May 21- Sports

It is my deepest pleasure to write this question today, because I believe it captures the essence of The Daily Question more than any question so far. The original reason I started the blog was so that I would have an excuse to ask questions, and, more importantly, have an excuse to look it up. The background of this story begins with my baseball team watching the Varsity Team during a game. Awhile into the game, (baseball is a dreadfully long sport) one of the guys looks up and says "I wonder if a bird has ever gotten hit by a pitch..?" Of course, I thought to myself wow that might be a pretty good daily question... has a bird ever gotten hit by a pi....
And then, before the thought could even be completed, another player looks up and says the date, the player who hit the bird, and team he was on. I was stunned. I certainly didn't know that, but someone else on my team did, and that is the point of the blog. To find the daily dose of intellectual awesomeness in each other. Not to post random facts each day, but to actively encourage myself, and hopefully my readers to search for the random, the ridiculous, the unknown, because isn't that what learning is about? So with that little sentimental Daily Thought, I give today's Daily Question: Who most recently hit a bird with a pitch in a major league game, and what team was he on?







His name was Randy Johnson, and he happened to be playing for the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 24, 2001 when he hit an unlucky dove.

May 18- History

This question entails a lesser known country, so bear with me. A few weeks ago, I was sitting around the table with my family, and we were debating why my ancestors left Germany. (We weren't exactly sure about the timeline, so it was up to guessing.) There were famine theories, over population, all the classic 1800's migration grounds, or trying to pinpoint the main raison d'être, if you will. Anyway, one of the ideas I threw out there was that it was the fall of the Holy Roman Empire that drove them away. That really got things confusing, since the Holy Roman Empire existed at a completely different time period than the real Roman Empire. And since I didn't know enough about the Empire at the time, that theory was entirely smooshed. (It was incorrect anyway, because my ancestors left 40 years after the disestablishment, but that doesn't matter right now.) So now, without further ado nor rhetoric, I give, the daily question: When was the Holy Roman Empire established, and how long did it last to?







Lasting for almost 1,000 years, the Holy Roman Empire spanned from around 962 AD to 1806 AD. (One famous leader of this country was Charlemagne, but you don't hear much about it otherwise.)
For more info visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire

May 11- History

History is such a massive subject, sometimes it is difficult to delve deep into the catacombs of my brain to come up with a sufficient question for Mondays. So for my question today, I am going to ask a question about... PRE-history. A pre-historic question? Is this even possible? Alas my friends, it is, so with that sentiment I will be asking my question about Dinosaurs. Since science was making leaps and bounds in the 1700's, and fossils were being found, Dinosaurs became a hot topic. Were they cold or warm blooded? Tail carried up or down? Most of this we still don't know, but paleontologists (dinosaur researchers) are coming closer to finding the answers every day. (If you don't believe me, check out the New York Museum of Natural History) Anyway, one thing we were able to figure out over time was how to classify things using time periods. Scientists and historians just loving doing that. (Think Bronze Age, Romantic Era, Gilded Age) So even though you might think this question comes out of left-field, it really doesn't, considering all the things we use time periods for. And with that, I present this question: What are the three main periods in which Dinosaurs roamed the Earth?





The three are listed from most recent to least recent:
Cretaceous 65-145 million years ago
Jurassic 145-208 million years ago
Triassic 208-245 million years ago

April 21- Science

Radios are weird. They have all sorts of strange properties, like if you grab the antenna, the reception gets better. Another strange thing, that you may or may not have noticed, is that the reception is often times better at night. Which brings me to my question of the day: Why is the reception better at night? (Hint, it has to do with the sky)







In order to find a complete answer, we need to remember a couple of things. First, the earth is constantly revolving. Second, there are several layers of the atmosphere that keep said earth from frying. One such layer is the ionosphere. This is a layer of the atmosphere that has lots of ions very close to each other. Now lets look down at the picture. (Click on it to see the image in its entirety) You can't really see some of the writing I put on there, but, you can see the earth, and that white oval around it. Inside the oval is a purple line. That represents radio waves. Now, the left side of the earth is day, and the right is night. Since the ions are so close in the ionosphere, radio waves have to bounce off them. You can see that the ionosphere is closer during the day, so the radio waves have to bounce more, giving it more opportunity to get blurred. But at night, the ionosphere is farther away, so the waves can go farther in one bounce. This means you get a clearer reception.

April 18- Random

I've decided that finding decent news stories is hard, so I'm changing Fridays to music day. Now for today-
Ketchup. The all important condiment. Found on french fries and hot dogs alike. Unfortunately, it seems like it takes forever for the ketchup to get from the bottle to the food item. And really, does hitting the top of the ketchup container with your palm do anything? But actually, ketchup is moving pretty fast, which brings me to this question: How fast does ketchup leave the bottle?




On average, the speed of ketchup leaving the bottle is 30 miles per hour.