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Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:53 am
by Andalu
Wait, Brando was in the Superman movie?

Also, I wonder who was pitching...

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:56 am
by Brazil
Andalu wrote:Wait, Brando was in the Superman movie?

Also, I wonder who was pitching...
Yep, played Jor El for all of five minutes at the start and, IIRC, squeezed all the money he could out of the studio for it.

I doubt we'll ever know for certain who was pitching, particularly given that it seems Brando would do anything to anything.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 11:58 am
by Dark
There are more possible moves in a game of chess than atoms in the observable universe.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:04 pm
by fatcat
de_Selby wrote:
Clive Simms wrote:Emmanuel Adebayor's dad still washes elephants
What does his mother do these days?
Keeps her eyes closed to avoid the suds.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:06 pm
by backrow
fatcat wrote:
de_Selby wrote:
Clive Simms wrote:Emmanuel Adebayor's dad still washes elephants
What does his mother do these days?
Keeps her eyes closed to avoid the suds.
and avoids CMM

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:07 pm
by Openside
Beaver_Shark wrote:It's impossible to hum while holding your nose.
Rubbish I can!!

or 😂😂😂😂

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:12 pm
by A5D5E5
The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:14 pm
by Andalu
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:16 pm
by A5D5E5
Andalu wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?
No, it is looking back in time. What we see now is as it was when the light was emitted. This is true for any observation of course - including things we see with our own eyes.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:16 pm
by Mahoney
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
I always find that disparity weird - 13.8 billion years is obviously a very long time, and my feeling that it’s manageable and I get what it means is a little delusional, but it still feels like it’s on a scale I can cope with. Whereas 93 billion light years is not a distance I can even begin to imagine comprehending.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:18 pm
by Brazil
Mahoney wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
I always find that disparity weird - 13.8 billion years is obviously a very long time, and my feeling that it’s manageable and I get what it means is a little delusional, but it still feels like it’s on a scale I can cope with. Whereas 93 billion light years is not a distance I can even begin to imagine comprehending.
You can imagine time in a linear fashion, whereas space is more abstract, even on a terrestrial scale it's always slightly disconcerting just how big Italy, for example, actually is in physical terms compared to you.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:26 pm
by A5D5E5
The Banach-Tarski Paradox shows that mathematically it is possible to cut a solid sphere into a limited number of pieces (possibly as low as 5) and then reassemble the pieces into two solid spheres of exactly the same size as the original. In practice of course, it is a bit harder.

(For a reason I've never understood - perhaps a bet?, when I was first taught this, the lecturer explained it as applying to rabbits rather than spheres)

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:34 pm
by Mog The Almighty
A5D5E5 wrote:The Banach-Tarski Paradox shows that mathematically it is possible to cut a solid sphere into a limited number of pieces (possibly as low as 5) and then reassemble the pieces into two solid spheres of exactly the same size as the original. In practice of course, it is a bit harder.

(For a reason I've never understood - perhaps a bet?, when I was first taught this, the lecturer explained it as applying to rabbits rather than spheres)
Wot? Are you sure you've got that right?

That doesn't even make sense. I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me you'd be making doubling the amount of matter you have, and you know the laws of thermodynamics...

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:39 pm
by A5D5E5
Mog The Almighty wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The Banach-Tarski Paradox shows that mathematically it is possible to cut a solid sphere into a limited number of pieces (possibly as low as 5) and then reassemble the pieces into two solid spheres of exactly the same size as the original. In practice of course, it is a bit harder.

(For a reason I've never understood - perhaps a bet?, when I was first taught this, the lecturer explained it as applying to rabbits rather than spheres)
Wot? Are you sure you've got that right?

That doesn't even make sense. I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me you'd be making doubling the amount of matter you have, and you know the laws of thermodynamics...
That is why it is called a "Paradox" rather than a theorem!

In fact is it much weirder than I stated. It is also "possible" to cut one of the spheres up and reassemble it to be a sphere as large as the earth or the sun or as big as the milky way. The key (or trick) is that the pieces are cut in such a way that they don't have a definable volume.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banach%E2 ... ki_paradox

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:40 pm
by ManInTheBar
Mog The Almighty wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The Banach-Tarski Paradox shows that mathematically it is possible to cut a solid sphere into a limited number of pieces (possibly as low as 5) and then reassemble the pieces into two solid spheres of exactly the same size as the original. In practice of course, it is a bit harder.

(For a reason I've never understood - perhaps a bet?, when I was first taught this, the lecturer explained it as applying to rabbits rather than spheres)
Wot? Are you sure you've got that right?

