Name one or more favorite scientific facts!

kellyb · 30th December 2018, 03:48 PM

I'll start.

The stars you see in the sky at night are snapshots of the distant past, and the stars themselves could be long dead.

p0lka · 30th December 2018, 04:06 PM

Every one of your ancestors, in spite of the odds, lived long enough to reproduce.

Red Baron Farms · 30th December 2018, 04:21 PM

There is more carbon missing from agricultural soils worldwide than the extra carbon in the atmosphere causing AGW.

kellyb · 30th December 2018, 04:30 PM

Profanity usage is effective for pain management.

RecoveringYuppy · 30th December 2018, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by kellyb

The stars you see in the sky at night are snapshots of the distant past, and the stars themselves could be long dead.

Er, um, not really. Most visible stars are within 200 light years. The furthest is about 16K light years. And it's not terribly likely any of the stars we can see is actually dead now. Betelgeuse is one of the few visible stars expected to explode "soon" but soon in this context is thought to be something like a million years. At 640 light years away that gives about 1 in 2,000 chance that it has already gone supernova.

ETA: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/ancient_stars.png

ETA: The one major galaxy we can see is a couple million years old.

alfaniner · 30th December 2018, 07:32 PM

Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.

Useful in photography, billiards, racquetball, jai-alai, marbles, light waves, sound waves, radio waves, too much to count.

fromdownunder · 30th December 2018, 07:53 PM

When you turn your heater on in Winter you are not trying to get more hot, but trying to cool down at a more comfortable rate.

Norm

TheGnome · 30th December 2018, 08:06 PM

Originally Posted by alfaniner

Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection.

Useful in photography, billiards, racquetball, jai-alai, marbles, light waves, sound waves, radio waves, too much to count.

To continue in RecoveringYuppy's vein, things people consider to be scientic facts sometimes aren't.

This e.g. is definitely not true in the case of ball games like the four you mentioned, except as a rough first order approximation. It neglects the rotational momentum of the balls.

smartcooky · 30th December 2018, 08:08 PM

The non-existence of the intra-mercurial planet "Vulcan", a planet, first proposed over 100 years ago, in order to try to explain the errors in Mercury's precession measurements...

Turns out that Mercury's precession errors are caused by the massive gravity well of the Sun due to General relativistic effects. This is beautifully explained for the layman in this short missive by Isaac Asimov - an oldie but a goodie

http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm

Loss Leader · 30th December 2018, 08:12 PM

If you were to disassemble a man into his constituent atoms and then weigh those atoms, they would be about the same weight as the man. But if you disassembled the atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons and weighed each of those, they would only weigh about 5% of the guy.

kellyb · 30th December 2018, 08:16 PM

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

If you were to disassemble a man into his constituent atoms and then weigh those atoms, they would be about the same weight as the man. But if you disassembled the atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons and weighed each of those, they would only weigh about 5% of the guy.

How does that work?

Red Baron Farms · 30th December 2018, 08:30 PM

Originally Posted by kellyb

How does that work?

Takes energy to disassemble atoms. E=MC2 I believe is the proper equation, although I too would like to see the math he is using.

JoeMorgue · 30th December 2018, 08:40 PM

- About 1% of the static you saw when not tuned to channel on an old analog television set was background radiation from the Big Bang.

Thermal · 30th December 2018, 08:45 PM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

- About 1% of the static you saw when not tuned to channel on an old analog television set was background radiation from the Big Bang.

Men, it was an overrated sitcom anyway.

Loss Leader · 30th December 2018, 09:36 PM

Originally Posted by kellyb

How does that work?

Beats the hell out of me. The energy holding the particles together is somehow also mass.

I got it from a book about questions science has yet to answer.

cullennz · 30th December 2018, 10:19 PM

Banana trees "walk"

bruto · 30th December 2018, 10:24 PM

From the genetic standpoint we are more like yeast than unlike it.

kellyb · 30th December 2018, 10:45 PM

Originally Posted by Loss Leader

Beats the hell out of me. The energy holding the particles together is somehow also mass.

I got it from a book about questions science has yet to answer.

Oh, cool!

eta:
Do you remember the name of the book?

cullennz · 30th December 2018, 10:55 PM

Per size and ratio, gonorrhea is the strongest (known) creature on earth.

Cheetah · 30th December 2018, 10:57 PM

You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of.

Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time.

cullennz · 30th December 2018, 11:04 PM

Originally Posted by Cheetah

You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of.

Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time.

Along the same lines I remember a QI episode that said your entire bodies cells are renewed every 7 years (might be out with the number slightly)

So in effect everyone over 7 is 7 years old

cullennz · 30th December 2018, 11:08 PM

Found it

7-10

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the ISF. The ISF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

SusanB-M1 · 30th December 2018, 11:17 PM

There were many facts in 'Living With The Stars' by Karel and Iris Schrijver - far too many to remember - but there was one about thousands of C4 atoms in each of our cels every second breaking down into something else, nitrogen iirc. Sorry to be a bit vague!

The Great Zaganza · 30th December 2018, 11:50 PM

The biomass of all humans is roughly equal to the biomass of all ants.

cullennz · 31st December 2018, 12:17 AM

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza

The biomass of all humans is roughly equal to the biomass of all ants.

That is cool tbf

Presumably with ants being so strong, that if every human sat together on every ant together the ants could all carry us to the pub.

Would need to be a big pub though.......Actually we could get all the ants to build the worlds biggest anthill and the humans could fashion it into massive pub.

Coasters and glasses might be an issue, but we could get the ants to collect nuts and other finger food

Brainache · 31st December 2018, 01:03 AM

Originally Posted by Cheetah

You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of.

Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time.

I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones.

You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts).

This is The End · 31st December 2018, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by smartcooky

The non-existence of the intra-mercurial planet "Vulcan", a planet, first proposed over 100 years ago, in order to try to explain the errors in Mercury's precession measurements...

Turns out that Mercury's precession errors are caused by the massive gravity well of the Sun due to General relativistic effects. This is beautifully explained for the layman in this short missive by Isaac Asimov - an oldie but a goodie

http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm

Just quoting the (most) important bit for anyone that doesn't want to read the entire (fantastic) article.

Quote:

By Einstein's relativistic view of the Universe, mass and energy are equivalent, with a small quantity of mass equal to a large quantity of energy in accordance with the equation e=mc2.

The Sun's enormous gravitational field represents a large quantity of energy and this is equivalent to a certain, much smaller, quantity of mass. Since all mass gives rise to a gravitational held, the Sun's gravitational held, when viewed as mass, must give rise to a much smaller gravitational field of its own.

smartcooky · 31st December 2018, 01:17 AM

Originally Posted by Brainache

I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones.

You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts).

Yep, one of my favourites too;

"a small proportion of the the atoms in your gold wedding ring/engagement ring/necklace/whatever were formed the the fires of supernovae, but the majority those atoms come from an even more spectacular event, the collision of two neutron stars."

This is The End · 31st December 2018, 01:24 AM

Originally Posted by Cheetah

You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of.

Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time.

What am I missing here? Did you mean "every atom" and not "every living cell"?

ETA: ninja'd

GodMark2 · 31st December 2018, 02:34 AM

Originally Posted by Brainache

I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones.

You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts).

Nope, cells simply divide: there is no 'replacement'. 'New ones' are just halves of old ones. The old ones were, themselves, just parts of older ones, all the way back...

Guybrush Threepwood · 31st December 2018, 03:09 AM

Paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than with you or me.

MEequalsIxR · 31st December 2018, 03:10 AM

Not so much a specific fact but the way some things in the math keep turning up like pi, e and sequences like the Fibonacci series or sines and cosines or how often parabolas turn up. It's impressive to me how universal some of these things are.

Brainache · 31st December 2018, 03:48 AM

Originally Posted by GodMark2

Nope, cells simply divide: there is no 'replacement'. 'New ones' are just halves of old ones. The old ones were, themselves, just parts of older ones, all the way back...

I can't tell if you are joking...

baron · 31st December 2018, 04:01 AM

Originally Posted by TheGnome

To continue in RecoveringYuppy's vein, things people consider to be scientic facts sometimes aren't.

This e.g. is definitely not true in the case of ball games like the four you mentioned, except as a rough first order approximation. It neglects the rotational momentum of the balls.

It's not true for photons (i.e. light), either. A photon impacting a mirror is absorbed and another emitted at a random angle. It's only when multiple photons are involved that the wave phases interfere and the probable trajectory of the beam matches the quoted rule.

