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

[kerbiloid]

These modern time systems are just annoying.

Why not just say "The 8th day till kalendae of mensvs maivs"...

Spoiler

 

Edited February 2, 2022 by kerbiloid

[cubinator]

3 hours ago, Admiral Fluffy said:

Today (In america) is the 2nd day in the 2nd month in the 2nd year in the 2nd decade in the 2nd millennium.

It's the third decade, and I'm pretty sure the third millenium too.

Every single one of these I've seen is wrong. I have never seen one correctly indexed.

[Hyperspace Industries]

The word "jiffy" (as seen in the saying "in a jiffy") is a unit of measurement, multiple actually! 

The longest duration of a jiffy is its use in electronics where it refers to the time of alternating current, about 1/50 seconds.

The shortest duration of a jiffy is its use in quantum mechanics, where it refers to the time it takes light to travel one fermi, or approximately one nucleon.

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Hyperspace Industries said:

The shortest duration of a jiffy is its use in quantum mechanics, where it refers to the time it takes light to travel one fermi, or approximately one nucleon.

Which also the amount of time between when the light turns green, and the NY cabbie behind you honks their horn.

I know, I know, that means they are honking long before the light even hits their retina! Must be a quantum entanglement thing. Spooky, huh?

[magnemoe]

1 hour ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Which also the amount of time between when the light turns green, and the NY cabbie behind you honks their horn.

I know, I know, that means they are honking long before the light even hits their retina! Must be a quantum entanglement thing. Spooky, huh?

Now they see the light turn yellow so they know the time to green, they also know the distance to the light so they can eliminate the time it took for the light to arrive. 
Obvious trolling is to start moving before the light turn but with kind of ion engine level acceleration  You reach walking speed leaving the crossroad or like people do turnabouts rater than use them for the Oberth effect, no it does not help but is fun. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Which also the amount of time between when the light turns green, and the NY cabbie behind you honks their horn.

I know, I know, that means they are honking long before the light even hits their retina! Must be a quantum entanglement thing. Spooky, huh?

They're professionals. 

You can't hope to compete 

[kerbiloid]

21 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

18 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Which also the amount of time between when the light turns green, and the NY cabbie behind you honks their horn.

They're professionals. 

Nothing is too fine for the Maxwell... hmm... agents' skills.

Atom to the left, atom to the right... Switch it when you can see green traffic light.

[StrandedonEarth]

 

[DDE]

China Railway Construction Corporation has bought into Moscow's subway bonanza a few years back. They started with the Michurinsky prospect station.

It's a rather literal case of "he who pays the piper, calls the tune": https://yandex.ru/maps/geo/metro_michurinskiy_prospekt/4419559090/?l=stv%2Csta&ll=37.485961%2C55.687084&panorama[direction]=151.409567%2C19.423470&panorama[full]=true&panorama[point]=37.484467%2C55.688708&panorama[span]=55.200012%2C60.000000&z=14.64

[Beamer]

Fun (and not so fun) facts about microwave ovens (MWOs). A MWO works by bouncing around electromagnetic waves in a box that create a standing wave pattern. Where peaks overlap with peaks and valleys overlap with valleys, the water molecules are excited and become 'hot', whereas where peaks and valleys overlap, the waves cancel each other out and the water molecules are not excited. This is what causes the 'hot spots' in microwaves and why they all come with a rotating platform, to make sure your meal is evenly heated.

Here's a fun trick: take out that rotating platform, and put in a big plate with something that melts, like a plate of the kind of cheese you would use to make cheese toasties (go ahead and put some toast under it too, you know you want to). Run the microwave for a while until you can clearly see the pattern of hot spots, take the plate out and measure the (shortest) distance between the hot spots. What you've just measured is the distance between the peaks and valleys of the standing wave pattern, i.o.w. half the wavelength of your MWO, so multiply it by 2 to get the full wavelength. Since cheese is not the most accurate measuring tool, I suggest making multiple measurements between different adjacent hot spots and averaging them.

Now look at the back of your MWO, there should be a little plate attached to it that tells you what voltage to run the thing on and not to expose it to open flame, etc. This little plate should also tell you the frequency of the microwave. Now multiply the frequency with the wavelength you found earlier. Congratulations, you've just experimentally measured the speed of light using a kitchen appliance! (Note to physics pedantics: yes I know that technically you have measured the duration of a second, but let's not bother budding kitchen-based scientists with that!)

Incidentally, the first table-top MWO was built to defrost hamsters. Yes you read that right. In a research lab where they were doing cryogenics research, hamsters were frozen to find out to what extent they could be brought back to life after defrosting them. They initially used heated paddles to massage and defrost the hamsters with, but this would often cause bad burns to the poor animals. One of the researchers knew about MWOs that at that point were only used on industrial scales, and scavenged a microwave generator from a nearby lab to build a kitchen-appliance sized hamster defrosting box. Supposedly it was a big improvement compared to the heated paddles.

