Advance to Atlantic City
QUESTION
On the original Monopoly board, which buildings were the Water Works and Electric Company named after?
LEGEND has it that on March 7, 1933, unemployed electrical engineer Charles B. Darrow, of Germantown, Pennsylvania, had a eureka moment and invented the board game Monopoly.
It was modelled after his favourite seaside resort, Atlantic City, New Jersey. The city was served by the Atlantic City Electric Company and the Atlantic City Municipal Utilities Authority, which inspired two of the properties.
In fact, Darrow developed Monopoly from The Landlord’s Game, created by Elizabeth Magie in 1904, and a variant, The Fascinating Game Of Finance.
Unlike Magie’s black-and-white board, Darrow’s original circular design has the recognisable rectangles with coloured bars along the top, distinctive corner graphics, the Chance question mark, Community Chest, Electric Company Edison screw lightbulb and Waterworks tap.
Darrow created the railroad locomotives using a stencil and the story goes that the man behind bars in the jail was modelled on himself. For other designs, he hired a graphic artist.
The family of Daniel Gidahlia Fox have recently claimed that he was the artist.
Simon Johnson, Cardiff.
QUESTION If diamonds aren’t considered ‘super-tough’, what materials are?
IN MATERIALS science, hardness and toughness are different things. Hardness is the ability to resist scratching or indentation. Diamond has the highest value of scratch hardness: it will scratch all other common materials and no other material can scratch it.
A tough material is one that does not fracture under sudden stress. Polymers, such as shoe soles, are very tough – it would take a phenomenal effort to fracture one with a hammer. Hit a diamond with a hammer and it would break like glass.
Nacre, or mother-of-pearl, the rainbow sheened material that lines the insides of mollusc shells, is nature’s toughest material. It scratches easily, but is incredibly hard to break.
Its toughness is derived from a structure of microscopic ‘bricks’ of the mineral aragonite, laced together with a ‘mortar’ made of organic material.
Graeme Franks, Sheffield.
QUESTION Who are the oldest people in the Bible? How are their extreme ages explained?
THE oldest person in the Bible was Methuselah, who apparently lived for 969 years.
He was the son of Enoch, father of Lamech and grandfather of Noah. Noah lived to be 950 and Adam, the first man, was 930.
Given there are no records for anyone surviving to reach their 123rd birthday, explanations have been sought for these biblical super-centenarians. Some say it is due to mistranslations and that the writers of Genesis were talking about tenths of years. The trouble is that reducing some of the biblical ages by a factor of ten would mean them become fathers well before puberty.
Others have argued that the lengthy ages refer to more than one generation as sons traditionally had the same name as their fathers. It is also believed this is a means of speeding through history to show a direct link between Adam and Noah.
The most literal believers say that before the flood, there was a canopy (or firmament, as it says in the Bible) above the Earth that prevented modern causes of death such as pollution.
A better diet is also cited, as is the concept of man being created in the image of God and thus originally having eternal life. But due to all-too-human flaws, life expectancy plummeted. Thus Noah’s offspring ‘only’ lived 500 years, Abraham was 175 and Moses 120. When King David died in 970 BC, he was 70 years old and considered to be an old man.
Tim Mickleburgh, Grimsby.
QUESTION Alex Ferguson is regarded by many as the greatest football manager of all time. But who were the worst players he signed for Manchester United?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, the Portuguese winger Bebé, who arrived at Manchester United aged 20 in 2010, was undoubtedly one of Ferguson’s most disappointing signings.
The player’s only experience of senior football at the time was in the Portuguese third division, and unusually, Ferguson acknowledged that, for the first time in his career, he had made the signing without watching the player, even on DVD.
He said: ‘I didn’t see any videos of him. You’ve got to trust your staff at times and our scout in Portugal was adamant we must do something quickly.’
Perhaps Fergie should not have listened to this advice, as the move proved disastrous. When Bebé departed in 2014, he had made just seven appearances for the Red Devils, scoring two goals – although he had spent much of his time at United on loan to other clubs. In a game against Wolves in November 2010, he came on as a substitute – only to himself be substituted later in the match. There remains a video on YouTube of his ‘highlights’ from the game, as he tore aimlessly down the right wing, sending long ball after long ball into the stands.
Ferguson was actually quite complimentary about Bebé’s ability, writing in his 2013 biography: ‘Bebé came with limitations but there was a talent there. He had fantastic feet. He struck the ball with venom, off either foot, with no drawback... With feet like his he was capable of scoring 20