CONTEST RULES
- No purchase necessary.
- Only one entry permitted per person, and per physical address, per calendar month.
- Eligibility: Anyone having a mailing address within either the USA or Canada.
- Winning entry is determined by random drawing on or near the 10th day of the month following each contest, from all of the correctly-answered entries that were submitted so as to be e-mailed during the month(s) of the given contest. Odds of winning are determined entirely by the number of valid entries received by 11:59 p.m., Central Time, on the last day of the month.
- Because the Webmaster does a lot of travelling, the same contest question sometimes will run for either two or three months straight. And sometimes longer. When the drawing takes place, the number of winning entries drawn will be equal to the number of months in that particular contest.
E.g.: A 3-month-long contest will have three winners, if at least that many correct entries are in the hat.
- Entering this contest constitutes an agreement to comply with these rules. The winner agrees, at the time of entering, to allow his or her name and town/city, state/province, and country to be posted on this page.
(No other information about the winner will be posted, and whether or not we choose to post that data is at our discretion.)
- Correct answer(s) to the previous month's contest will be posted on this page at some time during the following contest.
- Winners each receive a copy of the above-described VHS video.
- All entries must be submitted solely by E-mail to roadrat@mchsi.com.
The words, Video Contest, must be entered in the Subject line.
- To be valid, an entry must include all of the following: Entrant's name, "snail-mail" address, Contest Question Number,
and the entrant's response(s) to the contest question(s).
VIDEO CONTEST No. 3
(Now closed. Please see NEW contest, below.)
What is the world's tallest mountain, measured from the center of the earth to its summit?
One of these is the correct answer:
Mauna Kea – Aconcagua – McKinley – Kilimanjaro – K2 – Chimborazo - Everest – Fujiyama Washington – Popocatepetl – Ixtaccihuatl – Vesuvius – Rainier – Elbrus – Mammoth – Kosciusko
ANSWER: Mount Kilimanjaro
We didn't realize this one was so hard! Nobody had the right answer! But here's why it's Kilimanjaro... which is located in Kenya, Africa, close to the equator.
As the earth rotates on its axis, centifugal force causes it to flatten a bit at the poles, and bulge at the equator. This is actually called "equatorial bulge."
Thus, measuring from the center of the earth to the top of all those mountains listed above, the greatest distance is to the top of the one that sits almost right ON the equator! It's farther from the center
of the earth to the top of Kilimanjaro than it is to the top of Everest -- even though Everest is taller from its base to its top -- because Everest is quite a distance from the equator, so misses out on most
of the bulge.
VIDEO CONTEST No. 4
(Now closed. Please see NEW contest, below.)
Now that you see the reasoning, THIS question should be a snap!
Choosing from the same set of possible answers, above, which
mountain
is the world's tallest, when measured from its base to its top?
ANSWER: Mauna Kea
This mountain is like the tip of an iceberg. Sister volcano to Mauna Loa, on Hawaii's Big Island, most of it lies beneath the surface of the ocean. This shield volcano is SO massive as to be Earth's closest equivalent to Olympus Mons, on Mars. From base to top, it is around a mile higher than Mount Everest!
And this time, we had winners!
CURRENT VIDEO CONTEST -- No. 5
(Started on August 1, 2004)
Okay. Time for a challenge, again! Even in this age of great search engines, this still won't be very easy for most who tackle it! Here goes -- a 3-part question dealing with Machu Picchu:
1. No one knows for sure what the actual name of that ancient city was.
So what is "Machu Picchu" the name of?
2. Did you know that there never was an "Inca" civilization? Q. -- What is
the actual
name of the civilization that most people think was "the Incas?"
3. That actual name referring to the civilization that built Machu Picchu is
a word
that still is used today. It's still meaningful to 60% of Peruvians.
In what way?
E-mail your entry, after reading and understanding the above rules. Good luck to you!