 

[Jacke]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

Congratulations, you've just experimentally measured the speed of light using a kitchen appliance!

You've actually measured the index of refraction of air, as the speed of light is slightly lesser in air than in a vacuum.

[Beamer]

30 minutes ago, Jacke said:

You've actually measured the index of refraction of air, as the speed of light is slightly lesser in air than in a vacuum.

I believe you'll find the difference refraction makes to your end result won't significantly affect the accuracy of cheese-based measurements.

 

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, Beamer said:

I suggest making multiple measurements between different adjacent hot spots and averaging them.

I assume you mean I should make multiple cheese sandwiches.

[Beamer]

14 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I assume you mean I should make multiple cheese sandwiches.

Of course, the bigger your sample, the lower your error margins. It's probably a good idea to try some different types of cheeses too, and maybe throw in a bacon sarnie as, you know, "control group".

 

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Beamer said:

Of course, the bigger your sample, the lower your error margins. It's probably a good idea to try some different types of cheeses too, and maybe throw in a bacon sarnie as, you know, "control group".

 

And don’t forget different thicknesses of cheese slices. Maybe with some ham,…

[DDE]

Roland Emmerich's therapist: the Zanclean Megaflood isn't real, it can't hurt you

Zanclean Megaflood:

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Roland Emmerich's therapist: the Zanclean Megaflood isn't real, it can't hurt you

Zanclean Megaflood:

 

Huh. 

 

Having had some weird conversations with geologists in the past (about aliens, faked global warming and government cover-ups, all present in the rock record) - I'm a bit suspicious of Twitter enthusiasm stuff 

Apparently not hokum: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/mediterranean-nearly-dried-up-cataclysmic-flood-revived-it

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-megaflood-powered-mile-high-waterfall-refilled-the-mediterranean-video/

Cool stuff! 

[kerbiloid]

Another weird thing from the close region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

It's weird to think that the real origin of the neolythic and thus the modern civilisation can be on the toxic bottom of the Black Sea, and that those people were living in a paradise of that giant chalice and seeing the world from absolutely another pov.

Btw, from there.

Quote

• Since the ending of the last glacial period the global sea level has risen some 120 m (390 ft).^[17][18]

 

Edited February 10, 2022 by kerbiloid

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

20 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Another weird thing from the close region.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_hypothesis

It's weird to think that the real origin of the neolythic and thus the modern civilisation can be on the toxic bottom of the Black Sea, and that those people were living in a paradise of that giant chalice and seeing the world from absolutely another pov.

Btw, from there.

 

From the wiki:

Quote

In 2011, several authors concluded that "there is no underwater archaeological evidence to support any catastrophic submergence of prehistoric Black Sea settlements during the late Pleistocene or early Holocene intervals".^[27]

but then

Quote

Underwater archaeologists have discovered that a submerged prehistoric settlement near the mouth of the Ropotamo River in Southeast Bulgaria previously thought to be from the Bronze Age was in fact 1,000 years old, going back to the Chalcolithic (Copper Age), and have established that 5,000 years ago, the level of the Black Sea was 5 meters lower than it is today.

6,000-Year-Old Submerged Prehistoric Settlement Reveals Black Sea Level Was 5 Meters Lower 5,000 Years Ago - Archaeology in Bulgaria. and Beyond

...

^{I'm guessing the problem is *not* finding the expected neolithic sites at deeper depths.  (Of course, oceanographers tell us we know more about what's in outer space than we do about our own seafloors}

[DDE]

Stovropol's Monocrystal plant supplies about half the sapphire used in LEDs and smart watches worldwide. I'd call it Russia's hidden gem, but besides offending Alrosa, I don't know how to hide one of these

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Stovropol

Sta-.

***

The table looks rather strong.

[Piatzin]

Apparently vampire bats drink so much blood that their weight can shoot up by 50% and make them incapable of flying. To cope with this, they pee as much as 25% of that weight per hour, essentially becoming tiny lil' blood-filtering machines that remove protein and other compounds and expel toxins and water. So that means that if you're ever sleeping out in South America and wake up with a vampire bat bite, you haven't just been bitten, you've also been peed on.

(And also you might have rabies)

Edited February 13, 2022 by Earthlinger
oh no wait it says fun facts -

[DDE]

1 hour ago, Earthlinger said:

So that means that if you're ever sleeping out in South America and wake up with a vampire bat bite, you haven't just been bitten, you've also been peed on.

...

But do I get eternal youthful looks, cool Gothic costumes, and crowds of gullible fangirls?

[kerbiloid]

18 minutes ago, DDE said:

...

But do I get eternal youthful looks, cool Gothic costumes, and crowds of gullible fangirls?

Yes, but read about the immediate aftermath of the vampire lifestyle, hidden from us by Holy Wood.

Though the diapers can be gothic black, too.

Edited February 13, 2022 by kerbiloid

[StrandedonEarth]