Larry Scheckel

QUESTION:

Where was the first speed trap set up?

ANSWER:

The first speed trap was set up in 1905 when New York City Police Commissioner Bill McAdoo was caught going 12 mph in an 8 mph zone in New Hampshire. Two dead tree trunks spaced one mile apart each contained a deputy inside with a stopwatch and telephone.  When a speedster appeared to be going too fast, a deputy would start the stopwatch and telephone his comrade in the other dead tree trunk and another deputy manning a roadblock.

Commissioner McAdoo was so impressed he asked the local sheriffs department to devise similar systems for New York City.

So called speed traps are entirely legal not necessarily evil devices. Enforcing traffic laws are a normal part of police operation. Knowing that traffic laws are enforced causes people to slow down and drive prudently.

Speed limits are enforced by using a variety of devices and instruments, including, VASCAR, radar, lidar, cameras, or sensors imbedded in the roadbed,

VASCAR (Visual Average Speed Computer and Recorder) marries a stopwatch to a simple computer. The operator on the ground or in the air presses a button as the car passes  two landmarks that are a known distance apart. Those large white stripes along the Interstate are used by both the “bear in the air” and units on the ground. Sometimes the two landmarks are posts or signs along the highway. VASCAR makes radar detectors useless. The police aren’t sending out any radar beams.

Radar (Radio Detection and Ranging) sends out a series of microwaves and times how long it takes for the beam to go to the target and return. Doppler radar analyzes how the frequency of the returned signed has been altered by the cars motion. Lidar is similar to radar except a laser light beam is used instead of a radio signal.

Radar detectors are legal in most all of the United States, but not in Canada. However, trying to jam police radar or lidar is illegal. Drivers have been known to flash their lights to warn approaching drivers of a speed trap. Some places this practice is tolerated, in others it is deemed illegal.

Increasingly, people tend to think that radar detectors are useless and a waste of money. That’s why radar detector sales are way down. Radar detectors are simple radio receivers, or light receivers. Many police do not have their radar sets on continually, but rather turn them on when they see a suspected “Mario Andretti”. They’ve registered your speed by the time you can even take your foot off the accelerator.

Lots of places are installing those unmanned roadside radar units that flash the speed of approaching vehicles. Some are now powered by solar cells. They are highly effective in making people award of their speed and hence slowing down in critical areas, for example, where kids are walking to school. Wife and I saw many of those units in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota on a recent trip. Locally, one of those radars was recently installed on Butts Avenue near Tomah High School.

The National Motorists Association blog lists the “worst speed trap in Wisconsin”

as Rosendale, a small community ten miles west of Fond du Lac along Highway 26. Motorists going between Madison and the Green Bay, Oshkosh, Appleton area often use Highway 26. Rosendale has also been dubbed as “The Speed Trap Capitol of North America”.  Rosendale police are said to issue about 1500 tickets per year.

There is a surefire way to avoid getting speeding tickets: slow down.

QUESTION:

Why is the right side of a ship called “starboard” and the left side called “port”?

ANSWER:

Vikings  ships were maneuvered  with a long board on the right side near theback. The word starboard is derived from “steor” for  steering and  “bord” for board. This steering board was the rudder that controlled the direction of the ship. Thus,the right side became known as the starboard side.

The Viking long boats were loaded from the left side to prevent damage to the steering paddle located on the right or starboard side. “Lade” or “lar”  means  load and “bord”  means side.  Hence the name “larboard” or left side.

But the name starboard and larboard sound much alike and could cause confusion when
shouting orders over the wind, weather, and waves. So the British Admiralty demanded that  the word port  be used in place of larboard. It does make sense, because the boat is loaded while  in port and on the port side. The United States Navy officially adopted the term “port” in 1846.

Ships on the seas have greatly enriched our language. A “butt” is a wooden cask holding water and to “scuttle”  means to drill a hole or tap a cask. The sailors of old would exchange gossip when they gathered around the “scuttlebutt”  for a drink of water.

The French term “m’aidez”  means “help me”. This “mayday” call is now the distress call for vessels and
people in trouble at sea. It was made official by the International Telecommunications Conference in 1948.

A  “clean bill of health” was an official document given to a ship that had left a port in which there was no epidemic or infectious diseases occurring.

Wooden ships had decks made of planks. The space between planks was filled with a packing material called “oakum”, a  tarred fiber used for caulking the joints. The joints were sealed with a mixture of pitch and tar. These blackened joints left a quite visible  series of lines running the length of the ship and were spaced  six to eight inches apart.

