Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Science by Karl Kruszelnicki

time you look at the Sun or the Moon, you make a 108:1 triangle—from pic 2).
    Lunar Eclipse + Similar Triangles

(i) The Moon travels upward through the cone of shadow on the dark side of the Earth.
(ii) A B C is a 108:1 triangle (from pic 5)
(iii) A E F is a 108:1 triangle (similar to A B C – from pic 4)
(iv) C D F is a 108:1 triangle (from pic 2)
(v) Therefore A E F and C D F are Similar Triangles
    These triangles all have the same height:base ratio—about 108:1. So they are all Similar Triangles.
    Now remember that when the Moon crosses the Earth’s shadow, the shadow is 2.5 times bigger than the Moon.
    The Ratio of the Moon’s Diameter to Earth’s Shadow at that Distance

    We measured this back in Step 8, using a simple water clock and our eyes.
    And now, in six amazing steps, we put it all together to measure the Distance to the Moon.
1) AEF and CDF are Similar Triangles (from pic 9).
2) EF/DF = 2.5/1 (from pic 10).
3) AF/CF = 2.5/1 (Similar Triangles, from pic 9), therefore AF = 2.5 x CF.
    And Finally, the Distance to the Moon

4) Now AC = AF + CF. But AF = 2.5 x CF (from Step 3 above), therefore AC = (2.5 x CF) + CF = 3.5 x CF. By the way, CF is the Distance to the Moon. (We are so close now.)
5) But AC = 1,372,000 km (from pic 7).
SO THEREFORE
6) CF = 1,372,000/3.5 = 392,000 km.
    Congratulations! You Measured the Distance to the Moon!
    This figure is within a few per cent of the true value!
    I am so impressed by the wisdom of those Ancient Greeks. Aren’t you amazed how ‘easy’ it was to measure the distance of the Moon! And it took only 10 minutes out of your life (after the Ancient Greeks did all the hard yards).
    References
    Gingerich, Owen, ‘Astronomy in the age of Columbus’, Scientific American , November 1992, Vol 267, No 5, pp 66-71.
    Gingerich, Owen, ‘Review of Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians by Jeffrey Burton Russell’, Speculum , July 1993, Vol 68, No 3, p 885.
    Morison, Samuel Eliot, Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher Columbus , Boston: Little Brown, 1942.
    O’Neill, Brendan, ‘Do they really think the earth is flat?’, BBC News Magazine, 4 August 2008, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7540427.stm.
    ‘Passing of an eccentric’, The Skeptic (Australia), Winter 2001, Vol 21, No 2, p 4.
    Russell, Jeffrey Burton, Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus and Modern Historians , New York: Praeger, 1991.
    Schlereth, Thomas J., ‘Columbia, Columbus, and Columbianism’, The Journal of American History , December 1992, Vol 79, No 3, pp 937-968.

Lemon Dissolves Fats
    In these politically correct times, you have to be careful with your language. For example, it’s no longer proper to refer to a popularly believed story as an ‘Old Wives’ Tale’—instead you have to call it an ‘Information Item from a Mature Female Domestic Engineer’.
    There is a lot of Useful Knowledge in the general population—there’s even a special name for it: ‘The Wisdom of the Commons’. But, some of the Information Items that get passed on can sometimes be wrong.
    For example, what of the claim that using lemon juice on battered fish is good for you? This claim suggests that the lemon juice destroys or dissolves the fat or oil in which the batter has been fried. This dissolved fat, with all of its kilojoules, is supposed to vanish magically, leaving you with a slim waist.
    That’s a lot to ask from a lemon.
    History of the Lemon
    Lemons are fairly new to the West, probably coming to us from Arabia or India. They were not known to the ancient Greeks or Romans. They reached Spain and North Africa around 1000-1200 AD. And the Crusaders found lemons growing in Palestine, and began bringing them back to Europe. The lemonwas being commercially grown in the Azores by 1494, with most of them shipped to England.
    Today, a commercial lemon tree can deliver about 1,500 lemons each year.
    Lemon—Fact and Fable
    The juice of the lemon is rich in vitamin C (50-60 mg per 100