Did you know?... The Interesting Fact Thread

[Mephisto2]

Not sure if this has been done already, but thought this would be a good idea for a thread.

Post an interesting fact. It's as simple as that.

Did you know?...

...that the minus forty degrees (-40) is the same temperature in Centigrade and Fahrenheit?!

It's also very close to the freezing point of mercury and the coldest temperature where water particles can remain liquid.

Mr Mephisto

[Zeraph]

Did you know...
that so far I am the only reply

for real though, dark side of oz, ill just post the site so I don't have to explain.

http://www.everwonder.com/david/wizardofoz/

[CinnamonGirl]

Did you know...

...in the video for "Come On Eileen", no one's wearing underwear?
...camel's milk doesn't curdle (or so I'm told...)
...kids starting college next fall were born in 1987.
...you burn more calories by sleeping than you do watching TV.

[keyshawn]

Originally Posted by CinnamonGirl

Did you know...


...kids starting college next fall were born in 1987.

[if you're referring to fall 2005, nope] I was actually born in 1986 [Yes, I am 18] ^_^

more random facts:
- 'Disco' translated from latin actually means 'i learn'

[JustDisGuy]

Water is the only substance that expands when it freezes.

[Grancey]

Did you know:
Blue reflectors in the middle of a street indicate the location of a fire hydrant.....

[Paradise Lost]

Dave Barry has a sewer treatment facility named after him in a town in Kansas?

Cheers won more Emmies in Comedy than any other show the year it debuted, despite being last place in the ratings, and being up against greats like Taxi, even winning Outstanding Comedy Series.

They also were the only TV show nominated in Outstanding Writing for Comedy category. There were three nominations for 5 different writers...

[tropple]

That a penny dropped from the Empire State Building will not kill someone on impact? Even if it hits them in the head. The terminal velocity of a penny is around 65MPH. It'd sting and that's about all.

-Courtesy of the Mythbusters.

[molloby]

Is that edge on or face on?

[Stug]

• In late 2002, a 10-strong team of Japanese computer specialists ran a computer program which took five years to design for a a total of 400 hours at the top speed of two trillion calculations a second to work out the value of pi - the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. They calculated the value to 1.2411 trillion places, a figure that would stretch around the world 500 times.

[Thermopyle]

Did you know: That the Chines wall is NOT visible from space!

[Thermopyle]

Originally Posted by tropple

That a penny dropped from the Empire State Building will not kill someone on impact? Even if it hits them in the head. The terminal velocity of a penny is around 65MPH. It'd sting and that's about all.

-Courtesy of the Mythbusters.

Thank you for that one! Just had an argument with an idiot who though the penny would kill you. This should be prove enough for me.

[tropple]

Regarding the penny:

They used a wind tunnel tube made from a holed plexi/acrylic tube that tested the max speed the penny could achieve in freefall. So in this case the penny was in various angles.

Jamie made an attachment for a pneumatic nail gun that he used to shoot the penny at a concrete disc, an asphalt disk and a balistic gel covered skull (yes, a real skull), and Adam's hand and ass.

Adam made a damned cool attachement for a rifle that let him "shoot" the penny using the powder charge from a rifle cartridge. The calulation from the camera footage showed that the penny was moving at about 3000 fps. When shot into a concrete disc, it left an imprint of penny and just about wiped off the penny's embossing.

The show is currently available (Nov 16) on On Demand from various cable providers.

What a fantastic gig that is. They get to blow shit up, burn things, do crazy shit and get they paid for it. Mythbusters rocks.

I want to be a mythbuster when I grow up.

_______________________________
Edit:
Episode 4: Penny Drop, Deadly Microwaves, Radio Tooth Fillings
Can pennies from heaven kill? Or, more specifically, can a penny dropped from a skyscraper kill a pedestrian on the sidewalk below? Jamie and Adam take the challenge, hopefully without deadly results. Speaking of fatal fallacies, is it possible to literally bake yourself on a tanning bed from the inside out? The guys also investigate the claim that Lucille Ball exposed a Japanese spy ring by listening to radio signals transmitted by her tooth fillings. Hmmm ...

[warrrreagl]

Originally Posted by Grancey

Did you know:
Blue reflectors in the middle of a street indicate the location of a fire hydrant.....

Cool!

Did you know: Coca Cola may have been invented in Atlanta, but the first bottle of it sold anywhere was sold in Auburn, Alabama at Toomer's Drugstore (it still stands).

[dksuddeth]

A cheetah's speed is the result of having six more vertabrae in its back than the average wild feline.

[djtestudo]

Originally Posted by Paradise Lost

Dave Barry has a sewer treatment facility named after him in a town in Kansas?

Did you know that you're wrong?

It's actually Grand Forks, North Dakota.

*Off to re-read Dave Barry books for 15th time*

[bendsley]

'Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia' is the fear of long words.

It is impossible to lick your elbow. (wondering how many of you might actually try this)

"Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

All the planets in our solar system rotate anticlockwise, except Venus. It is the only planet that rotates clockwise.

A 'jiffy' is an actual unit of time for 1/100th of a second.

[Phage]

Originally Posted by Stug

• ... a figure that would stretch around the world 500 times.

How can you say this without specifying font size or spacing? With enough toner and creative kerning I could make a two letter word circle the world 500 times.

[Redlemon]

Originally Posted by bendsley

It is impossible to lick your elbow. (wondering how many of you might actually try this)

Nope; we covered this one already:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpost.php?p=1479151&amp;postcount=99">Tilted Forum Project - View Single Post - Useless Information Competition</a>

[j8ear]

Did you know....

