Interesting 'Facts' 2.0

[-Wolfy-]

Physics is hands down my least favorite class. I can't see using it anywhere besides the random facts page, and its hard lol. BIO 2!, WHY DIDN'T I TAKE YOU AND STUDY BUGS FOR A WHOLE SEMESTER?

Did you know Colbert announced his intention to decide whether or not to announce his bid in the presidential race on the Daily Show? He also said he would actually make this decision on a more prestigious talk show.

...Later announcing he would run during his own show. Terriffic, eh? Hope it's true. Finally a likeable democrat.


And liv's, I think you were talking about the lack of G's during free fall in which no outside forces are acting upon the object in motion. If there is negligible air drag or interference, "zero" g's will be experienced during the fall.

 

[xstompx]

I don't know if it was ever resolved, but you most definitely could fold a very very large piece of paper more than 10 times. You would just need a ridiculously large piece of paper, is all.

 

[Rex+]

Molecularly, water is drier than sand.

 

[Livvers]

Physics is hands down my least favorite class. I can't see using it anywhere besides the random facts page, and its hard lol. BIO 2!, WHY DIDN'T I TAKE YOU AND STUDY BUGS FOR A WHOLE SEMESTER?

I'm actually one of those weirdos who love physics. If I could, I'd take a physics class just for the hell of it(but I'm not in college, so yeah).

And I just tried to fold a receipt ten times, but only made it to seven =(

 

[GoldShadow]

I remember this being discussed earlier, and conveniently, HeadISB discussed the cat falling and the paper folding in one post!
http://smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=2782074&postcount=373


A falling cat:

Yea I remember this in high school physics class...good times. I'm not quite an eloquent story teller as my physics teacher, but basically the cat's tail allows it to orient itself upright when falling and its terminal velocity isn't quite high enough to cause serious damage. When dropped from a building less than 5 stories, the cat basically doesn't have time to orient itself and will likely be injured. Dropping a cat from a building higher than 5 floors would give it enough time to prepare itself for the impact. Ironically some people testing this theory "accidentally" tied the cat's tail to its body and indeed, they got owned dropping from any story both below and above 5.

Folding a paper many times:

I believe the approximate maximum number of times a piece of paper can be folded is:
W=(pi)*t*2^(3/2[n-1])
where W=width, t=thickness, and n=number of times to be folded.
I'm pretty sure this equation refers to alternate direction folding though.

So yes, a paper can be folded theoretically as many times as you want, assuming it is wide/large enough and such.

 

[GoldShadow]

Ah I see just a few posts ago that Livver also proved the cat falling thing:

A plane, perhaps, but they could survive a 100+ foot drop. I didn't believe it either, at first, until I looked it up. Their *terminal velocity* is non-fatal. Terminal velocity is the fastest something can fall. If something's terminal velocity is, say, 130 mph(average human's), it means it can not fall faster than that without some other force being involved.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_190.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_righting_reflex
http://www.scribd.com/doc/85/Falling-Cats?query2=falling+from+height+survival


It's not 100%, because obviously it would be ridiculous to test this theory. They don't always survive, but they can, which is what I said. I also didn't say they were uninjured.

Molecularly, water is drier than sand.

False. Not quite sure what you mean by this.

Okay, I just read about the coolest animal ever on Wikipedia.

The pistol shrimp, also called the snapping shrimp, has one large claw that it c0cks like a pistol, then fires, sending out a 190 decibel shock wave. This shock wave is used to stun or kill small fish. It kills stuff by snapping its claw at it (no contact)! How insane is that?

Also, the shock wave creates a bubble which implodes and reaches the temperature of the sun's surface, emitting light. They have a name for the light: shrimpoluminescence.

I was surprised to find that this really is true! Pretty cool stuff. Here's the link to the Nature article about it from 2001:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v413/n6855/full/413477a0.html




That's right, I'm back! I'll try to address this topic whenever I get time.

 

[Jammer]

About folding a piece of paper ten times:

It is possible to fold a piece of 8-1/2 by 11 inch paper 6 times. I just tried it. The seventh time more bending than folding.

Every time you fold the piece of paper, it halves in size. So to fold a piece of paper 7 times, I would expect to need a 17 by 22 inch sheet (that is, of course, a very rough estimation). Eight times would be 34 by 44; 9 times would be 68 by 88; and 10 times would be 136 by 176 inches.

That's an 11 feet, 4 inches by 14 feet, 8 inches sheet of paper. Which is no sheet of paper at all.

Also, that doesn't take into account the increased thickness of the paper as you fold it. You'd just be bending the edges, which would be about 8 inches thick (my piece of paper folded six times is about 1 inch thick at the edge). For example, if you were able to fold a single facial tissue 50 times (you can't); it would be as thick as the distance from the earth to the moon. It's all because you double the thickness 50 times, which adds up very quickly.

 

[Bailey]

DUDE IT DOESN'T WORK OMG STOP POSTING ABOUT IT.

