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General Knowledge Quiz

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Cowley

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I heard about a moment on a quiz recently but unfortunately I can’t remember the answer.
Is it three seconds?
 

Strat-tastic

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No one's got it yet. To confirm, I am looking for a length of time, as I realise that moment has a few definitions.

We've had 3 and 100 seconds so...

Hint: 3 s < a moment < 100 s.
 

Strat-tastic

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90 seconds?

Its somewhere nearer the top end!

Correct. According to The Grauniad's Notes and Queries:

In the middle ages, an hour was considered to be made up of 40 minutes, with each minute divided into 40 moments. Disregarding the elastic notions of time then prevailing, and allowing 3,600 modern seconds to the hour, that gives us 90 seconds to each minute.

It's time that you set a new challenge A Challenge :p
 

DaleCooper

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In the middle ages, an hour was considered to be made up of 40 minutes, with each minute divided into 40 moments. Disregarding the elastic notions of time then prevailing, and allowing 3,600 modern seconds to the hour, that gives us 90 seconds to each minute.

That makes a moment 2.25 seconds (90/40)
 

Strat-tastic

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Oops :oops:

I seem to have made a cock up. Let's conveniently ;) change the source, Wiki says:

A moment (momentum) was a medieval unit of time. The movement of a shadow on a sundial covered 40 moments in a solar hour. An hour in this case means one twelfth of the period between sunrise and sunset. The length of a solar hour depended on the length of the day, which in turn varied with the season,[1] so the length of a moment in modern seconds was not fixed, but on average, a moment corresponds to 90 seconds. A day was divided into 24 hours of both equal and unequal lengths,[2][3] the former being called natural or equinoctial, and the latter artificial. The hour was divided into four puncta (quarter-hours), ten minuta, or 40 momenta.

So it seems there is some dispute. I remember when young (quite a few years ago) looking it up in my dictionary and it was 90 seconds. Looking up a few references from Google it seems 90 s is correct. Don't know why the Guardian reference slipped by me.
 

A Challenge

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I will find the book that I found it from (I was looking for it last night but couldn't find it).

I can't be bothered to think up a question so I will declare an:
OPEN FLOOR
 

Calthrop

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This person, in the course of a not tremendously long life: featured in the Irish Easter Rising, on the British side; saw military service for Britain in World War I; had a successful many years' career in a technical field; was a prolific and much-published-and-liked fiction author whose literary output is particularly associated with Australia, though the bod lived there only for the last decade of their life -- and one of their most renowned novels is a depressing one about nuclear war wiping out the human race. Who is the person concerned?
 

A Challenge

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If I wanted to get the highest number of currency units for my money, what currency would I convert it to?
 

Cowley

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If I wanted to get the highest number of currency units for my money, what currency would I convert it to?
I don’t know the name of their currency but I’ll try for the Venezuelan erm, peso?
 

A Challenge

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That is only 14.38 VEF to the pound - the one I'm looking for is significantly higher than that!
 

Darren R

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If the answer you're looking for is Bitcoin it might as well be Monopoly money...! :D

(If Bitcoin is the answer you're looking for, I'll have to declare Open Floor as I am busy searching through my old devices for any I may have lost!)
 

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