Random Facts.

[C95J]

73.4% facts are made up on the spot.

It's TRUE!!

also, if this has already been posted sorry I couldn't be bothered going through 7 pages of random facts :/

 

[Quaxar]

A day on Venus is shorter than a day on Earth, but a year on Earth is shorter than a year on Venus.

Damn, dude. Do you have any explanation for that? I'd love to hear it.

A planet's "day" is one spin around itself, a "year" is one spin around the sun. Venus is closer to the sun, so a year is naturally shorter, but its rotation is so slow that it takes about 117 Earth days for one Venus day.

My fact and quite related: Venus is the only planet in our system to be "retrograde", meaning that it spins in the opposite direction

i think you may have got your facts mixed up a bit there, its the opposite of what you said the first time...

edit: oh wait, that wasnt you, well someones mixed up here

Now that you mention it... a Venus day is much longer than an Earth day due to Venus' really slow rotation, which makes the original fact a bit wrong.

I assume the slow rotation is to do with the motion being retrograde actually, because I don't think it started in a retrograde motion.

I could be wrong on that though...

Current theories think it's probably due to tidal effects of both the sun and the planet's extremely dense atmosphere. Nothing mentioned about the rotation reversing at one point.
<url=http://www.imcce.fr/Equipes/ASD/preprints/prep.2002/venus1.2002.pdf>see here (pdf)

Of course we don't really know that much about Venus since the atmosphere makes ground probes a bit hard.

 

[Outright Villainy]

A day on Venus is shorter than a day on Earth, but a year on Earth is shorter than a year on Venus.

Damn, dude. Do you have any explanation for that? I'd love to hear it.

A planet's "day" is one spin around itself, a "year" is one spin around the sun. Venus is closer to the sun, so a year is naturally shorter, but its rotation is so slow that it takes about 117 Earth days for one Venus day.

My fact and quite related: Venus is the only planet in our system to be "retrograde", meaning that it spins in the opposite direction

i think you may have got your facts mixed up a bit there, its the opposite of what you said the first time...

edit: oh wait, that wasnt you, well someones mixed up here

Now that you mention it... a Venus day is much longer than an Earth day due to Venus' really slow rotation, which makes the original fact a bit wrong.

I assume the slow rotation is to do with the motion being retrograde actually, because I don't think it started in a retrograde motion.

I could be wrong on that though...

Current theories think it's probably due to tidal effects of both the sun and the planet's extremely dense atmosphere. Nothing mentioned about the rotation reversing at one point.
<url=http://www.imcce.fr/Equipes/ASD/preprints/prep.2002/venus1.2002.pdf>see here (pdf)

Of course we don't really know that much about Venus since the atmosphere makes ground probes a bit hard.

Yeah, I probably got that wrong

When it formed from the solar nebula, Venus may have begun with a different rotation period and obliquity, then migrated to the current state because of chaotic spin changes caused by planetary perturbations and tidal effects on its dense atmosphere. This change in the rotation period probably took place over the course of billions of years

I think I misread that when I looked it up ages ago, because it doesn't say anywhere that it was actually reversed, just that it was different. Ah well.

 

[C95J]

1+1=2

Holy Shit!?!

 

[Quaxar]

Human fingers do not contain any muscles other than the small muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract to make the hairs stand on end causing goose bumps.

Erm, so how do you move your fingers then? I know I have flexors and extensors for that...

Spoiler: It's getting too long to not spoiler this

A day on Venus is shorter than a day on Earth, but a year on Earth is shorter than a year on Venus.

Damn, dude. Do you have any explanation for that? I'd love to hear it.

A planet's "day" is one spin around itself, a "year" is one spin around the sun. Venus is closer to the sun, so a year is naturally shorter, but its rotation is so slow that it takes about 117 Earth days for one Venus day.

My fact and quite related: Venus is the only planet in our system to be "retrograde", meaning that it spins in the opposite direction

i think you may have got your facts mixed up a bit there, its the opposite of what you said the first time...

edit: oh wait, that wasnt you, well someones mixed up here

Now that you mention it... a Venus day is much longer than an Earth day due to Venus' really slow rotation, which makes the original fact a bit wrong.

I assume the slow rotation is to do with the motion being retrograde actually, because I don't think it started in a retrograde motion.

I could be wrong on that though...

Current theories think it's probably due to tidal effects of both the sun and the planet's extremely dense atmosphere. Nothing mentioned about the rotation reversing at one point.
<url=http://www.imcce.fr/Equipes/ASD/preprints/prep.2002/venus1.2002.pdf>see here (pdf)

Of course we don't really know that much about Venus since the atmosphere makes ground probes a bit hard.

Yeah, I probably got that wrong

When it formed from the solar nebula, Venus may have begun with a different rotation period and obliquity, then migrated to the current state because of chaotic spin changes caused by planetary perturbations and tidal effects on its dense atmosphere. This change in the rotation period probably took place over the course of billions of years

I think I misread that when I looked it up ages ago, because it doesn't say anywhere that it was actually reversed, just that it was different. Ah well.

It's not like this is a must-know or something anyway. Interesting, sure. But also a bit confusing from time to time.

 

[grimsprice]

A day on Venus is shorter than a day on Earth, but a year on Earth is shorter than a year on Venus.

If you were to travel in a straight line through space, you would eventually return to the point you began.

2kgms of dark chocolate is usually lethal. 8kgms+ milk choc is lethal.

