^00000010
                             Relax Deluxe
                            --------------
    (This quiz has absolutely no correlation to the AIDS issue!)

I found long time ago, that most people are debating, arguing certain
issues and haven't the slightest idea about the fundamentals of the issue.
I introduced the quiz the same way I am introducing it now. The idea is not
to humiliate the one who takes it, but trigger some humility.
If you take the quiz and score lousy, don't feel bad, you will be in a very
illustrious company. All I ask is for you to realize that we ALL lacking
certain knowledge. The higher a person gets on the "power ladder" the less
he/she thinks about the details. Which lessens their power of decisions,
because there is no "whole" without the parts and there is little chance to
make good decisions by knowing only some vague correlations, often deduced
by someone else.
The questions will seem to be dramatically simple at first glimpse.
The challenge is to score well.

There are 7 questions, no time limit and the maximum possible score is
42 points (35 real and 7 time bonus)
*
Introduction of Question 1:

I am sure you have been participating in many decisions in relation to the
space program. The knowledge of the details are up to the scientists.
Still, don't you think that everybody should know........
!
  What are the stars on the sky?

  1./ Mostly planets
  2./ Mostly small asteroids, much smaller than our Moon
  3./ Mostly cosmic dust
  4./ Mostly moons but much smaller than our Moon
  5./ Mostly suns, just like our Sun but farther away
  6./ I don't know
^6000053
|
The correct answers are 5 and 6
5 is the actual correct answer, but 6 is a winner for a different reason.
One of the major factor slowing down the development of mankind is the
inability to declare:We don't know. We always feel compelled to come up
with some explanation, no matter how ridiculous it turns out later. If you
picked 5, you are smart. If you picked 6, you are wise.
*
Introduction of Question 2:
Space, the final frontier ..... it is a five year mission to explore....
The public sentiment was so strong about the series Star Trek, that the
first space shuttle was called Enterprise. Many years and many billions of
dollars later, not much improvement is visible. Don't get me wrong, I am
supporting the space program..... well.... sort of. My reservation has its
merits. I don't feel an aim, a solid aim. America put men on the moon. They
did it, they did it in fantastic way. Although the motivations were
questionable, at the time there was a solid aim. I don't feel the same now.
Here is the question:
*
If a "beefed up" Space Shuttle would leave toward the NEAREST <--------
solar system, the VERY NEXT ONE out of the millions and billions out there
and assuming a "standard speed" of 30 miles/SECOND which would cover
2,592,000 miles/DAY, it would get there in about....

1.)     28 days and some hours
2.)     28 months and some days
3.)     28 years
4.)    287 years
5.)  2,875 years
6.) 28,750 years
^6000005
|
The correct answer is 6.
An astonishing 28 thousand years. Long way to go. (The nearest solar system
is the Alpha Centaur, 4.6 light years away. Each light year is 9.5 billion
kilometer, so it is 43.7 billion kilometers away)
*
Introduction of Question 3:
Nuclear reactors, nuclear waste disposal, nuclear energy is a big issue.
A relatively young technology, building nuclear reactors were shot to hell
after the Three Miles Island incident. United States is twiddling its
thumbs and rather confronts Middle East for the oil, than to begin a drive
toward energy independence. Many people are violently against nuclear
energy, because "it is dangerous". My question to them:how do they know?
I was still living at the Washington Metropolitan area when 150,000 people
demonstrated against nuclear energy. I asked Mr. Ralph Nader:"How do all
those people dare to demonstrate when 99% don't know the simplest
fundamentals about nuclear energy?" He ducked the answer and said:"That is
not the point". I asked:"What is the point?". He answered:"The point is
that this is a democratic society and they have the right to demonstrate."
True, in a democratic society people should be allowed to express
themselves. Wouldn't it be nicer if they knew what they are expressing?

So, how about that pesky nuclear energy? Forget about the complicated
details. I have only a very simple question:
!
  Which of the statement below has a chance to be true?

