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The All New Groundspeak Uk Pub Quiz!

The Golem
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Simply Paul

+Simply Paul

Posted
Posted

Technically it's 2001 A Space Odyssey :laughing:

 

Three questions from me: What's the name of the nearest star to the Earth, how far away from it are we in light years and how many lightdays are there in a lightyear*?

 

*It's not the same as the number of days there are in a year, for some reason.

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Team Maddie UK

+Team Maddie UK

Posted
Posted (edited)

I think you'll find that the nearest star is in fact called The Sun.

 

By my calculations that makes it 0.000015855 light years (based on 93000000miles at 186000 mps)

 

No such unit as a light day I think but that would presumably be 365.23 (or something)

Edited by Team Maddie UK
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Simply Paul

+Simply Paul

Posted
Posted

So you were. On average the sun's 8minutes and 20seconds away at the s.o.l. so that's 0.0000157ish light years - close enough. There is such a thing as a light day though, and there are 365.25 of them in a light year, although the length of an 'actual' year can be measured a number of ways to give different figures. None of these ways give 365.25 as an answer though. Which is why 1904 was a leap year, but 1900 wasn't. Time for bed :laughing:

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Pieman

+Pieman

Posted
Posted (edited)

Perhaps this one is too difficult- it's Steve Palmer once of Watford and unusual in having a degree from Cambridge University. About 5/6 seasons ago he played in every position including the last few minutes of the final game of the season in goal.

 

By the way I got the SP question right when I read it again just now without the benefit of a few glasses of wine!

 

I suggest the next person to read this thread poses another question as I have to pop to the shops!

Edited by Pieman
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The Forester

+The Forester

Posted
Posted

Their orders were to proceed to Bangkool In Sumatra to make Geodetic and Astronomical observations of the June 6 1761 Transit of Venus.

 

Their ship, HMS Seahorse, got all of a hundred miles SouthWest of the Dorset coast before they were severely duffed up by a boatload of cheese-eating surrendermonkeys. Having to return home to wash the smell of garlic out of their hair and fetch clean underwear, they missed the boat so to speak and didn't have time to sail all the way to the Far East. They tried to explain the problem to their client, who replied with a stinker of a letter which told them to apply the newfangled digital extraction method of Geodesy and not to be such a pair of nancyboys.

 

They sailed as far as Cape Town just to show a bit of willingness, but knew that they had no chance of making it to the Client stipulated jobsite. They put ashore there and set up and observed the Transit, very accurately adjusting and setting a conventional pendulum clock. They then sailed to St Helena to meet up with Maskelyn (Cue for booing, hissing and throwing of rotten fruit).

 

It turned out to be quite fortunate that they had made their observations where they did because it had been cloudy at St Helena during the Transit and so there otherwise would have been no Atlantic observations of the event.

 

They set up their clock at St Helena, without adjusting the pendulum length for the different latitude, to observe the effect of changing Latitude upon the period of the pendulum. It was all part of Neville the Bastard from Hell Maskelyn's plot to screw John Harrison out of his just reward for having invented the first practical nautical chronometer, a clock which for the first time in history gave mariners a practical way of measuring Longitude at sea.

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Team Maddie UK

+Team Maddie UK

Posted
Posted
Their orders were to proceed to Bangkool In Sumatra to make Geodetic and Astronomical observations of the June 6 1761 Transit of Venus.

 

Their ship, HMS Seahorse, got all of a hundred miles SouthWest of the Dorset coast before they were severely duffed up by a boatload of cheese-eating surrendermonkeys. Having to return home to wash the smell of garlic out of their hair and fetch clean underwear, they missed the boat so to speak and didn't have time to sail all the way to the Far East. They tried to explain the problem to their client, who replied with a stinker of a letter which told them to apply the newfangled digital extraction method of Geodesy and not to be such a pair of nancyboys.

 

They sailed as far as Cape Town just to show a bit of willingness, but knew that they had no chance of making it to the Client stipulated jobsite. They put ashore there and set up and observed the Transit, very accurately adjusting and setting a conventional pendulum clock. They then sailed to St Helena to meet up with Maskelyn (Cue for booing, hissing and throwing of rotten fruit).

 

It turned out to be quite fortunate that they had made their observations where they did because it had been cloudy at St Helena during the Transit and so there otherwise would have been no Atlantic observations of the event.

 

They set up their clock at St Helena, without adjusting the pendulum length for the different latitude, to observe the effect of changing Latitude upon the period of the pendulum. It was all part of Neville the Bastard from Hell Maskelyn's plot to screw John Harrison out of his just reward for having invented the first practical nautical chronometer, a clock which for the first time in history gave mariners a practical way of measuring Longitude at sea.

 

Couldn't have put it better myself ROFLMAO...

 

Basically viewing and measuring the Venus transit which many of us saw a couple of years ago.

 

Over to you for the next question :anitongue:

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Mittellegi

Mittellegi

Posted
Posted (edited)

oops!

 

Well in the Foresters absence perhaps somone might like to have a pop at mine or Bexybears question! :anitongue:

 

I did try to slip this question in last night, but my (prior) answer was in m/s rather than mph...and tonight I onitted the first word, sorry...

 

Q92: "How I need a drink, alcoholic of course" = ?

Edited by BexyBear
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Pieman

+Pieman

Posted
Posted
By the way I got the SP question right when I read it again just now without the benefit of a few glasses of wine!

 

Ok, you have me confused. The nearest star is our own Sun. I can't see another way of interpreting it. :laughing::laughing::anitongue:

 

Martin

I meant I realised it was the sun when I woke up this morning!

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Simply Paul

+Simply Paul

Posted
Posted

The next nearest one is Proxima Centuri at 4.22 lightyears though :anitongue:

 

Bexybear's question(?) sounds like a quote from Withnail and I to me. Probably isn't though.

 

The sea of snakes is on the moon I think. Hence the moon pie? So then there's a moonshine link from Bexybear?

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Jango & Boba Fett

+Jango & Boba Fett

Posted
Posted (edited)

The sea of snakes is on the moon I think. Hence the moon pie? So then there's a moonshine link from Bexybear?

 

Sorry this is all too sureal for me. SPs answer is correct (see No 19) but which question are we meant to be answering now?

 

MoonMap.jpg

Its the little wiggl;y one at around 2:30 close to the eastern terminator.

Edited by Jango & Boba Fett
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The Forester

+The Forester

Posted
Posted

OK, time for a new one.

 

Not really pub-type, but one with a navigational theme.

 

We all know that in most places there's a difference between True North and Magnetic North. There are, however, a lot of places (other than the obvious ones of the magnetic poles) where the Variation between True and Mag are zero.

 

Show the co-ords, in GC.com format, of a location within a few hundred miles of the UK which has a Variation of exactly zero this year.

 

Accurate within 10 miles will do, but extra points for better accuracy.

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Team Maddie UK

+Team Maddie UK

Posted
Posted
Not really pub-type, but one with a navigational theme.

 

We all know that in most places there's a difference between True North and Magnetic North. There are, however, a lot of places (other than the obvious ones of the magnetic poles) where the Variation between True and Mag are zero.

 

Show the co-ords, in GC.com format, of a location within a few hundred miles of the UK which has a Variation of exactly zero this year.

 

Accurate within 10 miles will do, but extra points for better accuracy.

 

Hi,

If I got a question like that in a pub I think Id leave or have more to drink lol.

 

I have to agree there. Not really in the true spirit of the thread that one. Requires more resources than are readily available in your average pub :ninja:

 

Martin

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