Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)

[magnemoe]

54 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Who needs three?

https://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/w23.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W19_(nuclear_artillery_shell)#W23

That is another think, back then they excepted that they would use nuclear weapons and with nuclear shells they would not large broadsides. 

Damage to ship was not the reason, lighting it more likely, guess you could also speed up the loading process a bit with more room in the turret. 

You do damage with heavy guns in some direction like front turrets maximum back or back turret maximum forward, also firing over the bow or worse straight back who will destroy planes or helicopters there. This is most relevant in ship to ship combat there you might not be able to select an angle like trying to chase an ship down you might have to fire straight forward as an example. 

[benzman]

Apparently, battleships sprouted multiple turrets after it was realised that the big guns then in use could fire a shell miles further than you could hope to accurately aim it.  But if you had multiple turrets and fired them in a simultaneous broadside at a far distant target there was a reasonable chance that it least on shell would score a hit.  The British 'Dreadnought' from 1905 could fire an eight gun broadside and was the first battleship designed with this in mind.

[mikegarrison]

1 hour ago, benzman said:

Apparently, battleships sprouted multiple turrets after it was realised that the big guns then in use could fire a shell miles further than you could hope to accurately aim it.  But if you had multiple turrets and fired them in a simultaneous broadside at a far distant target there was a reasonable chance that it least on shell would score a hit.  The British 'Dreadnought' from 1905 could fire an eight gun broadside and was the first battleship designed with this in mind.

I find that highly dubious. If you look at the history of warships, they actually used to have far more main guns than they did by the time of the battleships. The number of weapons in the broadsides decreased as the size and range of them increased. The decrease in number of guns was basically due to the increase in size of them, as you simply can't put too many huge guns on a ship and still expect it to move.

[Ben J. Kerman]

I copy-pasted a bunch of fun facts about some European countries. 

 

Sweden has twice the population of Norway.

Sweden is a Monarchy.

Sweden is the 6th oldest country in Europe.

 

The first book ever printed was in German, and the first magazine was launched in Germany in 1663.

65% of the Autobahnen in Germany have no speed limit (I'm sure a lot of people already know that)

Gummy bears were invented by Hans Riegel in 1920 in Bonn, Germany. He founded the company now known as Haribo,

The Most Popular German Surname is Müller.

 

Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language.

Spain is home to the fourth-highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

The world's first “modern novel” was written by a Spanish author.

 

The Finnish language is totally different from the Scandinavian languages

The world's second longest tunnel is located in Finland.

[everythingisfine]

Fun fact~    A shrimp's heart is in its head. isn't that just splendid

its not space related but I felt it was very necessary to share.

[kerbiloid]

A human head is usually occupied by stomach or some other parts of body. The brain presence is arbitrary.

A total population of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia together is equal to Saint Petersburg.
Of Sweden and Norway is equal to Moscow.
(The Chinese users are grinning here)

5 hours ago, Ben J. Kerman said:

The Most Popular German Surname is Müller.

I bet, the second one is Schmidt.

[Maria Sirona]

There is a city in Iran called Kerman

[DDE]

20 hours ago, benzman said:

Apparently, battleships sprouted multiple turrets after it was realised that the big guns then in use could fire a shell miles further than you could hope to accurately aim it.  But if you had multiple turrets and fired them in a simultaneous broadside at a far distant target there was a reasonable chance that it least on shell would score a hit.  The British 'Dreadnought' from 1905 could fire an eight gun broadside and was the first battleship designed with this in mind.

I see red.

In the XIXth century, opportunities to test naval technology were rare, and every major engagement led to dramatic change in trends. After Lissa, line abreast formations, rammings, and torpedo attacks in a close-range free-for-all were the rage. Then there was the Yalu River (pictured), where columns of lightly-armored cruisers with quick-firing 6-inch guns were able to quite freely kite the older but larger battleships. As a result, by the Russo-Japanese war the predominant doctrine was to press into medium-calibre range and use a hurricane of cruiser-bore fire to disable the enemy ship; the fore and aft main gun turrets of most battleships were a secondary weapon at best.

So here comes the battle of the Yellow Sea, where both sides were able to score 12-inch hits at over 8 miles despite the Japenese having Barr & Stroud rangefinders fated to 5 miles, and the Russian handheld micrometers only considered effective at 4 km. By war's end, evidence was piling up: heavy guns have benefitted from much of the quick-fire technology, and gunnery practices and rangefinding had improved to a point where long-range fire was an option. Projects of what would be retroactively called "semi-dreadnoughts" had already been cropping up with a larger, turreted secondary battery, such as the 9.2-inchers on the Lord Nelson-class. Immediately after the war, a whole lot of people (in Britain, the US, Italy, Russia, et cetera) began to suggest maximizing the main gun armament and speed in order to take advantage of that shifting balance towards first-salvo power and keeping the range open. USS South Carolina, with her eight-gun broadside in a more efficient arrangement, was laid down before the ten-gun HMS Dreadnought - Jackie Fischer merely got the Admiralty to splurge out on overtime pay.