  1.) "Heavy Water" is just an expression, in fact it has no correlation to
      the regular water.
  2.) The difference between "Heavy Water" and regular water that heavy
      water has 2 Hydrogen and 2 Oxygen molecules (instead of 2 Hydrogen
      and 1 Oxygen)
  3.) Many radioactive materials, sooner or later turn into plain
      lead, more or less the same what plumbers use.
  4.) Beta radiation is a "peeled" Helium molecule
  5.) Alpha radiation is the MOST dangerous to living beings.
  6.) Gamma radiation is the LEAST dangerous to living beings.
^6005000
|
The correct answer is 3.
Don't feel bad if you missed it. Over 40 out of the 100 people who took
this quiz, picked 2 (plain old hydrogen peroxide, over the counter pharmacy
item). As for the rest: Alpha radiation is the "peeled" Helium, Gamma
radiation is the most dangerous (under ordinary circumstances) and alpha is
the least. Heavy water can be found in plain seawater and many radioactive
materials break down to lead, although for some it takes a few thousand
years.
*
Introduction of Question 4:
It seems that the abortion issue is splitting the country into two parts.
In my not so humble opinion, nobody is quite right. The "pro-choice" group
wants no choice, they want an unconditional right to have abortion on
demand, which is wrong. The "pro-life" group is not really pro life, they
are anti-abortion, mostly for religious reasons. Which would be fine with
me, if it was honestly declared. The Supreme Court is all set to make
abortion illegal. Grand reasoning: life begins at conception and we have no
right to take away life. It is peculiar to observe that most pro-lifers are
also in favor of capital punishment, while most pro-choicers are against
capital punishment. Seems like confusion to me.
Does anyone out there really know when life begins? I sure don't know it.
I say: I don't know what life is all about, how can I possibly know the
EXACT time of beginning and the EXACT time of end. The best I can do is to
guess and follow what science tells me. Most likely in 200 years, we all be
laughed at, just as we do with those who thought that the Earth is flat.

Do you know what life is? That is the the next question is all about.

!
What do scientists, without having any serious disagreement, consider
"living" or "having lived"?
None of the choices are RIGHT, but one of them is not ridiculous. Which one?

 1.) Anything which contains organic molecules.
 2.) Anything what moves
 3.) Anything what has at least one DNA and one RNA molecule in it.
 4.) Anything what has some degree of "brain material", some form of
     "central nervous system". However, it doesn't have to "think".
 5.) Anything and everything what didn't die.
 6.) Anything which can split up to two parts (something like cell division).
^6005300
|
The least incorrect answer is 3.
1 is ridiculous because even gasoline is a bunch of organic molecules.
2 is ridiculous because your automobile moves, that doesn't make it living.
3 is it. ALL living beings have RNA and DNA molecules in them.
4 is almost correct but not the best one because millions of life forms on
     Earth has no brain material of any kind (such as an amoeba)
5 is ridiculous because my TV didn't die, it doesn't mean that it lives.
6 is ridiculous because anything can be split up with a good ax, a sharp
knife or an argumentative friend.
*
Introduction of Question 5:
Evrybody knows that smoking cigarette is not good for the health.
Dr. Everett Koop was a smart guy. He dedicated his life against smoking,
which would have been nice if he didn't botch up AIDS. Because I blame him
a great deal for "mal-directed attention". During the critical years of
initial encounter with AIDS, he was busy to save people from even the
"second hand smoke exposure". The issue even made it to the Congress,
smoking was banned from airplanes and many other places.
I did some heavy duty calculation regarding second hand smoke and I came to
the inescapable conclusion that the fight against it was a waste of time
and money. Dr. Koop was obsessed and his obsession took his time away and
drew the attention away from the real problems. Too bad.

