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Old 4th January 2019, 10:02 AM   #241
Ziggurat
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Originally Posted by Dave Rogers View Post
Yes, but I'd die heavier!

Dave
There are a lot of easier and less expensive ways to die heavier, if that's your goal. But I suppose cost might not be the primary issue for everyone with such aspirations.
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Old 4th January 2019, 10:11 AM   #242
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If you just drink water with high dissolved mineral content, you can die harder instead.
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Old 4th January 2019, 10:28 AM   #243
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The pedantic nitpick in me wants to point out there are no "scientific facts", because science is a process. There are interesting facts that have been discovered due to that process, but the facts themselves are just facts, not inherently scientific as of themselves.

Then again, the die-hard nerd in me wants to point out that at the altitude the International Space Station orbits, the force of gravity is only about 10% less than it is on the surface of the Earth.

If spaceship with people inside were to hover at a fixed point over the earth at the altitude, the people inside would only weigh about 10% less than they would on the surface. It's the "free fall" aspect of being in orbit that makes people in the ISS weightless.

Such is the internal conflict of a pedantic nerd.
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Old 4th January 2019, 10:31 AM   #244
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
The pedantic nitpick in me wants to point out there are no "scientific facts", because science is a process. There are interesting facts that have been discovered due to that process, but the facts themselves are just facts, not inherently scientific as of themselves.
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Old 4th January 2019, 10:31 AM   #245
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
Then again, the die-hard nerd in me wants to point out that at the altitude the International Space Station orbits, the force of gravity is only about 10% less than it is on the surface of the Earth.

If spaceship with people inside were to hover at a fixed point over the earth at the altitude, the people inside would only weigh about 10% less than they would on the surface.
Unless, of course, they too were fully deuterated, which would just about make up the difference.

Dave
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Old 4th January 2019, 11:39 AM   #246
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
The pedantic nitpick in me wants to point out there are no "scientific facts", because science is a process.....
Well biology is a science, and it is a fact that bull elephants have on-board testicles near their kidneys............so I'm saying that's a scientific fact.
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Old 4th January 2019, 01:05 PM   #247
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
The pedantic nitpick in me wants to point out there are no "scientific facts"...
A friendly note of caution: I've found approximating nit to wit an oft dangerous proposition. Take it from one who's been there.
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Old 4th January 2019, 02:24 PM   #248
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Originally Posted by TheGnome View Post
I'm not sure what the meaning of pound is exactly.

If it means weight as measured with a scale then of course this is trivially true.

If instead it is a measure of mass, and we're doing the experiment in an atmoshpere, then the feathers will weigh a tiny bit less because of the different buoyancies. I'm not going to estimate by how much.

What weighs more, a ... was a common joke question around here. I saw a small treatise once that said that that smartass kid who first mentioned this was actually the first one to answer the question the proper way.
Alas, you've missed the point. A pound of either lead or feathers both weighs and masses more than a pound of gold. Hint: the same is not true of kilograms.

Give up? Feathers and lead are weighed by the avoirdupois scale. 16 ounces of 28 grams per ounce. 454 grams total.

Gold (and silver) is weighed by the Troy scale, with 12 ounces of 31 grams per ounce. 373 grams total.

So an ounce of gold is heavier than an ounce of lead, but the reverse is true of pounds.

Which is just another reason why going metric can make life easier.

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Old 4th January 2019, 02:44 PM   #249
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Originally Posted by This is The End View Post
I know you didn't start that, so no offense to you, but that is one of the dumbest (and most incorrect) pieces of "trivia" making the rounds.


If you are talking about the easternmost (or westernmost, southernmost, or northernmost) point of something you are talking about from the perspective of that something. Period. Full stop. In no logical sense would you ever be talking about its most easternmost point from the perspective of something else.


So from the perspective of the "USA", the "USA's easternmost point" would be in Maine.

It is entirely illogical to talk about it from the perspective of the Earth and its hemispheres unless you specifically said that is what you are discussing.

It would be as dumb as saying "the easternmost point in the USA changes twice a day" and leaving out "from the perspective of the sun".

Again, unless you qualify it, the perspective of the "something" can only be the "something" and nothing else.

So unless you implicitly add "from the perspective of the Earth and its hemispheres and not from the perspective of itself" that piece of trivia is hogwash.
Wikipedia begs to differ. The key is the Aleutian Islands.

Two islands, Semispochnoi and Amatignak, are adjacent in the chain, and occur on each side of the antimeridian. The eastern point of
Semispochnoi, at 179 degrees, 46 minutes, 11 or 12 seconds east longitude, is the most "easterly" place on earth occupied by the US. That is, no other US land point has a greater eastern longitude.

Likewise, Amatignak at 179 degrees, 8 minutes, 21 seconds west longitude is the most westerly point of the US by the same definition.

From Wikipedia:

Quote:
the easternmost tip of Semisopochnoi is, by longitude, the easternmost land location in the United States and North America.
Quote:
The southernmost point of Alaska is on this island (Amatignak), as well as the westernmost longitude of Alaska, the United States, and North America.