Norman Alexander · 31st December 2018, 05:25 AM

Originally Posted by cullennz

Banana trees "walk"

V.....e.....r.....y s.....l.....o.....w.....l.....y!

Norman Alexander · 31st December 2018, 05:27 AM

The male elephant has a motile penis.

TheGnome · 31st December 2018, 05:30 AM

Originally Posted by JoeMorgue

- About 1% of the static you saw when not tuned to channel on an old analog television set was background radiation from the Big Bang.

Would you have a link or something to support this? Just offhand I plain don't believe this.

Most of what you call static is thermal noise generated in the receiver. Very little is picked up by the antenna as you could see when you disconnected it.

Also I think there is only little background radiation from the Big Bang in the VHF and UHF range (up to about 1 GHz) that could be picked up by a TV receiver.

I would be quite interested if you could prove me wrong. That would be one more thing I didn't get.

alfaniner · 31st December 2018, 05:34 AM

Originally Posted by TheGnome

To continue in RecoveringYuppy's vein, things people consider to be scientic facts sometimes aren't.

This e.g. is definitely not true in the case of ball games like the four you mentioned, except as a rough first order approximation. It neglects the rotational momentum of the balls.

Originally Posted by baron

It's not true for photons (i.e. light), either. A photon impacting a mirror is absorbed and another emitted at a random angle. It's only when multiple photons are involved that the wave phases interfere and the probable trajectory of the beam matches the quoted rule.

Oh, for fact's sake...

calebprime · 31st December 2018, 05:46 AM

Will Ferrell has been funny to some people some of the time.

Roboramma · 31st December 2018, 07:46 AM

Originally Posted by Brainache

I can't tell if you are joking...

I don't see why you would think it's a joke.

The issue isn't that cells don't die, it's that the ones that are living are products of cell division, not of a brand new cell being created.

30th December 2018, 03:48 PM	#1
kellyb Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 12,632	Name one or more favorite scientific facts! I'll start. The stars you see in the sky at night are snapshots of the distant past, and the stars themselves could be long dead.
	__________________ "We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically — not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are." - Carl Sagan

30th December 2018, 04:21 PM	#3
Red Baron Farms Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Oklahoma Posts: 5,157	There is more carbon missing from agricultural soils worldwide than the extra carbon in the atmosphere causing AGW.
	__________________ Scott "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison Biome Carbon Cycle Management

30th December 2018, 04:30 PM	#4
kellyb Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 12,632	Profanity usage is effective for pain management.
	__________________ "We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically — not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are." - Carl Sagan

30th December 2018, 06:15 PM	#5
RecoveringYuppy Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 10,346	Originally Posted by kellyb The stars you see in the sky at night are snapshots of the distant past, and the stars themselves could be long dead. Er, um, not really. Most visible stars are within 200 light years. The furthest is about 16K light years. And it's not terribly likely any of the stars we can see is actually dead now. Betelgeuse is one of the few visible stars expected to explode "soon" but soon in this context is thought to be something like a million years. At 640 light years away that gives about 1 in 2,000 chance that it has already gone supernova. ETA: https://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/ancient_stars.png ETA: The one major galaxy we can see is a couple million years old.
	Last edited by RecoveringYuppy; 30th December 2018 at 06:19 PM.

30th December 2018, 07:32 PM	#6
alfaniner Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2001 Posts: 24,580	Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. Useful in photography, billiards, racquetball, jai-alai, marbles, light waves, sound waves, radio waves, too much to count.
	__________________ Science is self-correcting. Woo is self-contradicting. Last edited by alfaniner; 30th December 2018 at 07:34 PM.

30th December 2018, 04:06 PM	#2
p0lka Master Poster Join Date: Sep 2012 Location: near trees, houses and a lake. Posts: 2,169	Every one of your ancestors, in spite of the odds, lived long enough to reproduce.

30th December 2018, 07:53 PM	#7
fromdownunder Philosopher Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 6,707	When you turn your heater on in Winter you are not trying to get more hot, but trying to cool down at a more comfortable rate. Norm
	__________________ Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in Vain

30th December 2018, 08:06 PM	#8
TheGnome Thinker Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Bern, Switzerland Posts: 179	Originally Posted by alfaniner Angle of incidence equals angle of reflection. Useful in photography, billiards, racquetball, jai-alai, marbles, light waves, sound waves, radio waves, too much to count. To continue in RecoveringYuppy's vein, things people consider to be scientic facts sometimes aren't. This e.g. is definitely not true in the case of ball games like the four you mentioned, except as a rough first order approximation. It neglects the rotational momentum of the balls.

