Mind boggling facts that make you go..

B&W · 9 Dec 2018 at 13:50

This is not a fact but some things truly amaze me. In all this vast universe we only know of our own planet as home to intelligent life.

Out of two options, one must be true either there is intelligent life or there isn't. If there is, then that is truly breathtaking and to imagine it's form, society, beliefs that is amazing.

And if there isn't? That is truly amazing too and scary.

SexyGreyFox · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:18

Raz said:
There are more experts on Islam on these forums than there are Muslims in the world.

and Muslims are just like the Borg in Star Trek where they all think exactly the same and resistance is futile.

andy_mk3 · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:24

Crab sticks do not actually contain any crab. From 1993, manufacturers have been legally obliged to label them 'Crab Flavoured Sticks'.

SexyGreyFox · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:33

If all the known gold in the world could be melted down it would all fit in an area somewhere round the size of a tennis court cubed.
Might be a bit bigger now because that was from a facts book I had in the 70s.

Conscript · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:43

andy_mk3 said:
Crab sticks do not actually contain any crab. From 1993, manufacturers have been legally obliged to label them 'Crab Flavoured Sticks'.

Raz · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:44

SexyGreyFox said:
and Muslims are just like the Borg in Star Trek where they all think exactly the same and resistance is futile.

Think exactly the same? Nope, not for about 1430 odd years

Somewhat related fact, James Doohan fought in WW2 and took part in the D-day Landings (Juno), surviving being shot six times to eventually become the Enterprise's chief engineer. Oh, and he helped create the Klingon language.

andy_mk3 · 9 Dec 2018 at 16:51

Conscript said:

Yay, an AP fan

Conscript · 9 Dec 2018 at 17:14

andy_mk3 said:
Yay, an AP fan

Are you wearing Lynx?

andy_mk3 · 9 Dec 2018 at 17:44

Conscript said:
Are you wearing Lynx?

Well smelt, Voodoo.

Tek81 · 9 Dec 2018 at 17:57

Britain has some of the safest roads in Europe

Conscript · 9 Dec 2018 at 18:04

Need to go and watch some of it now.

XeNoN89 · 9 Dec 2018 at 18:48

Theory instead of a fact but still interesting

Sasahara · 9 Dec 2018 at 20:51

the_chicco said:
Given a big enough piece of paper (obviously not an A4 sheet!) and an insane amount of energy to fold it then yes. It's just a physical representation of exponential growth. Despite someone saying it's a thought experiment and physically impossible it's not. Highly unlikely given current technology, etc, yes.

It may be impossible if the mass of paper required makes it collapse under it's own gravity therefore never reaching the diameter of the universe.

Unless it contained all the matter in the universe. Then whatever size it is would be the size of the universe because it would be the universe.

clubb699 · 9 Dec 2018 at 21:07

The distance between America and Russia at it's closest point is actually only 53 miles.

Angilion · 9 Dec 2018 at 23:54

Orionaut said:
I think one of the most amazing things is that we now know that the Universe actually did have a beginning and that we know how long ago it was...

Not only that but barring the first tiniest fraction of a second, we seem to have developed a pretty good understanding of how the universe evolved from that time to the current day.

Now, we still dont know how it came into being in the first place (And may never know) we dont know how large it is and we dont know what will happen eventually.

Taking a somewhat weird detour...if time is a property of the universe rather than something seperate to it then the universe has existed for all time, so can it really be said that the universe began? Also, if that's true then it rules out a cause because time didn't exist. Can't have cause and effect without time.

Nor have we yet figured out the "Dark matter/Dark energy" thing. And there are undubtedly many more things yet to learn about the true nature of the universe.

I wonder how many times that was checked before they were sure

If I came up with the result that all the known matter and energy in the universe accounted for a few percent of it and the rest was...something, no idea what...then I'd be thinking "I've done something wrong here, that result can't be right".

But Most of what we do now know has been worked out within less than a single human lifetime.

Which is pretty damn good going really!

Standing on the shoulders of giants. A whole heap of giants, really. One of the most important giants of advancing human understanding lived over 2000 years ago and a huge amount of knowledge gained over the centuries has roots in his work...looking up shows it was about 2300 years ago. I'm talking about Euclid, of course. The father of mathematics and thus the uncle of science.

itchy · 9 Dec 2018 at 23:56

pi is infinite

You dont actually ever touch anything in your life.

-westy- · 10 Dec 2018 at 10:17

B&W said:
This is not a fact but some things truly amaze me. In all this vast universe we only know of our own planet as home to intelligent life.

Out of two options, one must be true either there is intelligent life or there isn't. If there is, then that is truly breathtaking and to imagine it's form, society, beliefs that is amazing.

And if there isn't? That is truly amazing too and scary.

There's actually a theory about this, that there's probably other intelligent life out there, or has been - but our life span as a species is very short in comparison to the universe; it's likely that other intelligent life has existed, but has inevitably evolved itself into extinction; perhaps the planet that this life was on is out of our reach, or by the time we've discovered it it's too late and that species has gone. Likewise the other way around, perhaps they're too far away to discover us.

With the expanse of the universe, I personally feel that there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, even if its millions of light years away.

Scania · 10 Dec 2018 at 10:17

bazzabear said:
The Emperor Penguin can dive deeper than any naval submarine.

Of WWII yes, current ones - especially Russian - can go far deeper.

Penguins are crap at firing Torpedoes and Nuclear missiles - Fact!

Orionaut · 10 Dec 2018 at 11:01

-westy- said:
There's actually a theory about this, that there's probably other intelligent life out there, or has been - but our life span as a species is very short in comparison to the universe; it's likely that other intelligent life has existed, but has inevitably evolved itself into extinction; perhaps the planet that this life was on is out of our reach, or by the time we've discovered it it's too late and that species has gone. Likewise the other way around, perhaps they're too far away to discover us.

With the expanse of the universe, I personally feel that there must be intelligent life out there somewhere, even if its millions of light years away.

Long ago it was established that, if you take the most pessimistic interpretation of the Drake equation we might well be the only example of "Intelligent Life" in the Galaxy (or even further afield) at this time. even if over the life of the universe, intelligent life is relatively common.

(On another note, define "Intelligent Life")

-westy- · 10 Dec 2018 at 11:25

Orionaut said:
Long ago it was established that, if you take the most pessimistic interpretation of the Drake equation we might well be the only example of "Intelligent Life" in the Galaxy (or even further afield) at this time. even if over the life of the universe, intelligent life is relatively common.

(On another note, define "Intelligent Life")

Oh definitely, our lifespan is so relatively short that it's unlikely that other intelligent life is existing at this exact moment. However in the grand scheme of things it's unlikely that we are the only intelligent life to have existed.

The definition of intelligent life is open to interpretation, I feel.