Last edited by WhatRoughBeast; 4th January 2019 at 02:47 PM.
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Old 4th January 2019, 02:52 PM   #250
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And as for hedgehogs, lest we all be accused of homophobic bias, it is well-known in Pratchett circles that The Hedgehog Cannot Be Buggered At All
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Old 4th January 2019, 03:06 PM   #251
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Originally Posted by This is The End View Post
I know you didn't start that, so no offense to you, but that is one of the dumbest (and most incorrect) pieces of "trivia" making the rounds.


If you are talking about the easternmost (or westernmost, southernmost, or northernmost) point of something you are talking about from the perspective of that something. Period. Full stop. In no logical sense would you ever be talking about its most easternmost point from the perspective of something else.


So from the perspective of the "USA", the "USA's easternmost point" would be in Maine.

It is entirely illogical to talk about it from the perspective of the Earth and its hemispheres unless you specifically said that is what you are discussing.

It would be as dumb as saying "the easternmost point in the USA changes twice a day" and leaving out "from the perspective of the sun".

Again, unless you qualify it, the perspective of the "something" can only be the "something" and nothing else.

So unless you implicitly add "from the perspective of the Earth and its hemispheres and not from the perspective of itself" that piece of trivia is hogwash.
The problem is of course that the earth is a sphere, but there is a long standing mapping and navigation convention that east and west on this sphere are defined by the prime meridian through Greenwich. It divides the globe into an Eastern and a Western Hemisphere. The Aleutians span both. Maine is in the Western Hemisphere. Therefore it is not outrageous to state that parts of the Aleutians, those in the Eastern Hemisphere, are east of Maine.
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Old 4th January 2019, 03:26 PM   #252
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Originally Posted by WhatRoughBeast View Post
And as for hedgehogs, lest we all be accused of homophobic bias, it is well-known in Pratchett circles that The Hedgehog Cannot Be Buggered At All
Ahhh, Nanny Ogg. Sadly we'll hear no more of such wonderful characters.
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Old 4th January 2019, 03:45 PM   #253
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One of my favourite scientific facts is imperfection.

Elliptical not circular orbits, spheroidal not spherical planets, spinning and orbital speeds slowing down and so on. I like this because it thumbs it's nose at religious claims of gods making perfect stuff.
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Old 4th January 2019, 05:39 PM   #254
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Gold looks golden to us, because of relativistic effects of the electrons.

Relativistic_quantum_chemistry#Color_of_gold_and_c aesiumWP
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Old 4th January 2019, 06:16 PM   #255
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Originally Posted by Myriad View Post
If you just drink water with high dissolved mineral content, you can die harder instead.
And if you add some pigment to it, you can dye hard too.
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Old 4th January 2019, 11:01 PM   #256
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The average spider swallows up to eight humans in its sleep each year without noticing.
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Old 5th January 2019, 06:46 AM   #257
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Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza View Post
The average spider swallows up to eight humans in its sleep each year without noticing.
Maybe it's a rounding error, it's only 7 7/8. Because it's a scientific fact that all made up statistics are required to have at least one 7 in it.
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Old 5th January 2019, 08:16 AM   #258
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7 out of every 10 posts in this thread are accurate.
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Old 5th January 2019, 08:24 AM   #259
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Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza View Post
The average spider swallows up to eight humans in its sleep each year without noticing.
Due to the continued back and forth between Marvel and Sony, the average person swallows 8 Spiderman reboots in their sleep a year.
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Old 5th January 2019, 09:39 AM   #260
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Originally Posted by MikeG View Post
Well biology is a science, and it is a fact that bull elephants have on-board testicles near their kidneys............so I'm saying that's a scientific fact.

That might be so, but it's also a fact that a honey badger can still rip them out.
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Old 5th January 2019, 09:45 AM   #261
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Originally Posted by Roboramma View Post
7 out of every 10 posts in this thread are accurate.
My research concurs. eta, but only if I round up from 6.779.
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Old 6th January 2019, 02:02 AM   #262
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Originally Posted by Giordano View Post
The problem is of course that the earth is a sphere, but there is a long standing mapping and navigation convention that east and west on this sphere are defined by the prime meridian through Greenwich. It divides the globe into an Eastern and a Western Hemisphere. The Aleutians span both. Maine is in the Western Hemisphere. Therefore it is not outrageous to state that parts of the Aleutians, those in the Eastern Hemisphere, are east of Maine.

And I made all of that pretty clear in my post. (At least, I hoped I did.)
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Old 6th January 2019, 02:13 AM   #263
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Don't get me started on how arbitrarily illogical humans historically are as far as mapping the earth is concerned.

Well, until Hajime Narukawa that is.

Quote:
Hajime Narukawa, a Tokyo-based architect and artist, broke the globe up into 96 regions and folded it into a tetrahedron and then a pyramid before finally flattening it into a two-dimensional sheet. The multi-step process preserves the true dimensions of the continents by angling them outward instead of stretching them, maintaining the illusion that they’re all laid out vertically like we’re used to.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-...01-638x479.gif

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-...02-638x479.gif

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-...04-638x479.gif
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Old 8th January 2019, 01:00 AM   #264
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Originally Posted by Rincewind View Post
You can make a lead balloon that does float in air.

