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Interesting 'Facts' 2.0
- Thread starter Zook
- Start date
Best101
Smash Ace
Doesn't make any sense
digitalmaster287
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2004
- Messages
- 240
There is a 100% chance that you have there are 2 people in the world that have the exact same number of hairs on their body.
Handorin
Smash Hero
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2005
- Messages
- 6,013
Well, there are tons of people with no hair on their head, like people undergoing chemotherapy and some infants, but I don't think that counts.
If you grow hairs one by one, eventually somebody is going to catch up to another in terms of number of hairs.
But there is still a small chance that that won't happen. So I don't see how it's 100%. Just very, extremely, likely. And not that surprising.
MysticKenji
Smash Master
"Q-Tip Cotton Swabs were originally called Baby Gays."
"The first product that the toy company Mattel came out with was picture frames."
"Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster."
"The first product that the toy company Mattel came out with was picture frames."
"Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of plaster."
Zink
Smash Champion
I had two really awesome posts there too.
Anybody hear my bamboo fact?
handsockpuppet
Smash Lord
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2007
- Messages
- 1,438
I heard that bamboo is stronger then steel for its weight.
Wikipedia
Smash Lord
FACT: If a spider web was as thick as a pencil it would have the strength to stop a jet airplane from taking off.
I don't get it, fluffy. Please explain.
Yeah, spider silk has roughly the same tensile strength as high-grade steel, but it is much lighter than steel.
That means that if, in fact, a pencil-thick strand of spider silk could stop a jet plane, a pencil-thick rod of steel could also. I don't know if that's true or not; it seems a little extreme, but I don't really know.
However, the strand of spider silk would weigh much, much less than the steel rod: About one fifth the weight of the steel for the same tensile strength.
You may be impressed to hear that a single strand of spider silk wrapping around the equator would weigh about 450 grams (16 ounces).
That means that if, in fact, a pencil-thick strand of spider silk could stop a jet plane, a pencil-thick rod of steel could also. I don't know if that's true or not; it seems a little extreme, but I don't really know.
However, the strand of spider silk would weigh much, much less than the steel rod: About one fifth the weight of the steel for the same tensile strength.
You may be impressed to hear that a single strand of spider silk wrapping around the equator would weigh about 450 grams (16 ounces).
No way a rod of steel could do that, because it's not elastic.
Ah, interesting point. Spider silk is very ductile: it can stretch about 40% without breaking. Steel, much less so (although it's a lot more ductile than many things, like glass or whatever).
But, if I remember correctly, ductility has nothing to do with tensile strength. I'm not sure on that, though.
Well yeah but think about it.
PLANE -----------------> | <- rod of steel
*Snap*
PLANE -----------------> ) <- spider silk
*Streeeeetch* *No snap*
The negative acceleration doesn't go wild when the blocker is elastic. That's at least how I understood the situation. I might be wrong though.
We can expect some enourmous leaps in technology when we figure out nanotechnics (the use of fullerene for example) and how to produce a material like spider silk synthetically.Jet engines don't accelerate very quickly. They build up thrust as they spin up to speed. There wouldn't be any "jerking" to snap the steel. Remember, this is keeping a plane from taking off, not stopping it in mid-air or something.
I'm almost positive that tensile strength and ductility are two separated variables of a material.
Both spider silk and high-grade steel have a tensile strength of about 1.3 GPa, I believe. When you put them under that stress, the steel stretches about 1% of its initial length, and the spider silk stretches 40% of its initial length.
As you add tension, they both snap at roughly the same time.
At least I think this is how it works. I'm just working from the knowledge I gleaned from skimming my physics book.
The problem is, those materials are produced under pressure, high heat, and with some crazy chemicals. Spiders make spider silk at atmospheric pressure, room temperature, and with water as the solvent. So, we are still trying to learn things from the spiders to help as manufacture hyper-strong materials cheaply and easily.
I'm almost positive that tensile strength and ductility are two separated variables of a material.
Both spider silk and high-grade steel have a tensile strength of about 1.3 GPa, I believe. When you put them under that stress, the steel stretches about 1% of its initial length, and the spider silk stretches 40% of its initial length.
As you add tension, they both snap at roughly the same time.
At least I think this is how it works. I'm just working from the knowledge I gleaned from skimming my physics book.
We already produce materials that are stronger than spider silk. Para-aramids, such as Kevlar and Twaron, are over twice as strong as spider silk.
