Answer to Brain Teaser # 57   Harquebus and Musket

 

        What is a Harquebus?

        What is a Musket?

        When did the Musket become viable in battle?

        Why did Musketeers need protection of Pikebearers?

 

The first small arms were miniature models of early cannons and were at first called hand cannons.  The Harquebus or Arquebus, was a primitive portable firearm.  It had a heavy barrel, a straight stock, and was so heavy that it required a support for firing.  It was fired like a cannon by touching a slow match to gunpowder in the touch-hole.  The warning "Fire In The Hole" means the main charge is about to go off.

 

440 years ago (1565), after 200 years of slow development, small arms were refined into the Musket.  Muskets could shoot a ball that penetrated armor and body armor began to disappear.  Musketeers needed the protection of Pikebearers to hold the enemy off while the Musketeer reloaded.

 

Muskets replaced bows and arrows which had been the primary weapon for hunting and war for 22,000 years.  Muskets remained the primary weapon in battle for the next 300 years thru the U.S. Civil War.  Muskets were then replaced by repeating rifles using pre-manufactured cartridges.

---

 

Brain Teaser #58 Pendulum

 

Measuring time intervals of less than a day requires some physical action that has a constant rate.  People had used their pulse and the dripping of water thru a small hole.

 

        When was the Pendulum principal discovered?       

        What is the Pendulum principal? 

        How many years until the Pendulum measured time?

        Who discovered the Pendulum principal? *

 

      * Madonna, Cher, Prince have one name in 2005.

        Moses had only one name in 1300 BC.

        Who had only one name in 1600?