That doesn't even make sense. I'm no mathematician, but it seems to me you'd be making doubling the amount of matter you have, and you know the laws of thermodynamics...
We know that God exists because mathemtics is consistent, and we know that the Devil exists because we cannot prove it.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:43 pm
by ManInTheBar
A5D5E5 wrote:
Andalu wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?
No, it is looking back in time. What we see now is as it was when the light was emitted. This is true for any observation of course - including things we see with our own eyes.
I am suffering from Head-wrap-around-failure!

If we can observe 93 billion years of the travel of light then how can the universe be only 13.8 nillion yeears old?

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:44 pm
by Santa
HurricaneWasp wrote:
guy smiley wrote:
koroke hangareka wrote:What if you have two pizzas?
That's Venn, man. Totally Venn.
My form tutor in Year 7 - Mrs Venn - is John Venn's great grand-daughter.
I once had dinner with the master of Gonville and Caius college who had been Venn's student. He took me back to his rooms to see some original Venn diagrams. Fascinating stuff...

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:45 pm
by Gwenno
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
To my simple mind that means 46.5 billion light years' expansion in 13.8 billion years. What am I missing?

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:47 pm
by A5D5E5
ManInTheBar wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:
Andalu wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?
No, it is looking back in time. What we see now is as it was when the light was emitted. This is true for any observation of course - including things we see with our own eyes.
I am suffering from Head-wrap-around-failure!

If we can observe 93 billion years of the travel of light then how can the universe be only 13.8 nillion yeears old?
Because the universe is (and always has been) expanding.

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

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:47 pm
by A5D5E5
Gwenno wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
To my simple mind that means 46.5 billion light years' expansion in 13.8 billion years. What am I missing?
The expansion of the universe.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:50 pm
by happyhooker
danny_fitz wrote:On average, every single person on the planet owns 14 lego bricks.
Lego are the world's largest manufacturer of tyres

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:51 pm
by A5D5E5
danny_fitz wrote:On average, every single person on the planet owns 14 lego bricks.
Given the amount that is currently distributed around my house, I suspect the average for the rest of the planet is closer to 13.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:52 pm
by ManInTheBar
A5D5E5 wrote:
ManInTheBar wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:
Andalu wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?
No, it is looking back in time. What we see now is as it was when the light was emitted. This is true for any observation of course - including things we see with our own eyes.
I am suffering from Head-wrap-around-failure!

If we can observe 93 billion years of the travel of light then how can the universe be only 13.8 nillion yeears old?
Because the universe is (and always has been) expanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
" space itself is expanding, so we can actually detect light from objects that were once close, but are now up to around 45.7 billion light years away (rather than up to 13.799 billion light years away as might be expected)"

This article just adds to the mystery it seems to me.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 12:58 pm
by A5D5E5
ManInTheBar wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:
ManInTheBar wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:
Andalu wrote: Amazing, I assume then that the EM we get from the edges of the observable Universe don't depict that area as it is now?
No, it is looking back in time. What we see now is as it was when the light was emitted. This is true for any observation of course - including things we see with our own eyes.
I am suffering from Head-wrap-around-failure!

If we can observe 93 billion years of the travel of light then how can the universe be only 13.8 nillion yeears old?
Because the universe is (and always has been) expanding.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observable_universe
" space itself is expanding, so we can actually detect light from objects that were once close, but are now up to around 45.7 billion light years away (rather than up to 13.799 billion light years away as might be expected)"

This article just adds to the mystery it seems to me.
Try this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBr4GkRnY04

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:10 pm
by ManInTheBar
OK, that is very helpful, thank you.

I know this will sound like barrack-room physics, and I apologise in advance but....

It strikes me that this explanation is based upon a series of hypotheses which are internally consistent but have been created to explain observed phenomena that otherwise appear to contradict theory. At one point I felt that the script referenced the 'problematic' observations in order to demonstrate the truth of other assertions which were, themselves, created to explain the phenomena.

That made me feel as if a comparison with the development of Ptolemaic astronomy was coming on. Dark matter and energy feed into this also.

I'd prefer the unattainable, a set of hypotheses that did not claim to be wholly provable (Goedel) but that did provide explanatory power and enable new discoveries.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:12 pm
by slick
Clive Simms wrote:After you die there will come an exact point in time where you are mentioned in conversation or thought of by another human for the very last time
Didn't like this one, got a little shiver

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:16 pm
by Gwenno
A5D5E5 wrote:
Gwenno wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
To my simple mind that means 46.5 billion light years' expansion in 13.8 billion years. What am I missing?
The expansion of the universe.
But 46.5 billion light years in 13.8 billion years is over 3 light years per year - expansion at over 3 times the speed of light? The barrier that can't be broken? That's why I asked - what am I missing?