The problem is, those materials are produced under pressure, high heat, and with some crazy chemicals. Spiders make spider silk at atmospheric pressure, room temperature, and with water as the solvent. So, we are still trying to learn things from the spiders to help as manufacture hyper-strong materials cheaply and easily.
Well you should know that wikipedia is not a reliable source for information.
Allright, you're probably correct then if that's the case. I messed up with the take-off stuff in my mind.
Yes of course. However, Kevlar isn't all that light as far as I know (might be wrong though), but at least it isn't easy and cheap to produce, unlike nanotechnical stuff once we figure it out. Could've mentioned that in my post. Also, even though para-aramids are very strong, they aren't nearly as elastic as spider silk.
digitalmaster287
Smash Journeyman
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2004
- Messages
- 240
It basically uses the Pigeonhole principle. Since its obvious no person on the planet has more than 6 billion hairs, and there are more than 6 billion people in the world, at least 2 people would have the same amount of hairs.
lol well i try to make them simple : (
Agenie04991
Smash Cadet
- Joined
- Mar 25, 2007
- Messages
- 46
Interestingly enough, scientists have been able to produce spiders silk in labs. they inject spiders genes into mammals (i,e, cows, hamsters or goats) and silk is produced and harvested from the milk. However, this manufactured silk is just a bit short of the real thing, weaker but more elastic. Still, it looks like a promising field.
Touché. You're totally right.
Now for an interesting fact so this post isn't stupid...
Because I couldn't think of an interesting fact off the top of my head, I Googled "interesting facts", and came up with this:
"Right-handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people do.
(If you're ambidextrous do you split the difference?)"
Could someone please tell me that this is FALSE?
I'm left-handed, you know.
Bailey
Smash Hero
Finally it is time I contribute.
It's illegal to own a red car in Shanghai, China.
The average coach airline meal costs the airline $4.00. The average first class meal: $50.
All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job!
More steel in the United States is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.
An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged.
Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients.
The Bible is the most-shoplifted book in the world.
The average U.S. farm has 467 acres; the average Japanese farm has 3 acres.
Koala Bears are not bears.
In Idaho, it is illegal to give someone a box of candy that weighs more than 50 pounds!
The University of Alaska stretches over 4 time zones.
It's illegal to own a red car in Shanghai, China.
The average coach airline meal costs the airline $4.00. The average first class meal: $50.
All major league baseball umpires must wear black underwear while on the job!
More steel in the United States is used to make bottle caps than to manufacture automobile bodies.
An apple, potato, and onion all taste the same if you eat them with your nose plugged.
Male hospital patients fall out of bed twice as often as female hospital patients.
The Bible is the most-shoplifted book in the world.
The average U.S. farm has 467 acres; the average Japanese farm has 3 acres.
Koala Bears are not bears.
In Idaho, it is illegal to give someone a box of candy that weighs more than 50 pounds!
The University of Alaska stretches over 4 time zones.
answer my PM!
and i thought that you can't taste if you can't smell or breathe or something.
MysticKenji
Smash Master
"1/3 of Taiwanese funeral processions include a stripper."
"Elephants, lions, and camels roamed Alaska 12,000 years ago."
"Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste."
"In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice-cream in your back pocket."
"Elephants, lions, and camels roamed Alaska 12,000 years ago."
"Ancient Romans at one time used human urine as an ingredient in their toothpaste."
"In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice-cream in your back pocket."
Faalse. Instead, if you had no sense of taste, you'd probably have a little difficulties telling which one is which.
Somewhat True.
I'll try to address some of the others later, but I just want to get this one out of the way...
About 60% of taste is actually a result of smell. So in other words, plugging your nose would make it harder to taste each flavor.
Bailey
Smash Hero
This Topic Won't Die As Long As I Am Around
In Florida, Penalty for horse theft is death by hanging.
The United States has the highest minimum drinking age in the world.
Whoopi Goldberg’s real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson.
The Muppet Show was banned from Saudi Arabian TV becuase one if its stars was a pig.
23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
85% of us will eat Spam this year.
A single cup of gasoline, when ignited, has the same explosive power as five sticks of dynamite.
Stilts were invented by French shepherds who needed a way to get around in wet marshes.
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber.
No high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.
Is bottled water worth it? 'Evian' spelled backwards is 'naive'.
On Sunday, it is illegal to sell cornflakes in Columbus, Ohio.
In Florida, Penalty for horse theft is death by hanging.