Edited April 19, 2022 by DDE

[steve9728]

7500-2500 years ago, there have been rhinos in the Chinese landscape. At its most widespread, the distribution even reches the Inner Mongolia region. The average temperature in that era was about 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than in modern times.

 

Edited April 19, 2022 by steve9728

[Admiral Fluffy]

 

[everythingisfine]

W is a vowel EX: the word crwth

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 hours ago, everythingisfine said:

W is a vowel EX: the word crwth

I just got into this argument with my wife. 

 

Darn you to Heck for proving her right. 

 

https://imgur.com/gallery/9r8D5Gf

 

[Maria Sirona]

Not in finnish. In fact, we don't use w at all in finnish...

[Hyperspace Industries]

14 hours ago, everythingisfine said:

W is a vowel EX: the word crwth

That is welsh, welsh and english are very different.

[kerbiloid]

53 minutes ago, Maria Sirona said:

Not in finnish. In fact, we don't use w at all in finnish...

You just think thatit's "double vee".

Actually, that's not that bad. The English speakers are sure it's "double u".
Where can they see here "u" instead of "v", only they can know.
And how do they call omega which is actually looking like double "u".

But the Deutsch are even more funny. 
They call v "fau",  but instead of "dubl fau" they say "dubl veh", which is neither "vee", neither "u", nor "fau".
Probably, it's from Latin "veh".

But the Latin doesn't have "w" at all...

[Maria Sirona]

35 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

You just think thatit's "double vee".

You don't tell me about my own language. Not a single finnish word uses w. Period.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

44 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They call v "fau",  but instead of "dubl fau" they say "dubl veh

Auf Deutsch, 'veh' comes after 'fau'.  Never heard a German say 'doppel fau' or 'doppel veh'. 

Aber, Englisch?  Ja, there is a double yew. 

But it's NOT a vowel in English... Even if the Celts use it as a vowel in their language 

Edited April 21, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

10 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Auf Deutsch, 'veh' comes after 'fau'.  Never heard a German say 'doppel fau' or 'doppel veh'. 

Yes, I just emphasized this a little, but still - why "veh"? Why not  "... fau"?

11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

But it's NOT a vowel in English... Even if the Celts use it as a vowel in their language

Saesnichs are always trying to complicate simple things.

Spoiler

Just found out that Welsh don;t call them Sassenachs.

https://www.quora.com/Why-do-the-Scots-call-the-English-Sassanach-and-the-Welsh-call-them-Saesnich-when-these-2-countries-were-bordered-by-Angles

23 minutes ago, Maria Sirona said:

You don't tell me about my own language. Not a single finnish word uses w. Period.

Names do. I took a look in wiki.

[Kerwood Floyd]

Vowels and consonants are categories of sounds. 'W' is a letter, not a sound. Letters are used to represent sounds. Sometimes the sound represented by 'W' is best described as a vowel, rather than as a consonant. In the word 'down', the 'W'  is not representing a consonant sound. It represents the second vowel component of a diphthong.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Just found out that Welsh don;t call them Sassenachs

Me too!  Also, the Cornish 'sows' is funny! 

13 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

why "veh"? Why not  "... fau"?

Because that would be verrucht und nicht wichtig. 

( Fer-rukt and vi(cat hissing sound)-tig) 

... So difficult to write correct pronunciation sounds of German words in English...  We don't have the cat-hiss, the gutteral rolling 'r' or the throat clearing vowel/consonant ! 

Edited April 21, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

13 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

... So difficult to write correct pronunciation sounds of German words in English...  We don't have the cat-hiss, the gutteral rolling 'r' or the throat clearing vowel/consonant ! 

But even a basic knowledge of English and traces of Deutsch allowed me to read several Dutch articles by converting the letter combinations into something recognizable, either from English, or from Deutsch.

Edited April 21, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Maria Sirona]

50 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Names do. I took a look in wiki

Name one finn with w in their name

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, kerbiloid said:

But even a basic knowledge of English and traces of Deutsch allowed me to read several Dutch articles by converting the letter combinations into something recognizable, either from English, or from Deutsch.

Dutch is interesting - I've found the same.  Don't speak a word of the language but I have skimmed articles and been able to glean the gist (and whether I wanted to take the time to dump sections into Google translate)

42 minutes ago, Maria Sirona said:

Name one finn with w in their name

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wäinö_Aaltonen? 

[Maria Sirona]

Well, to be honest w was used in finnish some time ago. But we do pronounce it as a v

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Maria Sirona said:

Well, to be honest w was used in finnish some time ago. But we do pronounce it as a v

Yes, I have a Polish friend whose name starts with a W, but it’s also pronounced as a V