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Whether something is interesting or not is subjective. But please try to include only facts that will be legitimately surprising and interesting to most people. Not just little-known obscure facts that are neither relevant nor very surprising.
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This is an amazing coincidence I've just come across. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of other people have already heard this, but somehow I've never heard it before.
Spoiler for Amazing PIE fact:
Awesome idea for a thread. I have a bunch of these rattling around in my brain somewhere, though it's hard to dredge them out.
One of my favourite surprising facts is that there are an infinite quantity of whole numbers, and an infinite quantity of decimal numbers, but there are more decimal numbers than whole numbers.
Hmm... oh, when you sneeze because you have some kind of a bug, that's not an adaptation of the human body 'getting rid' of the bug. That's an adaptation of the bug, messing with your nose nerves to spread itself as far and wide as possible.
Hmm, are you sure this is a fact? How well established is it? I did a quick google search, and as far as I could tell it is a hypothesis, but I may have misunderstood.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Can't remember where I got it from. :P
Of course, animals evolved to sneeze before pathogens took advantage of it. In fact they may have evolved it to get rid of them. But once the mechanism was in place, it was fairly certain that the pathogens would evolve to trigger it.
All the gold ever mined could fit into a 20 metre cube.
My hubby has told me that fact about gold. I still find it incredibly hard to believe :lol:
why would this first one be surprising..... look at first five positive whole numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and look at decimal numbers in that range..... how much decimal number's are there between just 1 and 2 ? lol 1.000001...1.000002.........1.00021545454 lol it's infinite lol :D I guess....now how much are there between 1 and 5 whole numbers decimal....so for every whole number there is even a million more decimal so I guess that's the reason there are more decimal numbers and idk and if between every whole number was a million of decimals then for 100 whole numbers there would be like 100 million decimals and for 1000 whole nubers there would be 1000 million decimals so I guess it's the reason there are more decimals or at least thQuote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Actually, I usually use a 20 metre cube to envisage the current population of Earth. It's roughly 8,000,000,000, which is 2000*2000*2000. So the number of people on Earth is the same as the number of centimetre cubes in a 20 metre cube (or the same as the number of millimetre cubes in a 2 metre cube).Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhaylin
So if you distributed all the gold ever mined equally to everybody alive on Earth, we'd each get a cubic centimetre.
This same argument would tell you that there are more fractions than whole numbers. But there are actually the same quantity of fractions as whole numbers. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Karloky
Meaning of life is 42... rotated, "2b."
The meaning of life is "to be."
Attachment 5605
The PIE and "to be" tricks for me are the kind of facts that lend credibility to the "life is a dream" hypothesis. :)
The meaning of life is to be upside down?Quote:
Originally Posted by TiredPhil
Bats figured this out a long time ago. Humans still have so much to learn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
As for my contribution; there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches and deserts of Earth.
18 Microwave Snacks You Can Cook In A Mug
most of this.
I thought it was where do I belong?Quote:
Originally Posted by TiredPhil
Gold is the only metal that doesn't break down over time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zhaylin
For some reason I thought you said stairs at first and tried to imagine how that was possible for a good few seconds. Think I'm losing my mind lately. :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper
All those stairs and no wheelchair access. This is exactly why we need a space elevator!Quote:
Originally Posted by Dianeva
Cat spray can smell worse than skunk spray.
And can happon even more often too.
Neither is bigger actually, as they're both infinite. But this is something I have to discuss with my math teacher at university, he's a cool dude and he will like it. I'll report back.Quote:
Originally Posted by Karloky
There are different levels of infinity. In this case, you have infinity times infinity decimals.Quote:
Originally Posted by Athylus
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Originally Posted by Dianeva
It gets better. Did you know that the formula for the approximate volume of a pizza is Pi(Z*Z)A?
Attachment 5629
I dispute that, as those are not the common symbols to use for that. The most common way of writing it would probably be π∙r²∙hQuote:
Originally Posted by dutchraptor
That's ridiculous, you can use whatever the hell you want. Since when must you use the letter h to do represent a variable height.Quote:
Originally Posted by khh
I actually agree with you, even though I know the reasoning. Your math teacher will no doubt tell you that there are less decimal numbers than whole numbers. And this is true in a way. In most cases, if you can map one set one-to-one with items from another set and use up all the items from the first set, but not even come close to using up all the items from the second set, then there must be more items in the second set than the first set. For example, you could map numbers from positive integers to positive decimals like so:Quote:
Originally Posted by Athylus
1 = 1.1
2 = 1.12
3 = 1.123
4 = 1.1234
5 = 1.12345
....
14 = 1.1234567891011121314
15 = 1.123456789101112131415
...
You could go on and on like that until you get:
∞ = 1.1234567891011121314151618.....100101102103...... .
You've then mapped every single positive integer to a unique decimal number, and you still have so many decimal numbers left over (nothing that isn't in the 1.1-1.3 range has been used). There are still an infinite number of decimal numbers left after the mapping.... so there must be infinitely more decimal numbers than positive integers.