Most every Sunday, a warship’s crew was ordered to “fall in” or line up in formation at a designated area based on every crewmember’s job. In order to have a neat alignment, sailors were directed to stand with their toes just touching a particular seam.

These seams were also used for punishment. The captain might order a naughty young sailor or cabin boy to stand with his toes just touching a designated seam for hours at a time, and not talking to anyone.  Older sailors were flogged.  Obviously, this “toe the line” was an admonishment to a miscreant that it just might be easier and more pleasant to conduct himself in the required manner.

Sources: http://www.history.navy.mil and http://www.lore-and-saga.co.uk/html/viking_ships

QUESTION:

What is a jackalope?

ANSWER:

A jackalope is an imaginary animal that is supposed to be a cross between a jack rabbit and a pronghorn antelope.

Where this good-hearted foolishness start? A 1930’s hunting trip for jackrabbits near Douglas, Wyoming. Douglas Herrick and his brother invited a bunch of hunters from out East for a visit. Several days after the hunt, Douglas Herrick looked in a bin of jackrabbit remains and deer antlers, and the idea was born. Why not
mount a set of antlers on top of a rabbit? After all, the Herrick brothers had studied taxidermy by mail order as kids. They sold the first jackalope for $10. The New York Times wrote a story about this mythical creature. The legend spread.

Douglas, Wyoming has been named the “Home of the Jackalope”. You can get a season Jackalope Hunting License from the Douglas Chamber of Commerce for $10. It is good for only one day of the year, June 31. Do keep in mind that June has only 30 days !! Also a hunter cannot have an IQ greater than 72. A large statue
of a jackalope stands in the town square of Douglas, Wyoming, population of about 5,000. The jackalope  adorns Douglas’s  city fire trucks and park benches.

The House side of the Wyoming state legislature passed a bill, by a vote of 45-12,  in 2005,  naming the jackalope  the “official mythological creature” of Wyoming. The bill was indefinitely postponed  in the State senate on March 2, 2005. Those Wyoming folks do have a sense of humor!

Wall Drug in Wall, S.D. has a large jackalope statue. This seven foot jackalope comes with  a saddle and tourists areencouraged to have their picture taken astride the giant beast.  A minor league hockey team in Texas is named the Odessa Jackalopes.

President Ronald Reagan had a jackalope mounted on the wall of his California Ranch, Rancho del Cielo, near Santa Barbara in the Santa Ynez Mountain range.  Reagan claimed he caught the brute himself.

The jackalope  joins a long line of fairy tale creatures such as the Loch Ness monster, Big Foot, King Kong, vampires, dragons, centaurs, mermaids, and unicorns.

Book release/signing at Tomah Public Library on Tuesday Oct 25, 2011 from 5-7 PM.

We will be doing science demonstrations at Adams Friendship Middle School on Oct 20. The theme is “Illuminate Your Love of Learning and Let Your Potential Glow”.  We expect about 300 people, mostly students, parents, and teachers. Light and electricity demonstrations performed.

A program for science teachers at UW-Stevens Point on Oct 28, 2011. This is the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Association of Physics Teachers. I will be giving a 2 hour session on “Physics Classroom Competitions and Challenges and Contests. Significant Digits, Units Please, Vector Addition, Write It-Do It, This Is Knot Possible, Energy Ball, King Tut’s Tomb, Three Cup Observation, Skewer a Balloon, How Much Does a Ruler Weigh. About 25 competitions and several demonstrations.

A public program of science demonstrations will be held Thursday Nov 3, 2011 at the Deke Slayton Museum in Sparta. Open to the public. Starts at 6:30 PM. Always well attended.

QUESTION:

Do fish feel pain?

ANSWER:

No, fish feel no pain. Fish operate on brainstem and spinal cord functions only. It’s
different for us humans. Human existence is dominated by massively developed
brain hemispheres. In addition, cold blooded animals such as fish, snakes,
lizards, and frogs have simpler brains than warm-blooded vertebrates, such as
birds and mammals. Fish have the simplest type of brain of any vertebrate,
while we humans, have the most complex brains of any species. Fish lack the
structural elements, called the neocortex, necessary to feel pain. So keep
pulling those trout in !

The brain of a fish is like a Model T Ford, simple but efficient and has very
limited capabilities. The brain of a human is like a modern luxury car with
electronic fuel injection, powerful engine, climate control, emission controls,
all wheel drive, state-of-the-art sound system, and computerized monitoring
systems.

Pain is actually a useful survival tool. It is a twofold experience. First, there is
the process of our nerves communicating with the brain. Second, there is the
response to the pain, and this response varies from person to person.