The next question will gauge your imagination more than your knowledge.
However, in case if you want to calculate: take the average volume of a
human lung 5000 cubic centimeter (vital capacity). In view of that...
!
Take a 11x17x8 feet room, assume that all windows are tightly sealed, no
way anything can escape, zero ventillation. Somebody lights up a cigarette,
takes a very deep puff and blows it out. The smoke from that single puff
evenly spreads everywhere in the room. Now, we would measure the
concentration of the smoke and INCREASE it by 2,500 times!!! <--------
Once that is done, we would place a young, healthy person in the room. What
is likely to happen? The person would...

  1.) Die within seconds.
  2.) Pass out within seconds, but if somebody would pull him out, it would
      be easy to save his life. No long term damage would occur.
  3.) Pass out within seconds, but if somebody would pull him out, it would
      be easy to save his life. There would be long term lung damages.
  4.) Immediately start heavy coughing/choking but if he would get out
      within 2 minutes, only short term, curable lung damages would occur.
  5.) Not even cough, but staying in the room for longer than
      5 minutes would certainly lead to some form of permanent lung damage.
  6.) Feel uncomfortable if he or she is a nonsmoker. Sitting in the room
      would be like continuously smoking a very week cigarette. The person
      may cough but there would be no consequence of any kind as long as
      he/she gets out within a couple of minutes.
^6000005
|
Unbelievable it may seem, the correct answer is 6 and I will prove it.
@
1 foot=12 inches 1 inch=2.54 cm (time to learn metric) 1 foot=30.48 cm
The volume of the room= 11*7*17 cubic feet which is,
(11*30.48)*(17*30.48)*(7*30.48) cubic centimeter which is 42,362,002.5
cubic centimeter. Now let's take the puff of smoke, which was in the
persons lungs, distributed in 5000 cubic centimeter. That is what the man
smoked. Now he blows it out and the smoke evenly distributed in the room,
instead of occupying 5000 cubic centimeter, it is occupying over 42 million
cubic centimeter. In another words, it got diluted over 8472 times.
We would have to increase the concentration 8472 times in order to get back
the original smoke, but we increased the concentration only 2500 times, so
the concentration of the smoke in the room will be a little over 1/3 of the
original cigarette smoke which the person had in his lungs. Therefore
nothing is likely to happen to another person if he/she spends in there
less than 2 minutes, hence it would be equal if he/she smoked an
ultra-light cigarette for a minute or two. And all that is with the
assumption that the room was sealed air tight, no ventilation.
@
The second hand smoke exposure, depending the actual size of the room, the
amount of puffs or cigarettes, will be smoke diluted anywhere between
1000-5000 times. If that would be harmful as it claimed, a single puff of
cigarette smoke would be deadly as cyanide, because there is no known
substance which is harmful to a person and wouldn't instantly kill the
person in a 1000-5000 times overdose. Did anyone performed these very
simple calculations before spending years and billions fighting against
second-hand smoke exposure?
The single most misleading factor is the smell. It is known to science that
the smelling ability of an average human is by far the most sensitive one
among all senses and able to detect a few particles in a million.
*
Introduction of Question 6:
Just about every serious issue, decision, includes "probability" in one way
or another. On hearings people jump up, shake papers in your face and
trying to convince you about how "likely" that something will happen unless
you vote his/her way. Probability is a tricky thing because unless you know
exactly what it is all about, a mistake is almost inevitable. In fact,
probability is probably the single most "abused" mathematical phenomenon.

The following question should be very easy.
!
  Which of the following event is the MOST probable?

  1.) To flip a coin 10 times and all will be "head"
  2.) To win a lottery where you must call a 3 digit number correctly.
  3.) To take 10 "left turn or right turn" with your car without knowing
      which is the correct one and still get where you want to go.
  4.) To deal a deck of standard cards (52) into 4 piles and find that one
      pile contains all the clubs, the other all the diamonds, etc.
  5.) To play roulette (Numbers from 1-36,half is red, half is black, a 0
      and a 00 when bank wins) and bet that the next number will be:
      an Odd number AND it will be Black AND it will be between 13-24, and
      to win.
  6.) To flip a coin 4 times and all will be "tails"
^6000050
|
The correct answer is 5.
@
There are 36 numbers on the roulette wheel plus the 0 and the 00.
Between 13 and 24, there are 12 numbers.
Only half of them are black, which leaves 6 numbers
Out of that 6 only half of them is an odd number, which leaves us with 3
numbers.
3 out of the 38 would be winning,  which is roughly 1:12.6
(means: one out of 12.6 times you would likely to win).             1:12.6