Glucose is one of the only substances brain cells can consume.

The first two are wrong.

 

[Eat Uranium]

Human fingers do not contain any muscles other than the small muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract to make the hairs stand on end causing goose bumps.

Erm, so how do you move your fingers then? I know I have flexors and extensors for that...

The muscles are in your forearm. The fingers are controlled by those tendons you can see on the back of your hand. Also this is why it is very difficult to move your 4th and 5th fingers independantly, because they share the same muscles.

 

[Outright Villainy]

It's not like this is a must-know or something anyway. Interesting, sure. But also a bit confusing from time to time.

I'm doing Astrophyics, and an exam on wednesday. This is the kind of shit I should know!

 

[Prof.Wood]

Human fingers do not contain any muscles other than the small muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract to make the hairs stand on end causing goose bumps.

Erm, so how do you move your fingers then? I know I have flexors and extensors for that...

The muscles are in your forearm. The fingers are controlled by those tendons you can see on the back of your hand.

if you want to test this out put your fingers on a surface with you palm in the air, put your middle finger off the surface and up to your palm, now tap all your fingers indipendantly.

 

[Buizel91]

Only one frog makes the sound "Ribbet" and it lives near Hollywood. =)

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

Lincoln was shot in the Ford Theater, JFK was shot in the back of a Ford. And after he shot JFK, Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested in a theater. There are more weird similarities, but I forgot them.

 

[Quaxar]

Human fingers do not contain any muscles other than the small muscles attached to each hair follicle which contract to make the hairs stand on end causing goose bumps.

Erm, so how do you move your fingers then? I know I have flexors and extensors for that...

The muscles are in your forearm. The fingers are controlled by those tendons you can see on the back of your hand. Also this is why it is very difficult to move your 4th and 5th fingers independantly, because they share the same muscles.

Alright, if you want to see it this way I guess you could say that there are no muscles in the fingers. Would have been clearer to say "no independent muscles" or something.

It's not like this is a must-know or something anyway. Interesting, sure. But also a bit confusing from time to time.

I'm doing Astrophyics, and an exam on wednesday. This is the kind of shit I should know!

No problem, you still have 48 hours to study.
Also, might I congratulate you on your superb choice? I love astrophysics.

 

[gabe12301]

Close one eye and shine a flash light in the open eye.
Then open up the closed eye with the light still shining...

You will now see the world in black and white.*

* You may have trouble seeing for a minute or so after wards, just keep your eyes closed.

I would try that but it sounds like a bad idea.

 

[DementedSheep]

In early Georgian times in the United Kingdom a tax was levied upon working dogs with tails. The practice of docking a dogs tail was use to avoid this tax.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned but I couldn?t be botherd going through so many pages of random facts

 

[Mr. Gency]

in the USA you can legally own:

Flamethrowers
Miniguns
Thermite
improvised firearms(garage guns)
Salvia Divanorum-a hallucinatory drug that acts like LSD but doesn't cause flashbacks.

To anyone looking to get your hands on these, allow me to elaborate:

For flamethrowers, you need privet property (or friend that does) and your set.

The Miniguns have to have been made before a certan date, it costs more than you'll make in a life time, and costs $40,000 to fire it... for 12 seconds.

Thermite may be able to melt the strongest of metal, but good luck lighting it, since you'll need to find and handle some thing that basically needs to be half as hot the sun. Also you can't real cause much harm, since thermite doesn't spread when it burns.

If improvised firearms were illegal, it would be an impossible law to enforce.

Salvia interests me because it's completely harmless (if you smoke it, well your still technically breathing smoke, but that's optional) All you need is friend who can keep you from doing anything stupid.

 

[Azure-Supernova]

A pound of feathers weighs more than a pound of gold.

Ummm... not possible... I think you were aiming at something else there?

 

[Macgyvercas]

Sex on the beach can be dangerous at night.

...Are you talking from personal experience?

OT: You are supposed to put the stripper in after you bake the cake. Apparently.

No way. Beaches are probably one of the dirtiest places ever. o.o

You'd get insta diseased. xD

Man, what do they do to beaches over there?! Our beaches are perfect except for the odd E. Coli threat (only happens once every year or so).

OT:

A metre is defined as the exact distance light travels in 1/299,792,458th of a second.

The nearest star to us (other than Sol) is Proxima Centauri. It is 4.2 light years away (a distance of 39.73506798483936 quadrillion metres, which is approximately 24.6359232 trillion miles). Travelling at a speed of 100,000 miles per hour, it would take approximately 28,104 years to reach it.

Yes, I am a complete and total nerd, thanks for asking

You'd be surprised whats in that sand, or whose liquids are on it...

Should I even ask? Or do I not want to know?

If you want to get real technical, a pound of bread weighs more than a pound of gold.

This is because bread is measured using avoirdupois weight, which measure 16 ounces per pound. Gold is measured in troy weight, which measures 12 ounces per pound.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

.999999 extended to infinity is equal to 1.

a=b

a[sup]2[/sup]=ab

a[sup]2[/sup]-ab=ab-ab

a(a-b)=(a+b)(a-b)

a=a+b

a=2a

1=2

 

[laststandman]

Under the reign of Alexander The Great, any man who had a beard had to pay a special beard tax.

I believe you are thinking of Peter the Great

As for a random fact: the real Dracula was not a vampire. He was a Wallachian prince named Vlad III Dracula, and he had the sexiest moustache in the history of moustaches.