint what time various events happen. So instead of burned bricks and pottery shards being, you know, damaged relics of the past, they actually maintain a superior clock inside. Okay? So it basically they they’ve compared various sites, and they can decide when the battle
Marcia Smith 23:06
of Jericho was and other things. That’s very cool, and it makes sense too. So it’s
Bob Smith 23:09
like a compass, a historical compass, I
Marcia Smith 23:12
see. Well, we seem to be rolling on the same avenues here. Here’s a science question, okay, another science question. Who is the only person to win two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences.
Bob Smith 23:25
The only person who won two Nobel Prizes in two different sciences is this, a very famous named person. It’s not Einstein, no, is it? Madam Curie, it is okay,
Marcia Smith 23:38
Bravo of her many distinctions Madame Curie, this might be the most impressive. She shared the physics prize with her husband Pierre and Henri de Corona in 1903 and had the chemistry prize all to herself in 1911 Wow. Her 1903 prize was the first one by a woman. But I’ll give you a factoid on Madam Curie, nearly a century after her death, her papers are still radioactive, no kidding, and will be for another 1500 years. Oh, my God, the pioneering scientists initially had no way of knowing just how dangerous her research on radioactivity, a word she and her husband coined, truly was she walked around her lab with radioactive elements in her pockets and stored them out in the open, in part because she really enjoyed how they looked like fairy lights. Oh, dear, wow. One more thing on her for safety reasons, France’s National Library stores all her notebooks in lead lined boxes, good Lord, and anyone wishing to view her manuscripts must sign a waiver and wear protective gear.
Bob Smith 24:49
Wow, after all these years, after more than a century, that is impressive that
Marcia Smith 24:55
her papers for another 1500 years will be radioactive.
Bob Smith 25:00
That’s it’s hard to imagine that. It is hard to Okay. Marsh, a couple last questions here. Okay, how big are video games? How big is the video game industry? And I’m going to ask you that, because if you’re not a player, it’s kind of an underground economy, Modern Warfare. Two This is another in the Call of Duty video game franchise. How much do you think it made in its first 10 days in terms of money? It was launched in October 28 2022
Marcia Smith 25:29
how much it made in the first 10 days? In the first 10 days,
Bob Smith 25:32
this is a video game, yeah, okay, okay, I’ve
Marcia Smith 25:34
comprehended everything now, and the answer is,
Bob Smith 25:37
$1 billion I was
Marcia Smith 25:41
gonna do it like, what’s his name? Now, can
Bob Smith 25:43
you believe that billion? $1 billion yeah, that’s according to The New York Times. After was released October 28 in 10 days, it made over a billion how many things make a billion dollars in 10 days? I
Marcia Smith 25:56
know somebody who can lose a billion dollars. Oh, yes.
Bob Smith 25:58
We’ve been reading about him. Anyway, Microsoft wants to buy Activision Blizzard, which is the company that makes it. They also make Overwatch, Warcraft and Candy Crush for $68 billion Wow.
Marcia Smith 26:11
Candy Crush, well, now we’re talking I do like that one.
Bob Smith 26:15
This shows you how big entertainment money goes now, when Disney bought Marvel, that was a big deal years ago when they bought the Marvel company, they paid $4 billion for that, and then they bought the Star Wars franchise from George Lucas. That was 8 billion. But here’s a video game that made a billion in 10 days, and the company, Microsoft’s trying to buy for 68 billion. Wow. Again, I had one more for you. We all know actors sometimes go to great extremes to prepare for film roles, but how much extra weight did actor Brendan Frazier recently add for his role in the whale?
Marcia Smith 26:52
I think I saw a picture of him. Yeah, it’s not all due
Bob Smith 26:55
to diet. Thank God. He did gain weight. Yeah, 50 pounds, but prosthetics as well. Yeah. Okay, so he gained weight for the role, but the weight and the prosthetics added as much as 300 additional pounds to his frame. Imagine being weighed down with 300 more extra weight. Now, artificial or real, that’s that’s really committing to the role,
Marcia Smith 27:16
as they say.
Bob Smith 27:17
So the film is Darren Aron skis film The whale. All right,
Marcia Smith 27:21
I’ll wrap it up with a quote. May all your troubles last as long as your New Year’s resolution.
Bob Smith 27:30
That’s a good way to start the new year. And that’s it for this episode. Join us again next time when we return with more facts, figures, quotes and information for the off ramp. The off ramp is produced in association with CPL radio online and the Cedarburg Public Library, Cedarburg, Wisconsin, the.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
