Architecture & Engineering Trivias "Millionaire Style"

Inspired by the "Cash Cab" post, I looked for more trivias. This set of 15 questions is a mixture of greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century and architecture 101. Just imagine, you are one of the contestants in the popular game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" but with no 50/50 or lifelines. Now, take a seat and test your general knowledge.

Question 1:
The Baroque period of architecture is characterized by vivid colours, luxurious materials and elaborate surface textures. Which of these buildings is an example of typical Baroque architecture?

A. The Royal Scottish Academy
B. Lincoln Memorial
C. Solitude Palace
D. St Peter’s Basilica


Question 2:
When a client complained that the roof in his building leaks, this famous architect who had designed the building replied: ‘That’s how you can tell it’s a roof’. Another work of his was the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

A. Frank Owen Gehry
B. Frank Lloyd Wright
C. Michael Graves
D. Aldo Rossi


Question 3:
This invention by Karl Benz in 1886 revolutionized the world of transportation and soon became the main means of transport globally.

A. Airplane
B. Automobile
C. Ship
D. Train


Question 4:
Sharply pointed spires, stained glass and pointed arches are typical for this architecture style. It is mainly associated with cathedrals and other religious buildings.

A. Gothic
B. Rococo
C. Neo-Grec
D. Art Nouveau


Question 5:
There are seven tall buildings in Moscow, regarded as typical examples of Stalinist Architecture. What are these similarly designed buildings referred to?

A. ‘Stalin’s Seven Wonders’
B. ‘Stalin’s Seven Sisters’
C. ‘Stalin’s Seven Brothers’
D. ‘Stalin’s Seven Giants’


Question 6:
The groundbreaking design of this building was created by Danish architect, Jorn Utzon. It is located by the sea, and its roof resembles white sails.

A. La Scala
B. Carnegie Hall
C. Metropolitan Opera
D. Sydney Opera House


Question 7:
The construction of this famous building was completed on November 1st, 1800. It was designed by Irish-born architect James Hoban, who was inspired by the Leinster House in Dublin.

A. Williams Tower
B. The White House
C. The Chrysler Building
D. Federal Hall


Question 8:
This invention was first used in 1969 at UCLA as a means of communication between engineers and scientists associated with academics or government. It was not available for public use until the 1990’s.

A. E-mails
B. The Telephone
C. Two-Way Radio
D. The Internet


Question 9:
The invention of the internal combustion engine greatly increased the demand for which natural resource?

A. Coal
B. Petroleum
C. Natural gas
D. Water


Question 10:
The first use of air conditioning for personnel comfort was in 1902, in which New York City building?

A. Metropolitan Life Tower
B. Empire State Building
C. Woolworth Building
D. New York Stock Exchange


Question 11:
This architectural term, which refers to a free-standing bell-tower, comes from Italian and means 'a high bell tower'.

A. Triforium
B. Campanile
C. Mensole
D. Cellula


Question 12:
In 1908, this city became the first in the United States to institute chlorination of its water. Prior to this the death rate due to water born diseases, such as typhoid fever and cholera, were extremely high.

A. Boston, Massachusetts
B. Chicago, Illinois
C. Jersey City, New Jersey
D. New York City, New York


Question 13:
This Spanish architect designed La Sagrada Familia, one of the most famous buildings in Barcelona.

A. Antonio Gaudi
B. Mario Botta
C. Carlo Scarpa
D. Alvar Aalto


Question 14:
In 1895, this German physicist invented the use of electromagnetic radiation to take images of bones and organs inside the human body, which later led to the invention of the X-Ray Machine.

A. Paul Lauterbur
B. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen
C. Godfrey Newbold Hounsfield
D. Peter Mansfield


Question 15:
In 1955, Borax III became the first nuclear power plant to utilize nuclear fission to supply an entire town with electricity. Which town was that?

A. Owego, New York
B. Avila Beach, California
C. Arco, Idaho
D. Hahnville, Louisiana

ANSWERS:

1. St Peter’s Basilica. The dome of St Peter's Basilica was designed by Michelangelo.

2. Frank Lloyd Wright. Among Frank Lloyd Wright’s most notable projects are the Guggenheim Museum in New York and the Price Tower in Oklahoma. He is also famous for developing the prairie style of architecture in Chicago.