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:17 pm
by MrJonno
slick wrote:
Clive Simms wrote:After you die there will come an exact point in time where you are mentioned in conversation or thought of by another human for the very last time
Didn't like this one, got a little shiver

I'm ok with it as long as it happens after I die

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:19 pm
by Gwenno
MrJonno wrote:
slick wrote:
Clive Simms wrote:After you die there will come an exact point in time where you are mentioned in conversation or thought of by another human for the very last time
Didn't like this one, got a little shiver

I'm ok with it as long as it happens after I die
Hasn't happened to Julius Caesar yet.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:22 pm
by Mahoney
MrJonno wrote:
slick wrote:
Clive Simms wrote:After you die there will come an exact point in time where you are mentioned in conversation or thought of by another human for the very last time
Didn't like this one, got a little shiver

I'm ok with it as long as it happens after I die
Oh, almost certainly - once they find your body they’re going to want to identify you to get the death certificates and any other legal stuff sorted out, so as long as you’re living in a relatively modern bureaucracy I reckon memory of you is pretty much guaranteed to outlive your death by a few days.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:26 pm
by happyhooker
Portsmouth football club's first ever goalie was sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:29 pm
by Benthos
Jilted John and John Shuttleworth are the same bloke!

125 – 5 = 5! (yeah, yeah – bindunneer, I know. Still class, though)

Half of the population of Tanna, one of the most populous of the islands of Vanuatu, are members of a Cargo Cult that worships the Duke of Edinburgh as a divine being

The French novelist that believed his most creative zone was after a furious frot-frenzy, but juuuust before le petit mort was Balzac (snigger - OK more childishly funny than mind blowing...)

Talking of wanking… the whole witches flying on broomsticks thing is believed to come from the practice of yer fabled medicine women applying their narcotic / hallucinogenic unguents directly to their vulvae with the most appropriate house-/hovel-/coven-hold tool to (gnarled) hand. Love this quote from Jordanes de Bergamo, writing in the 1400s:
The vulgar believe, and the witches confess, that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff and ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms and in other hairy places.

Talking of hallucinogens… seeds of several Morning Glory (the flower, yeeb!) varieties (in particular Heavenly Blue) contain Lysergic Acid Amide, closely related to the better known Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, and if prepared and ingested properly, and in sufficient quantities (100-200), will induce a trip that’s long on fun / freaky visuals, phenomenology and shit, but with very little of the whole ego-death / why-is-my-long-dead-grandmother-dressed-as Jeffery-Dahmer- and-why-is-she-pushing-pieces-of-Lego-under-three-of-my-foreskins?? thing

Talking of hideous cünts… I met my ex-wife through work, far away from where I grew up, and she had no (obvious) connection to my early years at all; however, her Mum was once my oldest schoolfriend’s Dad’s secretary (and got him fired for his wandering hands and generally creepy behaviour). Well, it fair blew my mind, anyroad…

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:29 pm
by Benthos
'kin tech grrrrr

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 1:57 pm
by Miguel Indurain
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLaOeXCAPbU

Close the f**king thread now.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 2:37 pm
by sorCrer
Agatha Christie was a surfer and one of the first Britons to do so standing up.

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:28 pm
by A5D5E5
Gwenno wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:
Gwenno wrote:
A5D5E5 wrote:The universe is approximately 13.8 billion years old, but the diameter of the observable universe is about 93 billion light years.
To my simple mind that means 46.5 billion light years' expansion in 13.8 billion years. What am I missing?
The expansion of the universe.
But 46.5 billion light years in 13.8 billion years is over 3 light years per year - expansion at over 3 times the speed of light? The barrier that can't be broken? That's why I asked - what am I missing?
Things can't move through space faster than the speed of light. It doesn't apply to space itself. The video I linked a little earlier on the thread explains it pretty well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XBr4GkRnY04

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:31 pm
by HurricaneWasp
Santa wrote:
HurricaneWasp wrote:
guy smiley wrote:
koroke hangareka wrote:What if you have two pizzas?
That's Venn, man. Totally Venn.
My form tutor in Year 7 - Mrs Venn - is John Venn's great grand-daughter.
I once had dinner with the master of Gonville and Caius college who had been Venn's student. He took me back to his rooms to see some original Venn diagrams. Fascinating stuff...
That's very cool. Gonville & Caius is definitely the best Cambridge college :thumbup:
I'm surprised no-one had thought of a Venn diagram before though...

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:32 pm
by globus
<Cough>

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:34 pm
by happyhooker
Is that meant to suggest that you invented the Venn diagram?

Re: The mind blowing facts thread

Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2018 3:35 pm
by slick
globus wrote:<Cough>
You didn't go.