30th December 2018, 08:08 PM	#9
smartcooky Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Nelson, New Zealand Posts: 16,456	The non-existence of the intra-mercurial planet "Vulcan", a planet, first proposed over 100 years ago, in order to try to explain the errors in Mercury's precession measurements... Turns out that Mercury's precession errors are caused by the massive gravity well of the Sun due to General relativistic effects. This is beautifully explained for the layman in this short missive by Isaac Asimov - an oldie but a goodie http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm
	__________________ I want to thank the 126 Republican Congress members for providing a convenient and well organized list for the mid-terms. - Fred Wellman (Senior VA Advisor to The Lincoln Project) If you don't like my posts, my opinions, or my directness then put me on your ignore list. This will be of benefit to both of us; you won't have to take umbrage at my posts, and I won't have to waste my time talking to you... simples! ! Last edited by smartcooky; 30th December 2018 at 08:16 PM.

30th December 2018, 08:12 PM	#10
Loss Leader I would save the receptionist. Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Florida Posts: 27,719	If you were to disassemble a man into his constituent atoms and then weigh those atoms, they would be about the same weight as the man. But if you disassembled the atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons and weighed each of those, they would only weigh about 5% of the guy.
	__________________ I have the honor to be Your Obdt. S^t L. Leader

30th December 2018, 08:16 PM	#11
kellyb Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 12,632	Originally Posted by Loss Leader If you were to disassemble a man into his constituent atoms and then weigh those atoms, they would be about the same weight as the man. But if you disassembled the atoms into protons, neutrons and electrons and weighed each of those, they would only weigh about 5% of the guy. How does that work?
	__________________ "We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically — not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are." - Carl Sagan

30th December 2018, 08:30 PM	#12
Red Baron Farms Philosopher Join Date: Apr 2013 Location: Oklahoma Posts: 5,157	Originally Posted by kellyb How does that work? Takes energy to disassemble atoms. E=MC2 I believe is the proper equation, although I too would like to see the math he is using.
	__________________ Scott "Permaculture is a philosophy of working with, rather than against nature; of protracted & thoughtful observation rather than protracted & thoughtless labour; & of looking at plants & animals in all their functions, rather than treating any area as a single-product system." Bill Mollison Biome Carbon Cycle Management

30th December 2018, 08:40 PM	#13
JoeMorgue Self Employed Remittance Man Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 29,872	- About 1% of the static you saw when not tuned to channel on an old analog television set was background radiation from the Big Bang.
	__________________ Yahtzee: "You're doing that thing again where when asked a question you just discuss the philosophy of the question instead of answering the bloody question." Gabriel: "Well yeah, you see..." Yahtzee: "No. When you are asked a Yes or No question the first word out of your mouth needs to be Yes or No. Only after that have you earned the right to elaborate."

30th December 2018, 08:45 PM	#14
Thermal Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Aug 2016 Location: East Coast USA Posts: 13,062	Originally Posted by JoeMorgue - About 1% of the static you saw when not tuned to channel on an old analog television set was background radiation from the Big Bang. Men, it was an overrated sitcom anyway.
	__________________ We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't -Frank A. Clark Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect -Mark Twain

30th December 2018, 09:36 PM	#15
Loss Leader I would save the receptionist. Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Florida Posts: 27,719	Originally Posted by kellyb How does that work? Beats the hell out of me. The energy holding the particles together is somehow also mass. I got it from a book about questions science has yet to answer.
	__________________ I have the honor to be Your Obdt. S^t L. Leader

30th December 2018, 10:19 PM	#16
cullennz Embarrasingly illiterate Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 19,682	Banana trees "walk"
	__________________ "I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044

30th December 2018, 10:24 PM	#17
bruto Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: Way way north of Diddy Wah Diddy Posts: 27,262	From the genetic standpoint we are more like yeast than unlike it.
	__________________ I love this world, but not for its answers. (Mary Oliver) Quand il dit "cuic" le moineau croit tout dire. (When he's tweeted the sparrow thinks he's said it all. (Jules Renard)

