h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well my test for QI bonus is this.

If I *genuinely* go - "oh I didn't know that." or if a fact is really fascinating and surprising then I award a QI bonus without contest.

They are given at every question setter's (elf) discretion becuse they are the rarest and most precious and that is my test, and I've applied it consistently, it is to my mind the fairest I can devise.

If you know something interesting about the paradox, I'll reconsider but the paradox on it's own doesn't qualify in my opinion.

>>radiation was seen as a miracle cure like all discoveries before it, was radioactive potions given as cures for indigestion and end up liquefying the innards.<<

No he survived his indigestion.

You can have a DGI +1 though for "drinking it." It's not, I warn you, directly relevant to the solution, but it does come in much later.

No he was not.

There is a 'Radioactive Drink' it is called a Barium Meal.

Any relevance?


GT

was radiation used to sterelise drinking water in manchester???

Off to bed soon....

No to both...

The QI igloo of Mystery and Intrigue is open for business: fending off the polar bears of boredom with the toothpaste of Interestingness...

Speaking of radiation, I was watching a repeat of Jim Al-Kahlili's BBC 4 series atom, which I believe was first broadcast in 2007, earlier this year, and he mentioned some of the many Radium based items that could be purchased in the early part of the 20th century, and one of the items is a display behind him was an advert for Radium based perfume. This advert showed an ordinary, open bottle of perfume, with what looked remarkably like a radioactive mushroom cloud coming from the top.

I *love* that series - I got the book!

Good series that ' Atom ' Although he definately lost me when it got to borrowing energy from the future.

Hmmm - I must confess I don't remember that part but it's probably one of those highly theoretical moments where nothing in current theory rules it out. A bit like when Michio Kaku starts going on about meeting yourself from an alternate dimension and time travel. I find that a bit grating too.

Yes, I find it annoying when something that is not theoretical impossible is hyped up. In a similar vein is the bacterium that Paul Davies is making a fuss about at the moment: "It incorporates arsenic! It's a new type of life!" No, it's an old type of life that has found a way of not dying when there's a lot of arsenic about.

Sorry, that's nothing to do with your QI, but it's been bugging me all day, and this seemed as good a place as any...

No ambitious seal pups poking their whiskered noses up-through the ice-hole of curiosity avoiding a clobbering by the Klaxon-mallet to venture a guess and run off with my 3-pointed fish-supper?*

Extending my earlier metaphor...

Manchester University also played a large part in the creation of the first computers. Anything to do with that?

Nope.

You do seem to keep mentioning cold and ice a bit. Is that just a result of the current weather conditions. Somehow I doubt it. *Goes off for a think disguised as looking at the cricket*

Yes it is. There's still a foot of snow on he drive. That is all.

is it anything to do with using radiation to sterelize things??

No.

I think to help move things forward I'm going to retrospectively award GT, a DGI +1 bonus for #20 for "slightly radioactive."

and another DGI +1 for Barium Meal in #24.

I trust my reluctance in not doing so before points up the 'not-quiet-rightness' of this but on reflection it's the closest anyone's come to naming the Manchester and the quiet interesting original demonstration of proof of principle.

x-rays