It's the 24th! Trivia Quiz

Answer:

While a square has one face and four sides in two dimensions and a cube has six faces in three dimensions, the surface of a Tesseract forms a hypercube - eight single cubes meeting at right angles in four dimensions with 16 vertices, 24 faces, and 32 edges. Just be grateful I didn't ask you to draw one. An Icosikaitetragon is a regular polygon with 24 sides and 24 angles.

When the UK's money was decimalised in 1971, the florin, valued as the equivalent of two shillings, was abolished. There were 12 pence in one shilling so the florin had 24. Some of us never thought the new money would catch on but, alas, the florin is definitely no more. Another ancient measure, now rarely used outside historical references, was the 'League' - a rough description of how far you could walk in an hour, which my mother always taught me was "about three miles". In the UK there are eight furlongs in a mile - they still use that measure in horse-racing - so a league had 24 furlongs. Or 12 rods, 40 perches, or 10 chains, but let's not go there.

The symbol of the Ashoka Chakra can be seen at the centre of the flag of India. It has 24 spokes, each representing a virtue, and was included in the national flag by Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister after the country achieved independence in 1947.

The Book of Revelation is the last book in the Christian New Testament. Written in Greek, the alphabet of which has 24 letters, its name derives from the translation of the word "apocalypse" and contains prophecies about what will happen at the end of the world. There are also descriptions of various scenes, such as a throne room, and the figures to be found there - including 24 elders whose thrones surround the throne of God.

Willie Mays is regarded as one of the best baseball players of all time, wearing jersey number 24 for both the New York/San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets. Both clubs retired the number 24 jersey in his honour. Talking of sport, the ancient game of backgammon has 24 points on the board - no, not points for scoring, but an inlaid pattern with sharp, pointy points arranged in four quadrants, two per player. You can probably play backgammon in Le Mans but it will take you 24 hours to get there in one of the world's most famous car races. Pure gold has 24 karats. For some reason, people's taste in the quality, colour, and brightness of gold varies around the world. Feel free to give me any that you don't like.

I hope this quiz hasn't given you too many shocks but there's nothing like a kick in the ribs, all 24 of them. I'll leave you alone now - I have to free the last piece of chocolate from my 24-day Advent Calendar. Okay, sometimes there are 25 days on an Advent Calendar but who's counting?