#RTAnswers - #540 - Chadiest Choadiest Chonkiest Plane https://roosterteeth.com/episode/rooster-teeth-podcast-2019-540 ---------------------------- What is the actual pronunciation of the word "meme"? There is actually zero mystery to this. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the correct pronunciation of "meme" is with the long 'e' sound. The reason we are so sure of this fact is because the word was first used in Richard Dawkins's 1976 book The Selfish Gene to define an idea which is spread from brain to brain. He went on to say that he shortened the Greek word "mimeme", meaning "something which is imitated" to get the four-letter word we know today. He also, helpfully, provided examples of what would qualify as a meme, such as, "tunes, ideas, catch-phrases...". Then, to be even more definitely helpful towards our current question, he provided us a pronunciation guide with, "it should be pronounced to rhyme with 'cream'." All of this means that, unlike the controversial and, in my opinion, stupid "true" pronunciation of "gif" (it's a hard 'g' as in "gift", btw), the word meme, has no such controversy or confusion. Perhaps the only controversy surrounding it all all is the interesting bit of trivia that Dawkins has since publicly stated he refuses to acknowledge that the current use of meme to define a humorous photo with a stupid caption which goes viral falls in line with his intended definition. But what does he know? It's not like he invented the word or anything. ---------------------------- What is the last man-made monument to be destroyed before Notre Dame? Gavin was dead on with his assumptions here. The amount of "priceless" historical monuments destroyed as a direct result of the two world wars, is quite the list. While few monuments were considered a complete loss, much like Notre Dame, they suffered extensive damage which took millions of dollars and, in some cases, decades to repair. Among the most notable structures damaged were Buckingham Palace, St. Paul's Cathedral, Christ Church Greyfriars, as well as roughly 80% of Berlin and estimates as high as 70% of all larger populated cities in Germany. Paris was ordered by Hitler to be completely demolished, including the Eiffel Tower AND Notre Dame. It was only saved by the direct disobedience by General Dietrich von Choltitz. Obviously, the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were barely rubble after the atomic bombs fell and it is truly difficult to put a number on just how much damage was a direct result of both world wars. Prior to the world wars, China's dynastic uprisings often led to a complete demolition of everything the previous dynasty had built. This power move was often met with revolts and violence but it didn't stop the destruction of hundreds of tombs, ancient cities, and other fascinating monuments which we will only ever know through the writings of various scholars. In addition, the terrorist group ISIS has spent much of the past six years, systematically decimating sites which have been standing for millennia. With that in mind, perhaps the question is best rephrased to identify what the last man-made historical monument was destroyed, or partially destroyed, during a time of peace. While there have certainly been a few of these as well, most have probably never heard of them, or perhaps only in passing. The most recent one is likely Malta's Azure Window rock formation which has been a favorite site for tourists for centuries. There was an international outcry of support when a violent 2017 storm, took the ancient rock bridge to the ocean floor. This is an interesting subject as each of us are likely impacted by random stories of historical monument destruction differently based on our own interests or, possibly even, memories and ties to those monuments. With that, I'm interested in what you may have visited in the past which is now gone, even if it is a local thing which no one else really would know, or care, about. I'll go first. I have visited Notre Dame twice and made the decision both times to not take one of the in depth tours because I had assumed that there was plenty of time to do that in the future. In case you are wondering, I won't make that mistake again :) On a more local side, there was an old, supposedly haunted hotel, 45 minutes or so from where I grew up. My friends and I would go up on dares and walk around with flaming torches through 150-year old hallways made of plaster, lath, and brittle wood. Stupid I know. Two weeks after we had been up there for the third or fourth time, the news broke that it had been completely burnt to the ground by some kids doing the same thing we had been doing who had lost track of some embers. The whole place went up in minutes and the teens barely got out alive. Crazy... So what do you have? ---------------------------- New black hole explainer video? This is difficult to lock down as, especially since April 10th's historic image capture, there have been dozens of videos popping up. That said, the best one I found was the Event Horizon Telescope YouTube channel's own explainer video on how the black hole image would theoretically be captured. The link is below. The crazy part of this video is that almost exactly one year after this video was posted to their channel, the EHT team was able to release the image captured by this telescope array and, when compared side by side to their anticipated result, their theoretical computer-generated image from this video was not far off at all. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMsNd1W_lmE&feature=youtu.be ---------------------------- Can two black holes have a tug-of-war? Surprisingly there is virtually nothing on the web on this subject. So, naturally, being the non-scientist I am, I decided to use as many articles I could find to understand the physical characteristics of black holes and hopefully provide an answer which makes some bit of sense. That said, I welcome any astrophysicists out there, I'm looking at you @trevorc, to correct my woeful assumptions. If the tug-of-war is expected to be played with a million mile long rope then the answer would likely be a no. As Trevor explained, like the human body, the rope would also be torn apart at the atomic level. Any rigidity once held by the rope would be lost when this occurs and there would be no further "tugging". This is especially true given the physics of a black hole's event horizon. While most science fiction films like to portray a black hole as some sort of cosmic vacuum, relentlessly ingesting every bit of space dust it can greedily swallow, prevailing theories counter this. Rather than this monstrous destructive force, the assumption is that, until an object nears the event horizon, the gravitational pull is comparatively minor. This is so accepted that many black hole researchers have commented that if our sun was suddenly replaced by a black hole, the gravitational pull would be equal, or possibly even less, than the sun currently is. This means that, despite what ill-effects Soundgarden may have predicted, while it would be considerably colder, and deader, here on Earth, the planet would still continue to orbit our black hole sun. The more likely celestial tug-of-war occurs with the collision of black holes in the darkness of space. This gravitational tug-of-war which would, theoretically, bend the event horizon of one gravitational mass around another is the likely source of the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The very black hole photographed by EHT in April of this year.