The most powerful fighter jet engine is the US aircraft engine manufacturer, Pratt and Whitney’s engine for the F-35 Lighting II Joint Strike Fighter (JSF). Whilst its published power is rated at 28,800 lb thrust (128.1 kN) in intermediate power and 43,010 lb thrust (191.3 kN) in maximum power, on 18 September 2006, it set a record for thrust from a fighter engine reaching more than 40,000 lb thrust (178 kN). NB, it is normal to quote engine power in lb thrust (hence metric in Continue reading →

Initially designed for the military by Danley Sound Labs (USA), the massive Matterhorn features 40 15-in subwoofers each powered by a 1,000-watt amplifier and housed in a 20x8x8-ft cargo container capable of reproducing bass down to 15 to 20 Hz and generating 94 db up to 250 m (820 ft).

Despite the shameful end to his year, Tiger Woods (USA) still earned $103 million (£67 million) in 2009, mostly from business deals already in place. However, his fraught personal life, which had a knock-on effect on Woods’s image and reputation, saw him lose his place at the top of the 2011 Business Week Sports Power 100 list, a guide to the most powerful people in the sporting world. The under-fire golfer was superseded by Indianapolis Colts quarterback Peyton Manning (USA), who led his team to Continue reading →

A 1.45 megaton nuclear explosion occurred in space 399 km. (248 miles) above Johnston Island in the Pacific Ocean on July 9, 1962. The 755 kg. (1665 pound) warhead was launched by the US Air Force using a Thor Missile. Codenamed Starfish Prime, the explosion was more than 100 times more powerful than the Hiroshima blast and formed its own artificial aurora. The height of the detonation is equivalent to the orbital altitude of the present-day Space Shuttle. Starfish Prime was part of a series Continue reading →

Whereas normal computers use a string of zeroes and ones (bytes) to represent data, experimental quantum computers use qubits, which can be a zero, one, or simultaneously both. On 20 December 2001, IBM’s Almaden Research Center, San Jose, California, USA, announced that they had used a 7-qubit quantum computer to calculate the factors of the number 15. They used a billion billion molecules that have seven nuclear spins for the calculation. Consisting of the nucleii of five atoms of fluorine and two of carbon, these Continue reading →

The most powerful laser weapon is the Airborne Laser (ABL), developed by Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gruman. It is designed to fit inside a modified Boeing 747 and will ultimately be used to track and destroy ballistic missiles. Although still in development, its power measures approximately one megawatt. The ABL’s chemical oxygen iodine (COIL) was first fired in a ground-test at Edwards Air Force Base, California, USA in November 2004; In August 2005, the ABL completed a series of flight tests demonstrating the performance Continue reading →

With 113 titles to his credit as of July 2011, Lee Bennett Hopkins (USa) is the world’s most prolific anthologist of poetry for children. Mr Hopkins, a noted poet in his own right, has compiled collections based on a variety of topics, including animals, holidays, the seasons, and difficult emotions. According to Hopkins, poetry “…should come to [children] as naturally as breathing, for nothing – no thing – can ring and rage through hearts and minds as does this genre of literature”.

In monetary terms, the USA still has by far the world’s most profitable cinema industry, with over $11 billion (£6.9 billion) in domestic box-office takings during 2010. Japan is currently second with $2.5 billion (£1.6 billion) and India remains in third place, with $2.2 billion (£1.4 billion).

The Ford F-series nameplate has appeared on more vehicles than any other, with more than 29.3 million F-series pickup trucks having been produced. The first in the series, the F-1, was first produced in 1948, and an F-150 truck provided the bodywork for the original Bigfoot monster truck. Between 800,000 and 900,000 F-series trucks are sold annually, largely in North America, accounting for nearly one eighth of Ford’s global sales.

The most prolific professional blogger is Darren Murph (USA) who had composed 17,212 individual contracted blog posts for engadget.com as of 29 July 2010. Darren’s career with engadget began in July 2006, and has averaged 12 blog posts per hour during that time, with an average word count of 266.