How about the others?
The nearest was 6 (To flip a coin 4 times and all will be "tails"). 1:16
1.) To flip a coin 10 times and all will be "head"                  1:1024
2.) To win a lottery where you must call a 3 digit number correctly.1:1000
3.) To take 10 "left turn or right turn" with your car without knowing
    which is the correct one and still get where you want to go.    1:1024
4.) To deal a deck of standard cards (52) into 4 piles and find that one
    pile contains all the clubs, the other all the diamonds, etc.
    I don't know exactly the answer but it is approximately 1:635 million
    or similar. Not even close.
@
Most unfortunately, one of the major source of deception about AIDS was
done by people presenting criminally misleading probabilities. Such as:
What is the probability that a disease which starts out with 1 victim, 2-3
years later there are thousands, another 2 years later tens of thousands,
thus establishing a pattern of spread, would spontaneously go to a grinding
halt and the sharp exponential increase suddenly and spontaneously turn
into a nice linear (straight) increase? How about near zilch? Anybody who
knows probabilities, will tell you, that is if the person has no interest
to mislead you.
*
Introduction of Question 7:
The environmentalists are out there and claiming doomsday unless they get
their way. The depletion of ozone layer is only one of their pet claim.
I am just curious, how many of them knows the answer to the following
question:
!
       Which is the below is true about ozone?

  1.) It is plain old oxygen, but instead of 2 atoms of oxygen, the ozone
      molecule contains 3 atoms of oxygen.
  2.) Ozone is the same as elementary oxygen
  3.) It emits ultraviolet rays.
  4.) It is very healthy to breathe. So much that it is used in medicine,
      in respirators to deliver a higher concentration oxygen to the
      patient.
  5.) Can be found in aerosol spray cans.
  6.) Most of the CFC-s (chlorofluorcarbon) are manufactured on the more
      industrialized northern hemisphere and that is why the infamous ozone
      hole is above the north pole.
^6500000
|
The correct answer is 1.
Ozone is O3, 3 oxygen atom formed molecule.
2,3,5 are ridiculous.
@
4 is just wrong. Ozone is said to be healthy in some incredibly small
concentration (like after a thunderstorm). Otherwise it is a "violently"
active oxidizer, because it is unstable, breaks up to an O2 (plain oxygen)
and a very active elementary oxygen. Two of those will link together into a
plain O2 (oxygen) molecule. It is not used in respirators, if it was, it
would kill the patient by "burning" the lung.
6 requires some attention.
   "Most of the CFC-s (chlorofluorcarbon) are manufactured on the more
   industrialized northern hemisphere and that is why the infamous ozone
   hole is above the north pole."
It is wrong, because the ozone hole is above the south pole. Otherwise it
is true: an overwhelming percentage of CFC-s are produced on the northern
hemisphere. How come? Food for thought.
*
The quiz is over. No, my intention was NOT to make you feel.....well....
My intention was to draw your attention to some amazingly elementary
matters, which are being overlooked day after day.
Take the north pole-south pole-ozone issue. Anybody can shake papers, claim
studies, pictures, forecasts but how many would be able to answer: Why not
over the north pole? Why wouldn't AIDS continue to spread? If all the CFC
molecules can dash from the northern hemisphere to the south pole, drill a
hole in the ozone layer, while leaving the north pole intact, anything can
happen.
|
                        Evaluation
                        ----------
       30-42    Super
       25-29    Good
       15-24    Acceptable
        0-14    Not acceptable

Thank you for taking your time for this long and tortuous quiz.