Say a  person touches a hot stove burner.Nerve impulses travel to the brain, registers the burn, and the brain tells thearm to do a quick retraction. The pain is telling our body to react, lest there is tissue damage.

Our brain is big enough to record that negative emotional  reaction and to store a memory of the unpleasant experience. That is why most kids will touch a hot stove only once. Fishhave no such capability.

Some people may argue that fish feel pain because they see the fish flopping
about  on the fishing line or trashing about in the boat or on shore after being pulled in.  But that response is no different than being pursued by a predator or being startled by a vibration in the water.

Don’t feel sorry for fish. What about the poor lobster? They look rather wretched swimming around in those desolate grocery store tanks, their pincers banded together.

Little do they know that in a matter of hours or days, they will be thrown into a pot of steaming water and boiled alive. That whistling steam escaping from their shells is really imitating  a final goodbye scream.

Find similar questions and answers in my new book,  Ask Your Science Teacher. 409 pages. A delightful read. Email me for a copy $12  postage paid.

lscheckel@charter.net

Ask Your Science Teacher is my new book. 409 pages of things you always wanted to know. You can get it at:

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/ask-your-science-teacher

or

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Ask+your+science+teacher&x=0&y=0

or email me at  lscheckel@charter.net.

cost is $12, postge paid.

The aspens are quaking in Colorado and this is the time of the year to see them. Been on a 7 day road trip to South Dakota, Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. Me and the Wife, Ann! Visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Hit Wall Drug in Wall, South Dakota. Coffee is still only 5 cents. The high school was celebrating homecoming. They are the Eagles, not the Flowers. As in Wall Flowers !! Drove through the Badlands. Tried to get close to  prairie dogs to get some nice pictures. They took to their holes and I could hear them laughing. Stared at the four faces of Mt. Rushmore. I like Lincoln the best. Drove down to Colorado, through Estes Park, up Big Thompson Canyon, and through Rocky Mountain National Park. Took the cog railroad up to the top of Pike’s Peak. Hiked through the Garden of  the Gods. Beautiful blue skies, cool mornings, warm days, and much sunshine.

larry scheckel

ASK YOUR SCIENCE TEACHER                 by Larry Scheckel

This week’s question was asked by a fourth grade lad at Wyeville Elementary
School,  Tomah, Wisconsin

QUESTION:

Where did the first tree come from?

ANSWER:

The Earth’s earliest plants were believed to be ferns and mosses that were only a
few inches tall. About 400 million years ago, during the Devonian Period,
plants formed stems, grew taller, competed for air, developed root systems,
vascular growth, and secondary growth. So scientists believe that there was no
single moment when trees started, but rather a slow developing process over
millions of years.

Trees are really quite sneaky. Most have no branches at the lowest levels. The object
of the trunk is to raise the height of the branches that grow the leaf canopy.
Any plant that has leaves sticking way up there can get more sunlight than its
neighbors.

And by branching, a tree can spread its leaves to cover more area, hence gather more sun. A tree also spaces its leaves to prevent the leaves from shading each other.  Further, the tree shades its root area to suppress any competition.

Sunlight is everything to a tree. Through the process of photosynthesis, the tree uses
energy from the sun, plus water and carbon dioxide and chlorophyll to
manufacture sugars. Here’s the chemistry: Six molecules of water plus six
molecules of carbon dioxide produce one molecule of sugar plus six molecules of
oxygen.

You just got to love trees. They provide shade, of course. They hold the soil in
place, preventing erosion. Trees provide sap for maple syrup. (There’s some little
sap in every family tree!!). Plus nests for birds. Trees provide wood for
burning, for building houses, and providing paper and fruit.

Trees are marvels of engineering. They are able to transport water up hundreds of
feet to the top of the tree by the process of capillary action.

One third of the United States is covered by trees. And one third of that is set
aside as our National Parks and National Forests. We have more trees today than
70 years ago.

Trees were not evenly distributed across the United States in the past and it is the
same situation today. New England states are covered with forests. But Lewis
and Clark  “observed a vast treeless prairie” in the present day Dakotas. So few trees in parts of the Dakota states that the pioneers built their houses out of sod.

Do visit Redwoods National Forest or Muir Woods in California and Sequoia and
Kings Canyon National Parks. Stand in awe of the largest tree on Earth, the
General Sherman tree.

Who cannot love and be moved by the poem “Trees”, written by Joyce Kilmer,
who was killed by a German sniper at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at
the age of 31 ?  “I think that I shall never see, A poem as lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest,  Against the Earth’s sweet flowing
breast;  A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray.”