(click globe for homepage)

   Welcome to The MELLEN Company Web Site

Fun Trivia

This page is intended for entertainment and fun.  Please feel free to e-mail additional fun trivia to us.  Anything you mail may be published on our site along with proper credit given to you.

1. What is the speed of light in miles per second?
2. Where is the world's deepest lake?
3. What is the fourth state of matter?
4. Which metallic element is the most abundant?
5. Who invented the alarm clock?
6. What are the six simple machines?
7. Which US state has the most miles of roads?
8. What is the kindling point of paper?
9. Which elements are liquid at room temperature?
10. How hot is the sun?
11. Where are the highest winds recorded on earth? (courtesy of Elaine from NH)
12. How long is a solar cycle?
13. What is a light year?
14. What was the first animal sent into outer space?
15. From what type of stone was Mount Rushmore National Monument carved?
16. Which place in the USA has the maximum amount of sunshine?
17. How hot is lightening?
18. Which month is the most dangerous month for tornadoes in the USA?
19. How much water is in an inch of snow?
20. Is glass in a solid or liquid state of matter?
21. Who is known as the founder of crystallography?
22. Who developed the periodic table?
23. Which two elements have the highest density?
24. When is Mole Day (the day to promote enthusiasm and awareness for chemistry)?
25. What is syzygy? (besides being great for Scrabble?)
26. Which galaxy is closest to Earth (excluding the Milky Way)?
27.  What does the color of a star indicate?
28. What is the "Genesis Rock"?
29. Who was the first man in space?
30. Who was the first American in space?

Fun Trivia Answers

1. Speed of light 186,282 mps
2. Deepest lake - Lake Baikal in southeast Siberia, 5,371 feet deep at its maximum depth.
3. Fourth state of matter - plasma
4. Most abundant element - aluminum is the most abundant element on Earth and Moon
5. Alarm Clock - invented by Levi Hutchins in good old Concord, NH in 1787, he never patented or manufactured it, it rang at only one time 4:00 am.
6. Six simple machines - the lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the inclined plane, the wedge and the screw
7. Most roads in Texas (everything is bigger in Texas) with  294,142 miles (473,274 km).  California is a distant second with 169,201miles (272,244 km) The states with less than 10,000 miles of road are: Delaware, Hawaii, Rhode Island.  The total for the USA is 3,904,721 miles (6,282,696 km).
8. Paper ignites at 450^oF (230^CC)
9. Elements liquid at room temperature are: Mercury (Hg), bromine (Br) liquid at room temperature 68^oF to 70^o F  and gallium (Ga) melting point 85.6^oF, and Cesium melting point 83^oF(Cs).
10. The center of the sun is 27,000,000^oF.  The surface or photosphere is about 10,000^oF.  Sunspots are about 6,700^oF.
11. Highest wind was recorded on Mt. Washington, NH (world record set in 1934 at 231 mph.**

amended 1.27.10 Australia's Barrow island recorded a 253 mph gust during Cyclone Oliva in 1996.

1. A solar cycle, the period change in the number of sun spots (from solar flares, sunspots and other magnetic phenomena move from intense activity to calm and back again) takes about 11.1 years.
2. A light year is the measure of distance that light  can travel in a year (about 5.87 trillion miles).  It is not a measurement of time.
3. A dog named Laika, aboard the Soviet Sputnik 2 launched on November 3, 1957, was the first animal sent in orbit.  The US Jupiter sent a squirrel monkey into space, not orbit in 1958.
4. Mt. Rushmore was carved from granite, depicting Presidents: Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson and Thomas Roosevelt.
5. Yuma, Arizona has an annual average of 90% sunny days or over 4000 sunny hours a year!
6. Lightening or the temperature of air around a lightening bolt is 30,000^oC (6X hotter that the surface of the sun)
7. May (with an average of 329).
8. 10 inches of snow = one inch of water, on average.  However, heavy wet snow (common in NH) has a high water content and 4 -5 inches of snow may contain one inch of water.
9. Liquid.  Glass, although it appears to be solid at room temperature, is actually a fluid with an extremely high viscosity. 
10. Rene'-Just Hauy (1743-1822), a French priest and mineralogist is the father of crystallography.
11. A Russian chemist, Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleyev (1834 - 1907) was the first person to understand that all elements are related members of an ordered system.
12. Osmium (22.61) and Iridium (22.65) are the elements with the highest density.
13. Mole Day is celebrated each year on October 23rd.
14. Syzygy is the configuration of three celestial bodies in a straight line, such as the sun, earth and moon during an eclipse.
15. The Andromeda galaxy is closest to the Milky Way Galaxy, 2.2 million light years away from Earth.
16. The color of a star indicates its temperature and age.
17. The Genesis rock is the 4.15 billion year old rock brought back to Earth from the Apollo 15.
18. Yuri Gagarin (1934 - 1968) a Soviet cosmonaut, became the first man in space when he orbited the earth on April 12, 1961.
19. Alan Shepherd  was the first American to pilot a spacecraft on May 5, 1961, reaching an altitude of 116.5 miles.  John Glenn completed three orbits on February 20, 1962.