Tagged Questions

15
votes
1answer
5k views

Is biting a gold coin a working method to verify its authenticity?

Julia Murray & Kelsey Serwa In movies you commonly see treasure hunters, pirates, thieves, ... bite down on a gold coin to verify it's real gold. (Gold Medal winners often pose with the ...
16
votes
1answer
1k views

Did a nuclear blast devastate Port Chicago on July 17, 1944?

On July 17, 1944 at the Port Chicago naval base, near the San Francisco Bay area, an explosion of epic proportions occurred on a dock handling munitions. The Evening Independent, Jul 18, 1944, via ...
9
votes
2answers
3k views

Was Sir Isaac Newton a homosexual?

The following was QI Fact of the Day on 10th November 2011: Sir Isaac Newton was a cold, austere and difficult man. The slightest criticism of his work drove him into a furious rage, and his life ...
40
votes
2answers
3k views

Are old glass panes thicker on the bottom due to “flow”?

I ran into this common belief today, and was surprised that it has not been addressed here before. I think this belief is common enough that most anyone has heard it. Especially if they are touring ...
3
votes
1answer
194 views

Kim Il-Sung's birthday present: a solar eclipse?

I heard this story, where they celebrated the birthday of the now defunct North Korean dictator Kim Il-sung in the 1970s and as a birthday present they created through some very complex artillery ...
7
votes
1answer
657 views

Does Orgone Energy exist?

I have discovered a claim going around that says everything is surrounded by "Orgone Energy" which is a universal life force. Products have arisen from this theory such as a "Cloudbuster", a device ...
8
votes
1answer
3k views

Was the periodic table discovered in a dream by Dmitri Mendeleyev?

Did Dmitri Mendeleyev conjure the organization of elements into the periodic table in a dream? Among the several places I've seen this suggested is the review of a book (that I haven't read) on ...
4
votes
2answers
315 views

Did an X-ray burst interrupt radio signals shortly after D-Day?

I was told in the bar at a wargames convention about an event that is supposed to have taken place on 7th June 1944, when suddenly the Allies lost all radio communication. There was a great deal of ...
8
votes
1answer
577 views

When did ocean sailors realise that the shortest path on the globe is a great-circle? [closed]

The shortest path between two points on a sphere (and thus with limited applicability also on earth) is a great-circle. I.e. A great circle is the intersection of the sphere and a plane which ...
4
votes
1answer
874 views

Did Tesla say that one could get or transmit energy through thin air [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: Can you create energy out of nowhere ? I recall reading that Nikola Tesla suggested that electricity could be created from the air. This claim is stated in the following ...
12
votes
2answers
452 views

Does the Mount Washington wind speed record have scientific validity?

A record wind gust of 231 miles/hour was recorded in 1934, according to http://www.mountwashington.org/about/visitor/recordwind.php Wind speeds of this magnitude are commonly known to damage or ...