That's the reasoning anyway. And in a way this makes sense, perhaps it's useful in some situations. But I think, on a more common-sense level, one infinity can't be greater than another. Infinity is a concept, not an actual number, though it can be treated like a number in some circumstances. And the concept of infinity refers to some abstract quantity which is by definition greater than any amount we can possibly name. To say that ∞1 > ∞2 contradicts the definition of infinity. Because by definition nothing can be greater than ∞2.
Well if you can name them whatever you want then there are a lot more chances for it to spell a name. It doesn't seem like such an amazing coincidence. I mean you could say there's a box with length B, width O and height X..... What's the volume? BOX! !!!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchraptor
The Capgras Delusion is a psychological disorder where you think everybody you know has been replaced with an impostor.
A cool hypothesis to explain this (and one which has some evidence, I think) is that the neural pathways from the part of the brain which recognises people to the part of the brain which causes an emotional response has been in some way severed. So you see your loved ones and yet don't feel any kind of emotions towards them. Your brain rationalises this by insisting that they're somebody different.
The Fregoli delusion is the opposite. You think that different people are in fact one person. It's pretty funny, really.
Ah well, technically the infinity of the whole numbers (let's call it N0) multiplied by itself should be the number of pairs of whole numbers (in the same way that multiplying 2 by 3 means count how many points there are in a 2 by 3 grid), in other words the number of whole points in the first quadrant of the plane, but this turns out just to be equal to the original infinity; i.e. N0*N0 = N0. That's surprising fact #2 about infinity. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
The infinity of decimals, call it N1, turns out that it should equal, if anything, 2 to the power of N0. But this turn out to be impossible to prove from the axioms of number theory or set theory, and in fact you can consistently take it to be either true or false. Extremely surprising fact about infinity #3.
Technically this reason doesn't work. For example, you could double every whole number. This mapping sends every whole number to every even number inside the whole numbers. There are an infinity quantity of whole numbers still left after the mapping, but you can't then conclude that there are infinitely more whole numbers than whole numbers. :PQuote:
Originally Posted by Dianeva
In the same way you could map the infinite quantity of decimal numbers into the space between, say, -1 and 1.
The problem is that you're trying to show that there are some decimals left untouched no matter what mapping you use, not that any specific map fails (it's always possible to come up with maps which fail). In other words, given a map from the whole numbers to the decimals, you need to find a methodical way of producing a decimal which can't be touched anywhere on the list. There's an ingenious way of doing this.
Perhaps I've become numb through overexposure, but I don't feel there's anything wrong with it. The maths of different infinities does behave in a nice consistent way, anyway. I'd turn what you said on its head and interpret it in the opposite way - these results simply tell us that our intuitions about infinity are inconsistent.Quote:
That's the reasoning anyway. And in a way this makes sense, perhaps it's useful in some situations. But I think, on a more common-sense level, one infinity can't be greater than another. Infinity is a concept, not an actual number, though it can be treated like a number in some circumstances. And the concept of infinity refers to some abstract quantity which is by definition greater than any amount we can possibly name. To say that ∞1 > ∞2 contradicts the definition of infinity. Because by definition nothing can be greater than ∞2.
After all... the infinity of the decimals is bigger than the infinity of the whole numbers. But surely we don't want to say the infinity of the whole numbers is not infinite? There's always a bigger whole number than any whole number you can think of. They go on forever and ever. We've gotta call them infinite.
I just tried the chocolate chip cookie in a cup recipe. It rocks. :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by AURON
You aren't helping your argument very much in all fairness, take a look at your own picture of a pie. The figure they used for pi, is not the actual value of pi, the decimal point is disregarded and the only reason the whole thing works is because of a non standard font. Try mirror an image of 3.14 in standard font and I'm willing to bet it bears very little resemblance to the word pie. It doesn't really seem like an amazing coincidence at all.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dianeva
Well there's 1 sequence of three digits which does give you "PIE" and 999 sequences which wouldn't, so it is a pretty funny coincidence. It's not the same thing as arbitrarily naming variables to make them spell something.
The Bible doesn't say anything about an immortal soul. Surprising fact.
No, it gives you pie when you alter it enough to slightly resemble pie. As I said earlier, the number sequence actually bears little resemblance to the word pie when reversed in standard font. You could present the exact same argument that you are just arbitrarily using another font to suit your needs. Even considering the use of non standard naming of variables it's still a coincidence that the volume of pizza can be wrote as PiZZA.
More change is needed to make Pie out of 3.14 than the volume of a pizza into PiZZA. It seems that the novelty surrounding the pie picture is largely created because it uses one of the most common constants in the world, not because anything significant is actually going on.
I'm sure we disagree on this, but I don't think you can say that one is a huge coincidence more than the other.
