Did you know ..... Strange facts.

[blackburn_stevie]

Feel free to add your own gems.

There are seven classifications of snowflakes: plates, stellar crystals, columns, needles, spatical dendrites, capped columns and irregular forms.

You didn't know that, did you? 

Cheers,

Steve

[blackburn_stevie]

Q is the only letter in the alphabet that does not appear in the name of any of the United States!

[*.*..lola..*.*]

Love that word, Stevie...'factoid'

Did you know that every time you lick a stamp, you consume one tenth of a calorie  

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@*.*..lola..*.* wrote:

Love that word, Stevie...'factoid'

Did you know that every time you lick a stamp, you consume one tenth of a calorie  

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... and possibly a bit of fluff from the bottom of your handbag.

We share at least 25% of our genome with daffodils.

[blackburn_stevie]

Here's a good one.
Did you know that all over the world, the sails on every windmill rotate counter-clockwise. Everywhere but in Ireland.
I have no idea why that should be.

[the-geezer]

Why do we only have 'G gnomes'?

[blackburn_stevie]

111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321

I bet you didn't know that, did you?

[*.*..lola..*.*]

#23 LOL Caution... eeewww but true  

Apparantly the world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910...blimey!

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@*.*..lola..*.* wrote:

#23 LOL Caution... eeewww but true  

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That is a very elegant piece of maths, Steve.

[bankhaunter]

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@blackburn_stevie wrote:
Here's a good one.
Did you know that all over the world, the sails on every windmill rotate counter-clockwise. Everywhere but in Ireland.
I have no idea why that should be.

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Depends on which way the blades are angled when the sails are made, they could be made to turn either way.

If the windmill components were aquired from a common manufacturer, it would be likely they would all turn the same way.

[blackburn_stevie]

Average number of days a West German goes without washing his underwear: 7

What's wrong with that?
In our house, the washing is done on Tuesday so the undies I wore last Tuesday are still in the bag and will get washed tomorrow. I guess the West German person is still wearing the same ones 7 days later. Eughhhhh!!

[blackburn_stevie]

In the last 3,500 years, there have been approximately 230 years of peace throughout the civilised world.
There were still wars in Fazakerley though, lol

[blackburn_stevie]

Here's a good one.
Don Mclean sung a song called, American Pie.
The song's title is named after the aircraft that crashed killing Buddy Holly.

[blackburn_stevie]

Tom Sawyer was the first novel written on a typewriter.

[blackburn_stevie]

The shortest war in history was between Zanzibar and England. Zanzibar surrendered after 38 minutes.

On a similar theme, there has only ever been one war between 2 democracies. England and Finland. It was something to do with England declaring war on Russia during WW2 so technically, Finland declared war on us. No shots were ever fired between us.

[blackburn_stevie]

The QE2 travels only 6 inches for every gallon of diesel that it burns.

The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotam-eteaturipukakapikimaungahoronukupokai-whenu a kitanatahu – the name of a hill in New Zealand.

The cat is never mentioned in the Bible.

[Anonymous]

(3) When hydrogen is fused into helium, matter is converted into energy. The Sun, like most stars, is powered by the fusion of hydrogen into helium (what the textbook misleadingly calls `hydrogen burning'). You may well ask, ``Where does all that energy come from when hydrogen is fused into helium? Isn't energy conserved?'' There is another question you can ask. The total mass of four hydrogen nuclei is 6.693 x 10-27 kilograms. The mass of a helium nucleus is 6.645 x 10-27 kilograms. Thus, there is a loss of 0.048 x 10-27kilograms every time a helium nucleus is formed by fusion. The loss is small, but real. You may then ask, ``Where does that mass go when hydrogen is fused into helium? Isn't mass conserved?''

Albert Einstein provided us with an answer to our questions. He pointed out that mass can be converted into energy, and vice versa. The `exchange rate' between mass and energy is given by the famous equation E = m c2where E = energy, m = mass, and c = the speed of light in a vacuum (300,000,000 ometers/second). Thus, the total amount of MASS+ENERGY is conserved.

Every second, as we have seen, the Sun creates E = 3.9 x 1026 joules of energy. To balance the books, every second the Sun destroys m = E/c2 = 4.3 x 109 kilograms of mass. This mass loss, equivalent to more than 4 million tons per second, is accomplished by fusing 600 million tons of hydrogen into 596 tons of helium.

[10phizz]

A man can outrun a cheetah over a distance of four miles (6.4km) during the hottest time of the day.

...only if separated by a fence !   LOL

[mepixin12]

During the middle ages, you could be accused of witchcraft if your pet disobeyed you.....  "mishy .... mishy ... come here............                WITCH!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shJFnSASnuE

[angel-mist]

HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA is the fear of long words.

It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.

[**caution**opinion_ahead]

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@angel-mist wrote:

HIPPOPOTOMONSTROSESQUIPPEDALIOPHOBIA is the fear of long words.

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Or possibly a combined horror of hippos, pots, monsters, roses, quips, pedals and dahlias!