Mythbusters did it!
That was epic. Probably the best thing they ever did.
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Old 8th January 2019, 01:06 AM   #265
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Events that are spacelike separated don't have an absolute ordering in time. In one reference frame A happens before B and in another B happens before A.
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Old 8th January 2019, 03:29 AM   #266
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Originally Posted by casebro View Post
The volume of a sphere is 2/3 the volume of a cylinder of those dimensions. It works with a hemi-sphere too. Duh. Now I wonder if it works for any partial sphere?

I learned it in a machine shop, so it may only de true to a couple decimal places.
The ratio of the volumes of a cylinder, hemisphere and cone of equal base diameter and height is 3:2:1.
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Old 8th January 2019, 03:33 AM   #267
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Originally Posted by Mojo View Post
If the giraffe could leap, pound for pound, as high as the grasshopper, they’d avoid a lot of trouble.
Except asphyxiation (not much air 16km up) and maybe blowing off their head due to high blood pressure.

Fcat: the giraffe's neck has the same number of bones as a human's, seven.
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Old 8th January 2019, 03:36 AM   #268
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Originally Posted by quadraginta View Post
I've always been a little bit fascinated by how fortunate we are that water ice is one of the few common solids that is less dense that it's liquid phase.
Indeed, plutonium is tricky to work with.
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Old 8th January 2019, 03:37 AM   #269
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Originally Posted by 3point14 View Post
Oh, now that's interesting. Is there a why to this? Just because it's around about the opposite of the international date line?
There were a couple of timezone related boo-boos in WW2.
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Old 8th January 2019, 09:41 AM   #270
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Originally Posted by MetalPig View Post
That was epic. Probably the best thing they ever did.
Yup!

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Old 8th January 2019, 01:19 PM   #271
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Originally Posted by crescent View Post
The pedantic .......

If spaceship with people inside were to hover at a fixed point over the earth at the altitude, the people inside would only weigh about 10% less than they would on the surface. It's the "free fall" aspect of being in orbit that makes people in the ISS weightless.

......... of a pedantic nerd.

I suppose you get off on the fact that centrifugal force does not exist then?
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Old 8th January 2019, 01:52 PM   #272
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Originally Posted by Thor 2 View Post
One of my favourite scientific facts is imperfection.

Elliptical not circular orbits, spheroidal not spherical planets, spinning and orbital speeds slowing down and so on. I like this because it thumbs it's nose at religious claims of gods making perfect stuff.
Maybe there are gods who think that all those things are perfect.
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Old 8th January 2019, 02:16 PM   #273
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Originally Posted by Myriad View Post
There's no blue pigment in blue jay or bluebird feathers. The blue color comes from a light scattering effect.
I'll go you one further and say that there are only two species of vertebrates at all that have blue pigment in their cells. They are two very similar species of Mandarin Dragonet fish, one of which I have living in my home aquarium.

From Wikipedia (here):
Quote:
S. splendidus is one of only two vertebrate species known to have blue colouring because of cellular pigment, the other being the closely related psychedelic mandarin (S. picturatus). The name "cyanophore" was proposed for the blue chromatophores, or pigment-containing and light-reflecting cells. In all other known cases, the colour blue is structural, as it comes from thin-film interference from piles of flat, thin and reflecting purine crystals.
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Old 8th January 2019, 03:34 PM   #274
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Originally Posted by Thor 2 View Post
I suppose you get off on the fact that centrifugal force does not exist then?
A laughable claim, Mr. Bond.

Dave
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Old 8th January 2019, 04:36 PM   #275
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Things I learned recently:

Adult dragonflies can fly backwards, up, down, sideways and even upside down.

Dragonfly nymphs (which are aquatic) breathe through gills in their rectums.
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Old 8th January 2019, 04:54 PM   #276
MEequalsIxR
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Originally Posted by ctamblyn View Post
Things I learned recently:

[snip]

Dragonfly nymphs (which are aquatic) breathe through gills in their rectums.
Does that mean they talk out of their ...
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Old 8th January 2019, 04:55 PM   #277
MEequalsIxR
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Octopus have nine brains.
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Old 8th January 2019, 05:05 PM   #278
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Here's something that I learned yesterday that I didn't know.

The rakali is an Australian native rodent. They are endemic to my home town. I've even seen them. I assumed that they were rats.
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Old 8th January 2019, 05:47 PM   #279
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That is interesting, I didn’t realize Australia even had any native rodents. Any idea how their ancestors originally came to Australia?
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Old 8th January 2019, 06:13 PM   #280
arthwollipot
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Originally Posted by Roboramma View Post
That is interesting, I didn’t realize Australia even had any native rodents. Any idea how their ancestors originally came to Australia?
No - if you've read the Wikipedia page then you know as much as I do.
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