3. Automobile. Karl Benz is credited with the invention of the modern automobile, powered by a gasoline engine.

4. Gothic. Gothic architecture flourished from the 12th century onward. Some of the examples of Gothic architecture are Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris and The Teutonic Knights Castle of Malborg.

5. ‘Stalin’s Seven Sisters’. Stalinist architecture is a term used to characterize the period from 1933-1955. The seven tall buildings were built in 1950s.

6. The Sydney Opera House is surrounded by water on three sides. It was intended to look like a giant sailing ship.

7. The White House. During the War of 1812 the British burnt the President’s House. It was rebuilt in 1819 and was painted white to hide the fire-blackened walls. That is how it came to be called the White House.

8. The Internet. The first TCP/IP wide area network started operating by January 1, 1983. In 1995 the network was opened to commercial interests.

9. Petroleum. Prior to this invention the main use of refined petroleum (crude oil) was for kerosene used in oil lamps.

10. New York Stock Exchange. Engineer Alfred Wolff designed the central cooling system for the building. This first air conditioner only controlled temperature. Later in 1902 Willis Carrier, invented the first electric air conditioner, which controlled both temperature and humidity.

11. Campanile. The most famous campaniles are the Leaning Tower of Pisa and St Mark’s Campanile in Venice.

12. Jersey City, New Jersey. This was the start of the municipal water treatment. Since then water treatment methods have improved further to supply homes with clean safe water.

13. Antonio Gaudi (1852-1926) was born in Catalonia, Spain. His major works include Casa Mila, Casa Baltto and Casa Vicenc.

14. Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen The X-ray machine was one of the first medical equipments used to diagnose conditions of the human body. It sparked a revolution in medical diagnostic tools and led to the invention of CAT Scan and MRI.

15. Arco, Idaho.The discovery of nuclear fission resulted in a new and powerful source of energy. Borax III supplied the town of Arco, Idaho with 2 hours of electricity.

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Civil Engineering “Cash Cab”

By Carol A. Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC and
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com

One of my favorite television viewing pleasures is Discovery Channel’s CASH CAB. Host Ben Bailey asks passengers in a New York taxi to answer trivia questions on their way to their destination. Those passengers have a chance to win money for each correct answer. Sorry, we won’t be offering cash rewards to our readers BUT do take a break and try to answer some civil engineering trivia questions! If interested, we can do future civil engineering trivia contests. Send me questions and answers that you think can “stump the chumps!” BIG shout out to Jason Vaughn PE who was great to contribute a majority of questions and answers for our test. Let us know how you do! Ready, set, go…

QUESTIONS

1. What famous engineer has the most U.S. patents and how many?

2. Who is “the father of Soil Mechanics?”

3. Name one of the two engineers elected U.S. President?

4. When water flows through a full pipe, the water is fastest in what part of the pipe? The top, middle, bottom, or all the same?

5. What caused the Tacoman Narrows suspension bridge collapse in 1940?

6. Why do golf balls have dimples?

7. What is the longest natural bridge?

8. Why don’t railways use suspension bridges?

9. What was the world’s worst accidental oil spill?

10. What is the longest street in the world?

ANSWERS

1. Thomas Edison – 1,093

2. Karl Terzaghi

3. Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter

4. Middle. The edge of a pipe has friction. The friction slows down the water in contact with it. Therefore, the middle is the fastest.

5. The wind.

6. The dimples reduce drag and allow the ball to travel farther than a smooth ball.

7. Rainbow Bridge, tucked away among the rugged, isolated canyons at the base of Navajo Mountain, Utah, USA. It is a natural wonder. From its base to the top of the arch, it reaches 88,4 m (290 ft) – nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty – and spans 83,8 m (275 ft) across the river. The top of the arch is 12,8 m (42 ft) thick and 10 m (33 ft) wide.

8. Suspension bridges are too flexible.

9. Supertankers Atlantic Empress and Aegean Captain collided off Trinidad and Tobago on July 1979; 90 million gallons of oil ended up in the Caribbean.

