Interesting Facts - Page 105

521

The symbols @#$%&* when used to denote obscenities in writing are called "grawlixes".

522

Sixty percent of U.S. senators are 65 or older, the traditional retirement age in the U.S.

523

In old time slang, there is a major difference between hobos, tramps, and bums. Hobos are traveling workers. Tramps will only work if they are forced to. Bums won't work at all.

524

Did you know that railroad hobos had conventions, a union, and even a code of ethics?

525

In order to plan the invasion of Normandy during WWII, the British military asked its citizens to send in holiday pictures of European beaches. Over ten million were sent in.

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Also see:

Level ∞

Nov 12, 2020

Thanks to @HelveticaBold for #521 and @Geographystar for #522.

Level 73

Nov 13, 2020

Here's one: The name of Morocco's largest city, Casablanca, translates to "The White House"

Level 73

Nov 13, 2020

In Arabic there's a definite article there

Level 65

Nov 13, 2020

In the movie Milo and Otis, 20 cats were killed during production, but 0 dogs. Pretty dark.

Level 42

Nov 13, 2020

mcdonalds have sold bubblegum flavoured broccoli that could be fact 523

Level 52

Nov 16, 2020

They never sold it, but they did test it out - it was terrible.

Level 71

Oct 4, 2021

Still bound to be better than plain broccoli.

Level 62

Jun 6, 2022

plain broccoli is great, what are you on about?

Level 40

Sep 5, 2023

even better with some melted cheddar!

Level 42

Nov 13, 2020

Other facts Nauru is only 21 square kilometers. Orcspel was founded by Matt Ramme. St Petersburg is the 7th biggest urban area in Europe. JRR Tolkien's JRR stands for John Ronald Ruel.

Puerto Rico has a bigger population that 21 US States. Technically the word robot comes from CZech

Level 42

Nov 14, 2020

Add some of these QM

Level 75

Nov 15, 2020

Martin Van Buren was the first US president who was born in the USA.

Level 52

Dec 15, 2020

No, no presidents were born after Bruce sang that

Level 67

Nov 15, 2020

North Carolina is smaller than North Dakota.

Level 65

Nov 15, 2020

South Carolina is smaller than South Dakota, South Dakota is bigger than South Korea but South Carolina is not, and both are smaller than South Africa!

Level 89

Oct 12, 2022

The South Pole and the North Pole are the exact same dimensions.

Level 65

Nov 16, 2020

Russia is about 38,859,641 times bigger than the Vatican.

Level 33

Nov 16, 2020

When shuffling a deck of cards, the number of possible arrangements is approximately 8×10^67. That’s more than the number of stars in the observable universe! Credit: The # Fact Site

Level 33

Nov 16, 2020

Another one from The # Fact Site:

The Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911, which drew more visitors to see the empty space than the actual painting.

Level ∞

Nov 20, 2020

Hmm.. I'm starting to think that the Fact Site might have sourced some of their data from Snapple.

Level 42

Nov 21, 2020

I've heard the Mona Lisa was stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia

Level 60

Nov 17, 2020

Australia is wider than Pluto

Level 71

Mar 5, 2022

But not as tall as Mickey Mouse:

Level 52

Nov 17, 2020

I knew 523 and 524 from Atlas Obscura. Also, new layout for Jetpunk? Sweeeeet!

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

I am almost 100% sure that fact 525 is wrong, though I can't quite work out where the flaw in the argument is (I suspect it might be because the velocity of Andromeda itself is assumed to be equal from the points of view of both people, which is false). If it was true then it would enable faster than light communication, which is why I think it is wrong. Can you find a reliable source for it? (the Wikipedia article has a not saying it contradicts other articles)

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

Another consequence if this were true: imagine if some aliens from Andromeda fired a laser beam towards the earth, which was so strong that it destroyed all life on earth. Then the people walking slowly towards Andromeda would be killed and the people moving away would be fine for weeks, as they would not yet see the beam! Can this really be the consequence of one of the best-tested theories in history? The figure of 15 days, I suspect, does have some meaning in this context, but as you wrote the fact it is false.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

This criticism is easy to address. The laser beam will not be 2.5 billion light years away when it vaporizes the Earth.

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

But a laser beam is made of light, which is the same way as the observers see events in Andromeda. Both observers find out that the laser beam has hit earth at the same time (obviously) so both observers see the light carrying the signal that the aliens have left at the same time.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

I must be a bit dense today because I just realized that (a couple hours after my above post). It does seem to be a very valid criticism.

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

I think the misunderstanding arises from a point of grammar actually. If you are moving towards Andromeda then because of relativistic time dilation the distance to Andromeda is shorter. Both the person moving towards Andromeda and the person who is at rest see events at the same time, but because Andromeda is far away they both know that events they see how in fact happened millions of years ago. And how many millions of years ago depends on how far away Andromeda is. So for example from Alice's frame of reference it might seem as if an event happened 100 million years ago in Andromeda, while Bob, measuring a different distance to Andromeda, might assume the event happened 100 million years and 15 days ago. But they see the same events at the same time, they just disagree about when those same events really happened.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

No, that's not it. In the Andromeda Paradox, one observer will see an invasion fleet on it's way to Earth while another observer will see it hasn't even departed yet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rietdijk%E2%80%93Putnam_argument#Andromeda_paradox

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

This is the article with the "contradictory" note. This is not accurate. Both observers must find out that the fleet has left for earth at the same time. The difference is that one observer believes it left x amount of time ago, while the other believes it left x + 15 days ago.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

Yes, upon a more careful reading this does seem to be the case.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

In conclusion, the universe is a weird place. Though I don't understand this paradox intuitively, I believe the math makes sense and that the experts accept it.

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

I understand the maths behind it. The quote from Penrose (an expert) on the page says "In fact neither of the people can yet know of the launching of the space fleet. They can know only later, when telescopic observations from Earth reveal that the fleet is indeed on its way. Then they can hark back to that chance encounter, and come to the conclusion that at that time, according to one of them, the decision lay in the uncertain future, while to the other, it lay in the certain past." When he says "neither of the people can yet know", he means that at the time you are talking about neither person has seen anything. They both find out that the aliens left at the same time. What I'm saying isn't that the experts don't accept the existence of the phenomenon you are referring to, it's that you have misunderstood it.

Level ∞

Dec 5, 2020

In retrospect, I accept your arguments, and I will delete this fact. For reference, what it said was "A person slowly jogging in the direction of the Andromeda Galaxy will see things in that galaxy 15 days before a person who is standing still. This bizarre consequence of relatively is known as the Andromeda Paradox."

Level 70

Dec 5, 2020

Thanks, I have thought about it a bit more. Consider the two statements:

A. Someone who missed the premiere of Terminator: Judgement Day saw the film 15 days after someone who made it to the premiere.

B. Someone who misheard the opening line as saying "September 13th, 1997" instead of "August 29th, 1997" saw that part of the film 15 days after someone who heard it correctly.

The statement is true in the sense that B is true, but not in the sense that A is true. That is where the confusion lies.

Level 71

Mar 5, 2022

Every minute of the day, one billion tons (907 million tonnes) of rain falls on the earth.

Level 40

Jul 5, 2022

The name 'bonobo' resulted from a misspelling -

"Bonobo," the common name for apes, may sound like some sort of translation of a meaningful term, but in fact, it was the result of a typo. Researchers reputedly first found the animals in the town of Bolobo, Zaire, in the '20s, but the name of the place was misspelled "Bonobo" on the shipping crate in which the animal was placed, leading others to refer to the animal by the name, which stuck.