Fact: BUMP

 

[Jammer]

DUDE IT DOESN'T WORK OMG STOP POSTING ABOUT IT.

Fact: BUMP

Sorry, I didn't read the discussion about paper earlier. It must have been a while back.

 

[fluffy]

Walt disney was a nazi supporter. Rumors has it that he was part of the nazi movement.

 

[Rici]

Fluffy, it's called Fun Facts, not rumors.

 

[Falco&Victory]

Premature ejaculation is a natural process used to clean the urethra, so that during intercourse urine inside it won't kill sperm

Spoiler

If you don't want to get her pregnant pee first

 

[abit_rusty]

Fact: Goldshadow is THE person to put on your "who wants to be a millionaire" lifeline.

But seriously: Despite having 4000 lenses in each eye, flies have bad vision, but are good at detecting movement - the slower you move the less threatening you are to them.

So basically just move your fly swatter/rolled-up newspaper really, really slow.

 

[Jammer]

Male blackbirds are all black with a yellow eye-ring and bill. Female blackbirds are not black, but all brown.

 

[fluffy]

Fluffy, it's called Fun Facts, not rumors.

*SMACK!*

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"

is a grammatically correct sentence.

 

[Jammer]

Aw man, fluffy, I was just about to use that one!

If anyone doesn't believe him, look it up on Wikipedia here.

EDIT: You can also make that sentence as long as you want by making adding "Buffalo buffalo" at the beginning and "buffalo" three words before the end as many times as you want. If you don't understand how that works, well, figure it out for yourself.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Although I doubt that the previous sentence is true, considering there are no buffalo in Buffalo. But they do have these buffalo statues all over the place, painted with these crazy designs.

 

[wWw Dazwa]

"Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo"

is a grammatically correct sentence.

I posted that a billion posts ago =(

 

[fluffy]

Aw man, fluffy, I was just about to use that one!

If anyone doesn't believe him, look it up on Wikipedia here.

EDIT: You can also make that sentence as long as you want by making adding "Buffalo buffalo" at the beginning and "buffalo" three words before the end as many times as you want. If you don't understand how that works, well, figure it out for yourself.

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo.

Although I doubt that the previous sentence is true, considering there are no buffalo in Buffalo. But they do have these buffalo statues all over the place, painted with these crazy designs.

lol jammer you do all the work for me. what would i do without you?

 

[Jammer]

Aw, sure Fluffy. Glad to help.

Cool other language fact:

This is the pinyin of a Chinese poem entitled "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den."

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì

That's 92 "shis", folks. They don't sound exactly alike when spoken because they use different tones. And it's ancient Chinese--translating it into modern Chinese would make it rather boring because half the words would no longer be "shi".

Here's the translation into English:

In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

How totally awesome is that? It could never happen in English, unless if you wanted to make some dumb poem about Buffalonian buffalo badgering other Buffalonian buffalo.

Also, here's the pertinent Wikipedia article.

 

[Bailey]

Aw, sure Fluffy. Glad to help.

Cool other language fact:

This is the pinyin of a Chinese poem entitled "Lion-Eating Poet in the Stone Den."

« Shī Shì shí shī shǐ »

Shíshì shīshì Shī Shì, shì shī, shì shí shí shī.
Shì shíshí shì shì shì shī.
Shí shí, shì shí shī shì shì.
Shì shí, shì Shī Shì shì shì.
Shì shì shì shí shī, shì shǐ shì, shǐ shì shí shī shìshì.
Shì shí shì shí shī shī, shì shíshì.
Shíshì shī, Shì shǐ shì shì shíshì.
Shíshì shì, Shì shǐ shì shí shì shí shī.
Shí shí, shǐ shí shì shí shī, shí shí shí shī shī.
Shì shì shì shì

That's 92 "shis", folks. They don't sound exactly alike when spoken because they use different tones. And it's ancient Chinese--translating it into modern Chinese would make it rather boring because half the words would no longer be "shi".

Here's the translation into English:

In a stone den was a poet Shi, who was a lion addict, and had resolved to eat ten.
He often went to the market to look for lions.
At ten o'clock, ten lions had just arrived at the market.
At that time, Shi had just arrived at the market.
He saw those ten lions, and using his trusty arrows, caused the ten lions to die.
He brought the corpses of the ten lions to the stone den.
The stone den was damp. He asked his servants to wipe it.
After the stone den was wiped, he tried to eat those ten lions.
When he ate, he realized that those ten lions were in fact ten stone lion corpses.
Try to explain this matter.

How totally awesome is that? It could never happen in English, unless if you wanted to make some dumb poem about Buffalonian buffalo badgering other Buffalonian buffalo.

Also, here's the pertinent Wikipedia article.

Wow that is pretty random.

 

[Jammer]

Wow that is pretty random.

It's not random; it's an interesting fact.

If you were talking about the poem, then I'd have to say that it is decidedly not random considering it's made up of the same syllable repeated 92 times, yet it gets across a coherent and interesting meaning.

