Mind boggling facts that make you go..

Merlin5

Merlin5

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..'Woah!' or 'Wow!'

I love it when I hear a fact or a scientifically accurate estimate about something that is so incredible it makes you stop and ponder on it. One I heard tonight which I've sort of heard before is this.

There are 10 times more stars in the night sky than grains of sand in all the world's deserts and beaches.
Estimates are 70 thousand million, million, million stars which I think is 70,000 trillion? :eek: Scientists basically counted all the galaxies in one small region of the universe close to earth, and they estimated stars per galaxy by galaxy brightness. And that's just one small area of the universe that our telescopes can see, so think of how many zillions of zillions of zillions more stars there probably are going further into the universe.


Anyway GD, give us some jaw dropping facts.
 

Devrij

Devrij

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If you could convert your 500g bag of sugar into energy (e=mc^2) you'd get 12,500,000 Mwh of electricity.

For context, you could power 1,136,363 average households for an entire year with that. Or you could power the city of London (all in, not just houses) for about 4 months.

Technically any 500g mass contains that potential energy if you were able to convert it with no loss. Multiply that by double your weight in kilos to find out how much energy you are made of. London could run on me for about 40 years.

So yeah, that one little formula can make for some fun maths that will blow your mind. I chose 500g because it made the maths easier and because it fits with a nice household object, but you can choose and mass and it's generally equally fun. How much energy is contained in the mass of your *******? You do the maths!
 

jsmoke

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Devrij said:
If you could convert your 500g bag of sugar into energy (e=mc^2) you'd get 12,500,000 Mwh of electricity.

For context, you could power 1,136,363 average households for an entire year with that. Or you could power the city of London (all in, not just houses) for about 4 months.

Technically any 500g mass contains that potential energy if you were able to convert it with no loss. Multiply that by double your weight in kilos to find out how much energy you are made of. London could run on me for about 40 years.

So yeah, that one little formula can make for some fun maths that will blow your mind. I chose 500g because it made the maths easier and because it fits with a nice household object, but you can choose and mass and it's generally equally fun. How much energy is contained in the mass of your *******? You do the maths!
Click to expand...

Imagine the nukes!
 

FloppyPoppy

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Devrij said:
If you could convert your 500g bag of sugar into energy (e=mc^2) you'd get 12,500,000 Mwh of electricity.

For context, you could power 1,136,363 average households for an entire year with that. Or you could power the city of London (all in, not just houses) for about 4 months.

Technically any 500g mass contains that potential energy if you were able to convert it with no loss. Multiply that by double your weight in kilos to find out how much energy you are made of. London could run on me for about 40 years.

So yeah, that one little formula can make for some fun maths that will blow your mind. I chose 500g because it made the maths easier and because it fits with a nice household object, but you can choose and mass and it's generally equally fun. How much energy is contained in the mass of your *******? You do the maths!
Click to expand...

I saw a wonderful video on a similar topic. It was about the Death Star and how big of a Twinkie you would need to provide enough KCal of energy to destroy earth.... turns out it’s a big damn Twinkie.

Edit :


Here we go One of my favourite YouTube peoples for space videos!
 

martin363

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In the entire history of the universe, recent scientific estimates put the number of photons of light released from all light sources at 10^87. I am amazed by the power of numbers, such a huge number is still less than a google plex (10^99). the power of a base 10 logarithmic numbering nomenclature.
 

Arsonist

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If you climb up any mountain, you will weigh measurably less than when you left the base. Conversely, you will put on a measurable amount of weight when you descend back down. Gravity at work!
 

MookJong

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Primates such as Gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos etc are all predominantly right handed with the exception of Orangutans who are predominantly left handed.

Polar bears outer coat hair is transparent, this is why when in the arctic they look white as they reflect the light from the snow and in captivity they look a darker / dirtier cream colour.

Are these jaw dropping...I guess not, hopefully interesting.
 
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aardvark

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all the air molecules around you are travelling at around 1000mph, and are constantly hitting you at that speed.
Thats why air appears to rush out of an airlock so fast - it doesn't know the door has been opened, its simply the random paths of the air moving out of the room at their usual speed.
 
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