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Saturday, October 24, 2009
Believe it or not, there is a real story to why Americans drive on the right side of the road. In feudal England, swordsmen carried their weapons on the left hip because it was easier to pull and draw their long swords across their bodies. These weapons were some 4 feet long, and for this reason sitting a horse from the left side of the road made practical sense, since the swordsman's right hand would always be closest to an enemy.  The French In the 1700s freight haulers in France started using multiple horse teams to move large loads by road. The carts did not contain a seat, so French teamsters arbitrarily decided to sit on the left inside horse to ensure that a driver could see the wheels of oncoming carts. The American Revolution France was an active participant in the U.S. war of independence, and their conventions became equally embedded within America's emerging culture. As a result, when moving heavy loads in the States, American teamsters began to follow French conventions, and drove their wagons and carts on the right side of the road. Napoleon When Napoleon marched through Europe (and nearly everywhere else), he bound his French cultural conventions within the various countries he conquered. Interestingly, if you look at where he operated throughout the early 1800s, you can see his influence on today's driving habits. World War I Prior to WWI and the emergent "horseless carriage," vehicles were primarily converted from horse-drawn wagons and carts to gasoline-powered vehicles. As the car became more prominent, driving habits were carried forward as well. As a result, during WWI, there were some issues between American and English truck drivers over which side they were supposed to be driving on when moving ambulances to and from the front, and when traversing muddy or unmarked roads. Today About a quarter of all of the countries of the world still drive on the left, and of these, most are former outposts, or colonies historically part of the British Empire. These range from Anguilla to Zimbabwe. http://www.ehow.com/about_5505868_do-americans-drive-right-side.html Labels: drive, right side, why
posted by kEMe @ 10:12:00 PM
Tuesday, October 13, 2009  It is easy to see that the sky is blue. Have you ever wondered why? A lot of other smart people have, too. And it took a long time to figure it out! The light from the Sun looks white. But it is really made up of all the colors of the rainbow.
A prism is a specially shaped crystal. When white light shines through a prism, the light is separated into all its colors. If you visited The Land of the Magic Windows, you learned that the light you see is just one tiny bit of all the kinds of light energy beaming around the Universe--and around you! Like energy passing through the ocean, light energy travels in waves, too. Some light travels in short, "choppy" waves. Other light travels in long, lazy waves. Blue light waves are shorter than red light waves.
All light travels in a straight line unless something gets in the way to--
Sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere and is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue light is scattered in all directions by the tiny molecules of air in Earth's atmosphere. Blue is scattered more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.
Closer to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sunlight reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead. As the sunlight has passed through all this air, the air molecules have scattered and rescattered the blue light many times in many directions. Also, the surface of Earth has reflected and scattered the light. All this scattering mixes the colors together again so we see more white and less blue. What Makes a Red Sunset? As the Sun gets lower in the sky, its light is passing through more of the atmosphere to reach you. Even more of the blue light is scattered, allowing the reds and yellows to pass straight through to your eyes.
Sometimes the whole western sky seems to glow. The sky appears red because larger particles of dust, pollution, and water vapor in the atmosphere reflect and scatter more of the reds and yellows.
posted by kEMe @ 11:29:00 AM
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