 

[Best101]

A healthy, adult human brain has up to 4 quadrillion synapses per second.

The speed of thought is about 50 billion miles per second (I forgot the exact number)

 

[fluffy]

The deepest stage of sleep is when you are most active (REM sleep)

 

[Jammer]

The speed of thought is about 50 billion miles per second (I forgot the exact number)

That's not really a fact: It's just a silly number that doesn't make any real sense.

The speed of electric impulses in axons covered with Myelin sheaths reaches about 200 miles per hour, I believe. Regular impulses travel about 15 mph. Don't quote me on that, though.

 

[Handorin]

The deepest stage of sleep is when you are most active (REM sleep)

REM=Rapid Eye Movement for those of you who dont know.

 

[fluffy]

Here's something to know about when you're about to sneeze.

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.

 

[SirroMinus1]

Humming birds can flap there wings 70/80 times per second. and are the only bird that flies backwards

 

[SirroMinus1]

Here's something to know about when you're about to sneeze.

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.

sorry for the double post but im officially scard to sneeze

 

[Best101]

That's not really a fact: It's just a silly number that doesn't make any real sense.

Well it does makes sense when you think about it. When you see something how long does it take for you to react to it and take action? Pretty fast huh? Even while you're reading this your brain have to make sense of the words and figures on the screen and take action. Note that your brain controls everything that your body does, so thought have to be pretty fast to keep everything in order

I probably didn't make any sense there =/

 

[SirroMinus1]

A plane, perhaps, but they could survive a 100+ foot drop. I didn't believe it either, at first, until I looked it up. Their *terminal velocity* is non-fatal. Terminal velocity is the fastest something can fall. If something's terminal velocity is, say, 130 mph(average human's), it means it can not fall faster than that without some other force being involved.

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_190.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_righting_reflex
http://www.scribd.com/doc/85/Falling-Cats?query2=falling+from+height+survival


It's not 100%, because obviously it would be ridiculous to test this theory. They don't always survive, but they can, which is what I said. I also didn't say they were uninjured.

my cat jumped out my window. its like 30/25 foot fall and broke his leg. i doubt a cat can survive a 100 foot fallen

 

[Jammer]

If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die. If you keep your eyes open by force, they can pop out.

Possibly true, probably true, not true (in that order).

I doubt it's possible to fracture a rib by sneezing to hard. If anything, you'll rupture your lung, but I doubt even that is possible.

Rupturing blood vessels by sneezing or suppressing a sneeze is extremely unlikely if you have healthy blood vessels. However, compromised blood vessels (i.e. blocked or weakened) are more likely to fail during the sneeze than normal breathing. It can damage your sinuses, however, and there is a possibility that suppressing a sneeze will rupture an ear drum.

Sorry, but your eyes won't pop out if you keep them open. That's just an urban legend.

For something new and unusual about sneezing check out this Wikipedia article on sneezing fetishism.

 

[fluffy]

Well it does makes sense when you think about it. When you see something how long does it take for you to react to it and take action? Pretty fast huh? Even while you're reading this your brain have to make sense of the words and figures on the screen and take action. Note that your brain controls everything that your body does, so thought have to be pretty fast to keep everything in order

I probably didn't make any sense there =/

but we're not that fast. all of us will die before we even hear the blow from a gunshot.

 

[Jammer]

my cat jumped out my window. its like 30/25 foot fall and broke his leg. i doubt a cat can survive a 100 foot fallen

I don't think you understand how it works. The cat doesn't just keep picking up speed as it falls. Once it rights itself and spreads out its legs and tail (maximizing air friction), its terminal velocity becomes survivable.

 

[SirroMinus1]

Jupiter big red tornado looking thing that never stops spinning/going around the planet is the size of 2 earths.
i under stand now jammer that is pretty cool

 

[Best101]

but we're not that fast. all of us will die before we even hear the blow from a gunshot.

what do you mean?

 

[Jammer]

Human reaction time is about 1/5 of a second if you're looking at a light or listening for a beep and have to press a button when it lights or beeps.

That's much too slow to dodge a bullet, of course, except for possibly subsonic sniper rounds from very far away (but those would be too inaccurate to hit, anyway).

 

[SirroMinus1]

mercury takes 59 days to rotate and only 88 to circle the sun. that means there fewer than 2 days in a year.

 

[Jammer]

Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet. Each day is less than 10 hours long. That creates an equatorial bulge that can be seen with a telescope.

 

[SirroMinus1]

Jupiter is the fastest rotating planet. Each day is less than 10 hours long. That creates an equatorial bulge that can be seen with a telescope.

yea i know. i wonder how much i'd weigh on that planet.

 

[Mr.Lombardi34]

I know a bunch of people talked about this soetime earlier, but they say that 'When you sneeze, all your bodily function stop for a second." Well, (In a strange sort of way) I proved this to myself. This may seem kinda off topic, bu I was peeing and I was about to sneeze. I sneeze and look down AND THE FLOW STOPPED FOR A SECOND!!! It was really cool!