1. Are zebra's black with white stripes or white with black stripes?

2. Let's hypotheticly say that you are travelling at the speed of light in your car. What will happen if you turn your headlights on?

3. Why is ice clear and snow white?

4. Is it possible to melt a wooden log?

5. How does one boil gasoline without igniting it?

Let's just answer to some of these.

1. Zebras are black and white

2. For anyone in front of you it would seem as if the lights were of, because the light wouldn't get to him. As for you, behind the lights.. I'm not sure.

4. Probably not, because it would ignite and burn before it reaches the high temperature enough to melt.

2. If you're going *that* fast headlights are the least of your problems.

3. Thin ice is clear, but thicker ice is not. The middle of an ice cube is white. A hockey rink isn't clear.

5. Very carefully.

Answer 1:
    [/tab]If we take into consideration the African Zebras - then most of them actually have BLACK skin. What we see as a striping patterns are alternate rows of black and white body hair.

Answer 2:
[tab]Yes, you yourself WILL BE ABLE TO SEE the light. Here's how.

Assumption - nothing can move faster than the speed of light.
Now let us go back to the two postulates that gave rise to the Special Theory of Relativity

1. Speed of light in vacuum is constant.
2. At rest or in motion - the rules of physics HAVE to work the same in all frames of references. As long as the moving frames are NOT ACCELERATING, things have to work out the same.

Thus, quite contrary to our common sense, one can actually SEE the light in front of his car. The rules of nature work out the same way as it would have for normal earthly speeds. Light from the headlights will bounce back from the road into the driver's eyes - even though he might be travelling at the same speed. This works all the same in case of a mirror too - the question being whether you can see yourself in a mirror while travelling at light speed.

Answer 5:
    If my physics knowledge doesn't fail me, then I think you can bring down the boiling point of any fluid by applying extremely high pressure on it. Keep in mind that boiling point and igniting point are not the same. Supposing gasoline boils at 400° C and ignites at a 100° C, you could apply a large amount of pressure on it and bring the boiling point down to some 20° or 30° C. Then getting it to boil is just a matter of applying gentle heat.

It's the exact same principle the Pressure (Steam) Cooker works - by building up a huge quantity of steam inside, it brings down the boiling point of the water - and subsequently any food matter floating in it - thus allowing the food to get cooked really fast.

"3. Thin ice is clear, but thicker ice is not. The middle of an ice cube is white. A hockey rink isn't clear. "

'Paint' (actually, a white powder) is spread into a Hockey Rink slab during the process of building up the slap thickness. Ideally, the paint is applied low enough that the player's blades don't cut into it and cause problems. The base of the Hockey rink is flooded to a certain thickness, then the powder applied and a covering coat of water is hosed on to the powder so the ice-building process can continue. As more coats of water are applied, the Ice appears to be white, yes.
A similar process is used to mark out the Centre ice 'red-line' and the 'blue-lines', 'goal-lines', etc. except the lines are rolls of a bio-degradeable paper-like product (sort of like crepe paper) which are easier to apply in a uniform manner and straighter, too. In the good old days, the paint was applied by a hand using brushes and rollers.
The Centre Ice logo's and messages may be applied using a combination of these methods.
Under certain conditions, ie: if the ice thickness is not monitored, or during periods of excessive use, or if the temperature increases suddenly over a couple of days, the skaters can wear down the ice and the colours may begin to 'bleed-through'. At that point, the process needs to be repeated.
At least this describes the process at my local Hockey rink.

This post has been edited by jlhaslip: May 6 2006, 09:00 AM

3. I think that's because snow crystals are much smaller than ice. The edges of the crystals reflect light most severely. Since ice cubes have larger centers than snow crystals, more light can pass through normally.

4. If you carefully watch a wooden log burn, you can see that it actually melts just a split second before it burns. So I think if you can control the applied heat with great precision, you can give just enough heat to make the log melt without burning.

1. m^e answered the first one rather well. However, you could only say whether they were black with white stripes, if you took a look at their dominant/recessive genes (parents/children).

3. Ice and snow are two different things. Snow contains other substances than just Water. Nitrates and Phosphates that are residual in the atmosphere will affect the condition/colour of the snow. Ice is just frozen water.

4. This is very similar to 5, which m^e answered. Boiling and Ignition points are different. Increase atmospheric pressure and the boiling point will reduce dramatically.

I stand corrected - and fascinated by this new knowledge. Thanks. *smiles*

1. Neither. Zebras are actually unicorns. Several hundred years ago all of the unicorns (who had luscious golden coats of hair) were being hunted to extinction for the so-called medicinal properties of their horns, so they got together and had a council, and decided that if they got rid of the horns they could probabley avoid further such dilemmas, so they talked to the Rhinos, and told the rhinos how useful a horn on the nose is for going on rampages and impaling everything in sight. Rhinos, being not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, and very susceptable to the temptation of pointless destructive ability, agreed, and the unicorns gave the Rhinos their horns. The problem was that rhino heads are a bit fatter than unicorn heads, so the strap only fit arounf the nose rather than the forehead (yes they are strapped on, interestingly enough) at any rate the supersticious horn-eating people saw that the rhinos now had horns and decided to hunt them instead. The rhinos found this out, got pissed at the unicorns, and sent their birdy friends (all the birds that hang out on their backs) to poop on the zebras' beautiful golden coats until they were all white (since bird poop is white) and then the rhinos drew all over them while they were sleeping with charcoal, and the unicorns (now the zebras) have looked like that ever since.

So, technically, zebras are bird-poop with charcoal stripes.

2. well, of course, according to the theory of relativity you would be able to see the headlights, but you would also be rather frozen in time, so would you really be able to see what's coming ahead of you if you're not moving through time at all relative to what's around you? Secondly, if you were to go the speed of light in your car you would either a) fly out into space or circle the eath 18 times a second, so unless your car is a) spaceworthy or able to circumnavigate the entire globe in 1/18th of a second without hitting anything, you're basically dead and will never be able to tell anyone whether or not the theory of relativaty has been proven wrong.

3. why is a pane of glass clear and shattered glass white? it just is ok?

4. if you petrify the wood, easy.

5. light the bottom of the gasoline and not the top...somehow...

sorry dint have time to finish

I am still laughing about the zebras (the bird poop part) and actually there are two versions of zebra some are white with black stripes and some are black with white stripes, and the really bad part is that some people as well as zebras can actually tell the difference.