That the origin (etymology) of the word "Sophomore" is from two greek words meaning:

Wise and Foolish.

I've always loved that word, as it so captures the essence of a second year ;-)

An oft repeated 'quote' attributed to originate from GWBush is the word strategery. It comes instead from Will Ferrell's portrayal of GWB on Saturday night live.

-bear

[CinnamonGirl]

Originally Posted by keyshawn

[if you're referring to fall 2005, nope] I was actually born in 1986 [Yes, I am 18] ^_^

more random facts:
- 'Disco' translated from latin actually means 'i learn'

I was going on kids that turn 18 next year...either way, that's weird for me

[mo42]

Originally Posted by JustDisGuy

Water is the only substance that expands when it freezes.

This is incorrect. The element Bismuth, when changing from a liquid to a solid state, also expands.

[JustDisGuy]

Originally Posted by mo42

This is incorrect. The element Bismuth, when changing from a liquid to a solid state, also expands.

My high school science teacher stands corrected...

[Awu]

Did you know...

-Coke (the soda) can be used to clean your toilet bowl.
-Pure Coca Cola is shipped in a tanker with a "corrosive" symbol on it.

[Mephisto2]

These are cool...

I especially liked those from Bendsley.

Did you know?..

...Thomas Watson, who was the chairman of IBM in 1943 predicted that there would probably only be a world market for five computers.



Mr Mephisto

[wgheow]

did you know tat fish can drown although living underwater?

[THGL]

Did you know that if you dropped a diamond in a bottle of Clorox, it would eventually desolve?

[NegativeNine]

Originally Posted by bendsley

It is impossible to lick your elbow. (wondering how many of you might actually try this)

I argued my highschool English teacher on this. I won on specifications: she didn't say your arm or toungue had to be attached Funny... She never liked me...

Hmph... that link's kinda cool, though. The kid didn't even loose a limb.

666 is accually a mathmatical representation of the Roman emporer Nero.

The Roman emperor Nero would dress up young boys in his dead wife's clothes and make love to them.

E Plurbis Unum, The U.S. motto, (Latin:"Out of many, One.") comes from a Roman poem and was originally part of a salad recipe

The final words of H.G. Wells were, "Go away. I'm all right."

Four Popes have died while having sex.

[Ridge]

Originally Posted by Awu

Did you know...

-Coke (the soda) can be used to clean your toilet bowl.
-Pure Coca Cola is shipped in a tanker with a "corrosive" symbol on it.

For a science experiment, a girl I knew poured a can of Coke into a bowl, then put a hot dog wiener into it. After several hours the wiener looked pretty disgusting, like it had been sitting in a corrosive substance. Now imagine what happens when you drink a can of coke and sits in your stomach for awhile!

[Phage]

Originally Posted by Ridge

For a science experiment, a girl I knew poured a can of Coke into a bowl, then put a hot dog wiener into it. After several hours the wiener looked pretty disgusting, like it had been sitting in a corrosive substance. Now imagine what happens when you drink a can of coke and sits in your stomach for awhile!

Sort of like coke sitting in stomach acid! Somehow I think that your belly could handle that.

[Stompy]

Bush and Kerry are related. 9th cousins.

They are also related to Hugh Hefner.

[1010011010]

Libya is the only country with a single-coloured flag. It's green.
More people speak English in China than in the United States.
<obscure>Did you know that urine is sterile? That's right, you can drink it.</obscure>

[fallsauce]

Did you know that urine is sterile? That's right, you can drink it.

Isn't that only true for your own urine? I remember watching a video on Nazi camps and they were talking about it...

It has been calculated that in the last 3,500 years, there have only been 230 years of peace throughout the civilized world.
If you attempt to count all the stars in a galaxy at the rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them all. And that's just a galaxy, not the whole universe.
In chess, there are 169, 518, 829, 100, 544, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 ways to play the first 10 moves.
You share your birthday with at least 9 million other people in the world.

[Rodney]

The very highest-quality chocolate is a dusky red/brown, not dark brown. Got that from an ace chocolatier, who showed me some.

[ngdawg]

Originally Posted by Phage

Sort of like coke sitting in stomach acid! Somehow I think that your belly could handle that.

Stomach acid is one of the most corrosive chemicals known.

[Cryptic]

Did you know that there's a sculpture outside the CIA Headquarters that has a code on it that hasn't yet been fully deciphered, yet it's been there since 1990?

[Paradise Lost]

Originally Posted by djtestudo

Did you know that you're wrong?

It's actually Grand Forks, North Dakota.

*Off to re-read Dave Barry books for 15th time*

Meh, I couldn't remember... It was off the top of my head.

[1010011010]

Originally Posted by fallsauce

Isn't that only true for your own urine?

It seems the "obscure" tags were removed during posting... It's a quote from a Fight Club PSA.

[lpj8]

I'm not sure if these have been posted before, and I can't take credit for them. I found most of this over years of surfing the web.

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
The A&W of root beer fame stands for Allen and Wright
There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball
"Dreamt" is the only English word that ends in the letters "mt".
The longest one-syllable word in the English language is "screeched."
Stewardesses' is the longest word that is typed with only the left
hand.
A group of frogs is called an army.
A group of rhinos is called a crash.
A group of kangaroos is called a mob.
A group of whales is called a pod.
A group of geese is called a gaggle.
A group of ravens is called a murder.

[Munku]

It's impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

Rather untrue. Also, one major thing about these fact listings, is that often times people are wrong about something and then others get that info and tell it to someone else, and it spreads like wildfire. :/