10. Toronto’s Yonge Street is listed as 1,178 miles (1,896 km) in length — roughly the distance from San Diego, California, to Seattle, Washington.

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Using social networking to drive innovation in engineering

The Enterprise Channel

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Tech Tour: Kimberlina Solar Power Plant

A Power Engineering guided technical tour of Areva Solar's linear Fresnel solar power plant in California.

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WTC Construction Update, October 2010

World Trade Center Construction Update, October 2010
New York, October 22, 2010

Memorial and Museum
-More than 40,000 cubic yards of concrete poured
-Steel erection is 99% completed

4 World Trade Center
-Concrete poured to the 4th floor
-Framed deck up to the 6th floor
-Installed steel up to the 7th floor

3 World Trade Center
-200 cubic yards of concrete to be poured in footings this month

2 World Trade Center
-1540 cubic yards of concrete to be poured in footings this month

1 World Trade Center
-Installed steel to the 38th floor
-Concrete poured up to the 32nd floor

source: wtc.com

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Tech Tour Video: Coal-Fired Power Plant

A Power Engineering technical tour of the modernization project at Duke Energy's 760 MW Cliffside Power Plant.

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Nuclear power reactor shut down after transformer failure

Published: Nov 8, 2010

Entergy Corp. shut its 1,020 MW Indian Point 2 nuclear reactor in New York after a transformer explosion, according to a report from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The blast did not cause any injuries or release of radiation.

It was unclear whether the entire transformer would have to be replaced. The plant is currently in “cold” shutdown, meaning it will take longer for the unit to send power to the grid.

Another transformer failed at the plant in 2007, according to the NRC.

Indian Point 3 was not affected and is operating at full capacity.

Power-Gen Worldwide

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Wisconsin Temporarily Halts Work On Train Project

Barrett hints that legal action could ensue if halt becomes permanent

The state Department of Transportation has told contractors on the high-speed rail line between Madison and Milwaukee to stop work on the federally funded project "for a few days," in the wake of rail opponent Scott Walker's victory in the governor's race, Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi said Thursday.

But contractors immediately started talking about laying off employees, and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett hinted the city could consider legal action if a permanent shutdown of the line shortens the life of a Spanish-owned train manufacturing plant on the city's north side.

"At the governor's request, I have asked contractors and consultants working on the high speed rail project to temporarily interrupt their work for a few days," Busalacchi said in a written statement, referring to outgoing Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

"In light of the election results, our agency will be taking a few days to assess the real-world consequences, including the immediate impacts to people and their livelihoods, if this project were to be stopped."

The move follows Tuesday's election of Walker, the Milwaukee County executive, as governor. During the campaign, Walker, a Republican, repeatedly vowed to kill the planned $810 million train line. He will take office Jan. 3.

Even with the federal government picking up the line's full construction cost, Walker has said he doesn't want state taxpayers to pay operating costs, projected at $7.5 million a year, starting in 2013. A state transportation official has said state taxpayers' share could be as little as $750,000 a year, if federal aid covers 90% of operating costs, as it does for Amtrak's existing Milwaukee-to-Chicago Hiawatha line.

Speaking to reporters at the Capitol on Thursday, Walker said he hadn't received confirmation of the administration's move.

"Certainly, for us, we've been pursuing legal options between now and Jan. 3 that would allow us to try and slow down if not stop the train. Certainly there's some optimism if that turns out to be true," Walker said.

Contractors confirmed they had been told to stop work, and some worried they might have to lay off employees if the job grinds to a permanent halt. Construction employment on the line was projected to peak at 4,732 jobs in 2012, with 55 permanent jobs to operate and maintain trains, stations and tracks.

"They just said, 'We're going to stop it for now and we'll see how it goes,'" said Abdulhamid Ali, president of DAAR Engineering, which has a $2.8 million construction management contract for the railway.

Ali said he was told to stop the work in a one-sentence e-mail from the state Transportation Department.

DAAR "will be laying off at least two people with families" immediately, another company spokesman said.

