The answers, explained
From violins to Starbucks: puzzle #14, explained
Seven numbers, seven stories. Here is the thinking behind every answer in today’s Range Squeeze, and where to read more.
How many strings does a violin have?
4 strings
Four strings, a world of notes
A violin has four strings, tuned a fifth apart: G, D, A and E, from lowest to highest. Tuning in fifths lets a player’s left hand cover a huge range of notes without moving far.
Why not more? The bridge that lifts the strings is curved, so the bow can touch one string at a time, or two together for chords. Add more strings and they would sit too close together to pick out cleanly with a bow. Instruments with more strings tend to be plucked instead.
The violin took its familiar shape in northern Italy in the 1500s. Andrea Amati, working in Cremona, made some of the earliest violins that still survive, and the same city was later home to Antonio Stradivari, whose instruments are still prized by soloists today.
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What is the highest score possible with three darts?
180 points
Three in the treble 20
So why stop at 180? Each dart can score up to 60 by landing in the treble 20: the thin inner ring of the 20 segment, which counts three times its number. Three darts in that ring make 180, the most you can score in one visit to the board.
The board is designed to punish a near miss. The 20 at the top sits between the 1 and the 5, so a dart that drifts slightly either way scores very little. Players often switch to the treble 19 when their own darts start blocking the 20.
Even so, a 180 never wins a game by itself. In standard darts you have to finish exactly on a double, so top players chase big scores early, then switch to precise finishing shots.
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In what year was YouTube founded?
2005
Nineteen seconds at the zoo
YouTube was started in 2005 by three former PayPal employees: Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim. The website’s address was registered on Valentine’s Day that year, and the site opened to the public later in 2005.
What was the first video? Uploaded on 23 April 2005, it is called “Me at the zoo”. It shows Karim standing in front of the elephants at San Diego Zoo for 19 seconds, and it is still online today.
Just over a year later, Google bought YouTube for 1.65 billion US dollars in stock. Today people around the world watch more than a billion hours of video on it every day.
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How many litres of blood does an average adult have?
5 litres(about 10.5 US pints)
Once around the body, every minute
An average adult has about 5 litres of blood (about 10.5 US pints), roughly 7% of their body weight. Red blood cells make up nearly half of that volume.
How fast does it move around your body? When you are resting, your heart pumps roughly that whole amount every minute.
A standard blood donation is just under half a litre, about a tenth of your blood. Your body replaces the lost fluid within a day or two, and the red cells over the following weeks.
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How many legs does a lobster have, counting its claws?
10 legs
Ten-footed, and tasting with its feet
Lobsters belong to a group of animals called decapods, which means “ten-footed”. They have five pairs of legs, and the front pair have grown into the big claws.
The two claws of American and European lobsters are different: a heavy “crusher” for cracking shells and a sharper “cutter” for tearing food. Lobsters can also taste with tiny hairs on their legs.
And what if a lobster loses one? It grows a new one, rebuilding it a little more each time it sheds its shell.
In what year was the Berlin Wall built?
1961
A city divided overnight
In the early hours of 13 August 1961, East German soldiers and workers sealed the border between East and West Berlin with barbed wire. Concrete walls followed in the days and weeks after.
Did anyone see it coming? Only two months earlier, East German leader Walter Ulbricht had told reporters that “nobody has any intention of building a wall”.
Over the years the barrier grew into a heavily guarded system running about 155 kilometres (96 miles) around West Berlin, with crossing points such as the famous Checkpoint Charlie.
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In what year was the first Starbucks opened?
1971
Beans, tea and a whaling captain’s mate
The first Starbucks opened in Seattle in 1971, near the city’s Pike Place Market. It was founded by three friends: Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker.
So what did it sell? Not coffee drinks, at first. The shop sold freshly roasted coffee beans, tea and spices for people to brew at home.
The name is often linked to Starbuck, the first mate in Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick, though co-founder Gordon Bowker has said they mainly liked the strong sound of the name. The shop visitors queue at today, at 1912 Pike Place, is actually its second home: the store moved there in 1976.
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How did you do?
A new puzzle arrives at midnight. Bring your best guesses.
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