The United States has the highest minimum drinking age in the world.
Whoopi Goldberg’s real name is Caryn Elaine Johnson.
The Muppet Show was banned from Saudi Arabian TV becuase one if its stars was a pig.
23% of all photocopier faults worldwide are caused by people sitting on them and photocopying their butts.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
85% of us will eat Spam this year.
A single cup of gasoline, when ignited, has the same explosive power as five sticks of dynamite.
Stilts were invented by French shepherds who needed a way to get around in wet marshes.
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball made of rubber.
No high jumper has ever been able to stay off the ground for more than one second.
Is bottled water worth it? 'Evian' spelled backwards is 'naive'.
On Sunday, it is illegal to sell cornflakes in Columbus, Ohio.
MysticKenji
Smash Master
I posted this one earlier.
I believe it was proven false.
Fade016
Smash Journeyman
To the post on about the 5th page or 6th
During the winter The Earth is actually closer to the sun than during the summer. I can't remeber the exact distance but its about 6 million miles apart from the summer distance to the winter distance. i think.
During the winter The Earth is actually closer to the sun than during the summer. I can't remeber the exact distance but its about 6 million miles apart from the summer distance to the winter distance. i think.
It's not as clear-cut as that, though.
Your tongue tastes sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and saltiness. If apples, onions, and potatoes have the same amount of those four things, you couldn't tell them apart.
Your nose has hundreds or millions of different receptors (sorry--I don't really know) that latch onto certain chemical compounds. Your nose is great for identifying things because it can tell many, many substances apart by their chemical signatures.
Your nose and your tongue (or rather, taste buds in general) do very different things. It's not as simple as a 60/40 split.
Wikipedia
Smash Lord
Why can't it be simplified to a percent? Scientists can put a percent on hearing and sight loss, and the eye is regarded as one of the most complex organs in our body.
It can most definitely be assigned approximate percentages.
You're right about the nose and tongue doing different things; the tongue can tell the difference between the five different basic types of tastes (salt, bitter, sweet, sour, umami), but it's the nose and its ability to detect aromas that add flavor to what you "taste". Also, I believe there are about 40 million olfactory receptors in the human nose. We have about 1100 different types of olfactory receptors and can detect 5000-10000 different smells.
Numbers for how much of taste is a result of smell vary, but here's what the following have to say:
Karen Kalumuck, a biologist at San Francisco's Exploratorium, says 75%.
Doctors specializing in the field said that about 80% of all taste disorders are actually smell disorders, in an article on emedicine; that's definitely saying something.
UConn Health Center's Taste and Smell Center, one of the country's few centers specializing in the area, says that taste is about 75% smell.
Harvard's Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary also says most taste disorders are caused by problems with smelling.
So in fact, yes, you can put a number on it, and mine was too low. Taste is actually about 3/4 smell, not 60% like I said earlier.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/videos/2006/0608-why_i_hate_anchovies.htm
http://www.emedicine.com/ent/topic333.htm
http://www.uchc.edu/uconntasteandsmell/gen.html
http://www.meei.harvard.edu/patient/tasteandsmell.php
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/nosek.html
http://senselab.med.yale.edu/ordb/default.asp
http://ocw.mit.edu/NR/rdonlyres/Bra...7-4789-AEDA-E60F3211E0CB/0/9_01_lecture33.pdf
Sure, that wasn't really anything new, but I'm 100% positive that you could tell an apple, an onion and a potato apart night and day, no matter if you held your nose or not. Believe me, our lunches are served by the schools, and not all the portions are that gourmet. Back in primary school it was a quite common trick to hold your nose while trying to sip all the "summer-soup" as we call it.
It still gives me the creeps. Ew.
No it's not. Just think about it for a second and it doesn't make sense.
When it is summer for you, the other side of the world is having winter, and vice versa. You are on the same planet as the other people who are having the opposite season.
If the earth being near or far to the sun had anything to do with the seasons, the entire earth would experience the same season at the same time always.
But we don't.
Seasons are caused by the tilt of the earth. The more directly pointed you are to the sun, the less atmosphere the light has to go through to reach you. Thus making it warmer in the half of the earth that is tilted toward the sun.
It is true that the earth's orbit is not perfectly circular, but it is nearly so. So you CAN say that the earth is nearer to the sun some days than others. But that has NOTHING to do with seasons.
Lexl5
Smash Journeyman
FACT: You must recover.