Pat Goss, executive director of the Wisconsin Transportation Builders Association, said state transportation officials also told contractor Edward Kraemer & Sons to halt work on building a five-mile stretch of track in Jefferson County.

"The department did direct the contractor not to proceed," Goss said. "They were told not to work, and at this point that's as much as we know. Kraemer was told not to proceed yesterday, and they weren't given any timeline or any reason why."

That contract was awarded a week or so ago. Kraemer received an order to proceed, and that order was rescinded on Wednesday, Goss said.

Plant's future derailed
At Talgo, the Spanish train company, the announcement won't mean immediate layoffs, but it casts a pall over the future of the plant on the former Tower Automotive property, said Nora Friend, a Talgo vice president.

Talgo has contracts to build two trains for the Hiawatha and two trains for Oregon. It was hoping to build trains for the Milwaukee-to-Madison line as well but was told the state has put the request for proposals for those trains on hold, Friend said.

The company has already hired about 40 people for its current contracts and plans to have a total of 125 on board by next year, Friend and Barrett said. If it had won contracts to build trains for the Milwaukee-to-Madison line and for other states, it would have kept the plant in operation beyond 2012 and expanded, they said.

"The implication is that a lot of people will be losing their jobs," after the current work is done, Friend said. "For us, it means we won't be able to expand. . . .  It's very difficult for us to hire people and tell them it's only for a year and a half or so."

Barrett said the city had invested more than $3 million in buying and renovating the part of the Tower property that Talgo is using, in the belief "this would provide employment for many years."

The mayor, who lost to Walker in Tuesday's election, said he would be consulting with City Attorney Grant Langley about the city's options if the project is halted. But he stopped short of directly threatening a lawsuit.

A source with knowledge of the decision-making process said the state made the final call to suspend the decision, but that federal rail officials had let them know they were not eager to get into a protracted dispute with Walker. The reluctance came from bureaucrats in the Federal Railroad Administration and not the White House, the source said.

Plans call for the rail line to operate as an extension of the Hiawatha, and eventually to be extended to the Twin Cities, as part of a larger Midwestern network of fast, frequent trains.

At the same time Walker won the governor's office, voters handed his fellow Republicans control of both houses of the Legislature. Many of them have been critical of the rail plan, and state Rep. Robin Vos (R-Racine), the Legislature's most vocal opponent of passenger rail, is poised to become Assembly co-chairman of the powerful Joint Finance Committee.

But the weekend before the election, state and federal officials quietly signed a deal to commit the state to spend all of the $810 million in federal stimulus money allocated for the project. Transportation officials did not announce the weekend deal but confirmed it after the Journal Sentinel learned of it.

Walker blasted that deal, and Barrett said the state should have been more transparent in its dealings. The mayor said he supported a temporary delay in the work to allow more public discussion of the impact of a permanent halt.

It is not clear how difficult it would be for Walker to legally extract the state from its commitment. He has said he would urge Congress to let Wisconsin keep the money and spend it on roads and bridges, and he reiterated that stand Thursday.

"The whole reason we made a point of raising our concerns about this is I don't want the taxpayers of this state to be stuck with a bill of $7½ (million) to $10 million a year when we have roads and bridges that need to be fixed," Walker said.

Without an act of Congress, however, federal rules would require the state to repay the federal government for any money already spent on the project and give up all the unspent money if the rail line doesn't go forward. Doyle and his fellow Democrat, Barrett, have said Walker was misleading voters by suggesting Wisconsin could keep the federal money, instead of seeing it redistributed to other states' rail projects.

Barrett repeated those comments Thursday. He said he saw no chance of the money being spent on Wisconsin roads if the train line is halted, and the best alternative to sending it to other states would be to use it to reduce the federal deficit.

Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz urged Walker to reconsider his position. Cieslewicz said he saw no chance of the money going to either roads or deficit reduction, adding, "It will go to another state … to create jobs there."

***

Stop work order
Construction employment on the line was projected to peak at 4,732 jobs in 2012, with 55 permanent jobs to operate and maintain trains, stations and tracks.

Operating costs are projected at $7.5 million a year.

source: JSOnline

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The Bridge Collapse…Two Years Later. What Do We Know?