It may not work with a regular writing of '4' with it open at the top, if that's what you mean, but the thing is, there are no other letters which could be arranged in any font, backwards or forwards, to produce the backwards PIE. If there were a few possible arrangements of numbers that could be morphed into PIE then you'd be right, but I don't see any others. And it isn't like some special, unheard of font. The regular numbers on a calculator or whatever font I'm writing this in have 4=P, I=1, 3=E, you don't have to do much mental stretching to see it.
I tried to calculate the actual probability of it happening but it's beyond my grasp.... though I'm sure it's astronomically high. There are so many factors. It isn't simply the probability that those 3 numbers form PI. You also have to consider the probability that they have the same number of digits and that those digits match (either backwards or forwards, to be fair), the probability that the words PI and Pie would sound the same in English, etc.
(been meaning to respond to Xei's post before but haven't gotten to it yet)
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Originally Posted by Xei
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Originally Posted by Zhaylin
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Originally Posted by Aristaeus
Great video - at one point it states this fact about all mined gold, and adds to it, that if you used all gold that the planet contains to cover its surface - the thickness of that covering would be more than 50 cm - not that rare after all.
The video also states, that cows sleep with their eyes open and standing on their feet, but that they lie down in order to dream.
The guy illustrates this by lying down and air walking his legs.
Does that mean cows have no REM Atonia?
Somebody know about this?
From other sources:
Giraffes only sleep 1.9 hours per day - in 5 - 10 min. intervals.
Koalas sleep around 22 hours per day.
REM sleep is found in all species of mammals and birds that have been studied, but it probably does not occur in other classes of animals.
More sleep stuff from more sources:
The record for the longest period without sleep is 18 days, 21 hours, 40 minutes.
You’re more likely to die from sleep deprivation before starvation. It takes two weeks to starve, but 10 days without sleep can kill you.
Losing sleep reduces your pain tolerance. It may disrupt the body’s pain signalling system, heightening sensitivity to painful stimuli.
After five nights of partial sleep deprivation, three drinks will have the same effect on your body as six would have if you had slept enough.
Having a newborn baby typically results in 400–750 hours of lost sleep for the baby’s parents in the first year.
On average, a newborn sleeps for 10 to 19 hours per day. Bottle-fed infants sleep for longer periods than breast-fed infants.
12% of people dream in black and white.
Before color television the number was 75%.
There are two periods of maximum sleepiness — the late afternoon (from around 3 to 5 PM) and the end of the night (from around 3 to 5 a.m.). There are also two periods of maximum alertness — around 1 a.m. in the morning and 1 p.m. in the afternoon.
This requires some perspective. The Earth's radius is more than 600,000,000cm. 50cm is therefore... a tiny tiny quantity. And only a tiny quantity of that is close enough to the surface to be mined.Quote:
Originally Posted by StephL
I know - so - it is not that much gold after all!Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Could we agree on that?
Attachment 5747
If you look at it in terms of percentage of elements in the Earth´s crust - it´s negligible of course.
Oxygen 47 %
Silicon 28 %
Aluminium 8 %
Iron 5 %
Calcium 3.5 %
Sodium 3 %
Potassium 2.5 %
Magnesium 2 %
All other elements 1 %
What makes this sort of "visualization" attractive is the stuff it´s all about - we wouldn´t be as interested in say - painite .. uhm - wait a minute:
You are correct - I was echoing the tone of the video without much reflection on what "I know"..Quote:
Originally Posted by Huffingtonpost - sic!
It's not really it's rarity that makes gold precious, it's the fact that the aliens use it for their space ships.
Attachment 5774..
Oh yeah - that must be right:
http://us.cdn2.123rf.com/168nwm/diom...raumschiff.jpg
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A woman holds a Guinness World Record for highest fall survived with no parachute because she was in a plane crash!
On January 26th 1972, a Yugoslavian commercial airliner was attacked by a Croatian terrorist group.
A bomb went off while the airplane was at 33,000 feet. It tore the plane into several pieces, which then proceeded to plummet to Earth. The pieces crashed on a frozen mountain-top below.
Every person on the plane was killed, save for one. Flight attendant Vesna Vulovic survived. A German man found her at the crash site covered by another body and pinned by a refreshment cart.
The man was a trained medic so did all he could for Vulovic until he could get her to a hospital. She suffered a fractured skull, two broken legs and three broken vertebrae.
She was temporarily paralyzed before surgery allowed her to regain the use of her legs.
Vulovic now holds the Guinness World Record for highest fall survived without a parachute - 33,330 feet! It was later revealed that Vulovic wasn't supposed to be on that flight at all. Her schedule had been mixed up with another flight attendant named Vesna.
Attachment 5773.. Incredible!! Congratulation!
Just watched this video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKOmNGEi0DY#t=195
Bump!
I just had to share this. Absolutely fascinating.
Livescience.com | Water Bounces Right Off This Super-Repellent Material