On August 2, 2007, the entire span of I-35W (officially known as Bridge 9340) in Minneapolis collapsed into the Mississippi River. Vehicles, concrete and metal crashed into the water below. Lives were lost and many more were changed that fateful day.

Immediately following the collapse, federal officials ordered an inspection of all steel deck truss bridges like the I-35W bridge. Investigative reporter, Bill Dedman reported the following:
“At first, officials thought there were 756 steel deck truss bridges like the one that fell. That’s how many they found in the official federal database of bridges, the National Bridge Inventory, which gets its records from the states. Then state engineers found 32 more to add to the list. But when states started the inspections, they found that 280 of the bridges weren’t steel deck trusses at all — including 13 bridges made of wood timbers. Another 16 no longer existed; a bridge in Pennsylvania had been closed in 1982. Another 11 were private bridges, not subject to federal inspection. One in New Mexico was a pedestrian bridge. And a bridge in Pennsylvania had been double counted; federal officials had placed an identical ghost bridge in Maryland. By the time the survey was finished, the count of bridges of the same type as the Minneapolis span was down to 479, or 277 fewer than initially reported, according to internal e-mails from the Federal Highway Administration received Thursday by msnbc.com under the Freedom of Information Act.”

The Federal Highway Administration recommended framework for a bridge inspection QA/QC program is comprehensive. In 2008, they cite six (6) state DOTs that have “existing QC/QA procedures that address specific aspects of the “Recommended Framework” in a manner the FHWA considers commendable.” Six? Out of all of the DOTs in the US? I do realize that all states must have existing QC/QA procedures. But only six are “commendable?” What is the status of the remaining state inspection programs? Adequate? Average? Acceptable?

We know that bridge construction has changed over the years. Improvements in technology for use in bridge design, materials and construction have allowed engineers to project increased longevity of bridges. Structural engineers now describe bridge lifespan in terms of 100 years, instead of 20-50 years. Building new “improved” bridges, are we going to have 50 DOTs with commendable QA/QC inspection programs?

With the ability to build with an eye to sustainability, how do we fix what we have? Where does this leave us with our decaying bridges? Many of those bridges now require billions of dollars for rehabilitation or replacement. How can we financially repair them if we don’t even have an accurate count of where they are and what type of bridge they are? What do you think?

By Carol Metzner
President, The Metzner Group, LLC
Managing Partner, A/E/P Central, LLC home of CivilEngineeringCentral.com


The Bridge Collapse... Two Years Later. What Do We Know?

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Civil Engineering Central 2.0

In order to cast a wider net around the civil engineering community, CivilEngineeringCentral.com has fully integrated its brand to be fully compatible with the major Web 2.0 & social/business networking sites so you can stay up to date on all the latest “goings on” at CivilEngineeringCentral.com!

CivilEngineeringCentral.com has established the Civil Engineering Central Group on Linkedin. With nearly 2600 members to date, the goal of this group is to help members:

Reach a wide array of members of the Civil Engineering community (Civil & Structural Engineers, Civil Engineering Executives, Environmental Professionals, Construction Professionals, Land Surveyors, GIS Professionals, A/E Marketing Professionals, HR Professionals, Hiring Managers, Civil Engineering Students, Planners, Designers and all other members of the civil engineering community).

To share ideas, ask questions, provide answers, share stories, to make connections and to learn the utilization of our Discussion Board & Blog.

Know more than a name – view rich professional profiles from fellow Civil Engineering Central Group members.

Read interesting articles written by your peers by signing up for the monthly e-newsletter.

Unlike most other group discussion boards which contain mainly recruiters advertising open positions, we do not allow for it. Our discussion board is used to discuss the relevant issues effecting your career, your work environment, technology, and any other civil engineering related issues that our members have a passion for.

Link To Join Our Linkedin Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groupRegistration?gid=52214

We would like to invite all members who are actively involved in the civil engineering community to join the newly created FAN PAGE for CivilEngineeringCentral.com on Facebook:

Link to join our Facebook fan page: http://tinyurl.com/CECFanPage

Our fan page feeds in our weekly blog and civil engineering job updates as new positions are posted on our site. Learn about, share and join the Civil Engineering Central group on Linkedin. And each month we will publish our e-newsletter article which is written by a member of the civil engineering community.

Do you tweet? Well, we now do and we would like to invite you to follow us – updates not only as to activity on our site, but civil engineering news updates as well:

Link to follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/civilengineers

CivilEngineeringCentral.com the web’s premier niche job board and resume database catering exclusively to the civil engineering industry. CivilEngineeringCentral.com also hosts a weekly blog, publishes a monthly e-newsletters written by industry experts and provides an avenue for civil engineering professionals to pursue continuing education and professional development hours through their partnership with McKissock.


CivilEngineeringCentral 2.0

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AutoCAD Tips

Electricity gone! What will happen to drawing?

When using AutoCAD, sometimes we are very concentrated on the drawing and forget to save. This is a very common mistake done by inexperienced users as well as advanced users. We forgot to save the file for a long time and the electricity went off… what will happen then!? You may say that you have a UPS unit and you are not affected from electric cut-offs. However, sometimes UPS units may not be activated immediately and the computer may shut down. Or maybe the electricity did not go but you computer suddenly frozen. Does anyone have a computer which does not freeze all of a sudden? In such a case, what will happen to the project that we are currently working on? We generally understand the value of our data when we lose them. All of the work that you have done so far suddenly becomes very valuable.

Most of the programs like AutoCAD, word has automatic saving features in order to compensate such cases. All of the work you have been doing is saved automatically at every 10 minutes as default. In order to activate this feature, you can use Tools/Options from the menu.

As you can see from the figure above, “Automatic Save” is selected and is set to 5 (1). This setting means that your work will be saved automatically at every 5 minutes. In addition to this, if you select “Create backup copy with each save“(2) option, then another backup file that has “.bak” extension is created at every time file is saved. You can use the “Drawing1.bak“ file as shown below, in case there is a problem during the saving operation or the original file is damaged so that it cannot be recovered. However, this file is not opened directly as you double click on the file or try to open it by using File/Open in AutoCAD.

How to open “.bak” file in AutoCad?

First, we have to change its extension. Select the file, then press F2 or make a single click on its name and wait for 1-2 seconds. You will see that you can change the name of the file. After that, change its extension to “.dwg”. Now, we can open the file in AutoCAD.

If you didn’t change the Windows folder options, “.dwg” is not visible. In order to open it, you must select folder options from the tools menu. Then, you should cancel the option shown below.

Another bad scenario is that, we did not save the file at all not even once but AutoCAD saved it automatically with constant intervals and the bad thing happened, AutoCAD became frozen. How can we recover our work in such a case? Due to the fact that the file has not been saved, AutoCAD saves it to the temporary folder (Temp). In order to access to this folder, enter start/run, then write %TEMP% and press enter. Temporary folder that is used by Windows is opened automatically. You will see such a file that is shown below. Change extension of this file to “.dwg” and then you can recover your work by opening this file in AutoCAD.

More Tips at DailyAutoCAD.com

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Stanford Offers Free Online Courses

For the first time in its history, Stanford is offering some of its most popular engineering classes free of charge to students and educators around the world. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (SEE) expands the Stanford experience to students and educators online. A computer and an Internet connection are all you need. View lecture videos, access reading lists and other course handouts, take quizzes and tests, and communicate with other SEE students, all at your convenience.

This fall, SEE launches its programming by offering one of Stanford’s most popular sequences: the three-course Introduction to Computer Science taken by the majority of Stanford’s undergraduates and seven more advanced courses in artificial intelligence and electrical engineering.

Stanford Engineering Everywhere offers:

Anytime and anywhere access to complete lecture videos via streaming or downloaded media.
Full course materials including syllabi, handouts, homework, and exams.
Online social networking with fellow SEE students.
Support for PCs, Macs and mobile computing devices.
Stanford encourages fellow educators to use Stanford Engineering course materials in their own classrooms. A Creative Commons license allows for free and open use, reuse, adaptation and redistribution of Stanford Engineering Everywhere material.

Fall courses

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