30th December 2018, 10:45 PM	#18
kellyb Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 12,632	Originally Posted by Loss Leader Beats the hell out of me. The energy holding the particles together is somehow also mass. I got it from a book about questions science has yet to answer. Oh, cool! eta: Do you remember the name of the book?
	__________________ "We are enjoined, no matter how uncomfortable it might be, to consider ourselves and our cultural institutions scientifically — not to accept uncritically whatever we’re told; to surmount as best we can our hopes, conceits, and unexamined beliefs; to view ourselves as we really are." - Carl Sagan

30th December 2018, 10:55 PM	#19
cullennz Embarrasingly illiterate Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 19,682	Per size and ratio, gonorrhea is the strongest (known) creature on earth.
	__________________ "I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044

30th December 2018, 10:57 PM	#20
Cheetah Master Poster Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: South Africa Posts: 2,690	You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of. Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time.
	__________________ "... when you dig my grave, could you make it shallow so that I can feel the rain" - DMB

30th December 2018, 11:04 PM	#21
cullennz Embarrasingly illiterate Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 19,682	Originally Posted by Cheetah You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of. Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time. Along the same lines I remember a QI episode that said your entire bodies cells are renewed every 7 years (might be out with the number slightly) So in effect everyone over 7 is 7 years old
	__________________ "I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044

30th December 2018, 11:17 PM	#23
SusanB-M1 Incurable Optimist Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 3,737	There were many facts in 'Living With The Stars' by Karel and Iris Schrijver - far too many to remember - but there was one about thousands of C4 atoms in each of our cels every second breaking down into something else, nitrogen iirc. Sorry to be a bit vague!

30th December 2018, 11:50 PM	#24
The Great Zaganza Maledictorian Join Date: Aug 2016 Posts: 14,359	The biomass of all humans is roughly equal to the biomass of all ants.
	__________________ Ceterum autem censeo fox et amicis esse delendam.

31st December 2018, 12:17 AM	#25
cullennz Embarrasingly illiterate Join Date: Sep 2006 Posts: 19,682	Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza The biomass of all humans is roughly equal to the biomass of all ants. That is cool tbf Presumably with ants being so strong, that if every human sat together on every ant together the ants could all carry us to the pub. Would need to be a big pub though.......Actually we could get all the ants to build the worlds biggest anthill and the humans could fashion it into massive pub. Coasters and glasses might be an issue, but we could get the ants to collect nuts and other finger food
	__________________ "I mean, you've got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that's a story-book, man," Biden said. 2007 https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna16911044

31st December 2018, 01:03 AM	#26
Brainache Nasty Brutish and Tall Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canberra Posts: 17,459	Originally Posted by Cheetah You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of. Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time. I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones. You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts).

31st December 2018, 01:17 AM	#27
This is The End Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 10,920	Originally Posted by smartcooky The non-existence of the intra-mercurial planet "Vulcan", a planet, first proposed over 100 years ago, in order to try to explain the errors in Mercury's precession measurements... Turns out that Mercury's precession errors are caused by the massive gravity well of the Sun due to General relativistic effects. This is beautifully explained for the layman in this short missive by Isaac Asimov - an oldie but a goodie http://geobeck.tripod.com/frontier/planet.htm Just quoting the (most) important bit for anyone that doesn't want to read the entire (fantastic) article. Quote: By Einstein's relativistic view of the Universe, mass and energy are equivalent, with a small quantity of mass equal to a large quantity of energy in accordance with the equation e=mc2. The Sun's enormous gravitational field represents a large quantity of energy and this is equivalent to a certain, much smaller, quantity of mass. Since all mass gives rise to a gravitational held, the Sun's gravitational held, when viewed as mass, must give rise to a much smaller gravitational field of its own.
This is The End Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 10,920	__________________ ________________________

31st December 2018, 01:17 AM	#28
smartcooky Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Oct 2012 Location: Nelson, New Zealand Posts: 16,456	Originally Posted by Brainache I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones. You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts). Yep, one of my favourites too; "a small proportion of the the atoms in your gold wedding ring/engagement ring/necklace/whatever were formed the the fires of supernovae, but the majority those atoms come from an even more spectacular event, the collision of two neutron stars."
	__________________ I want to thank the 126 Republican Congress members for providing a convenient and well organized list for the mid-terms. - Fred Wellman (Senior VA Advisor to The Lincoln Project) If you don't like my posts, my opinions, or my directness then put me on your ignore list. This will be of benefit to both of us; you won't have to take umbrage at my posts, and I won't have to waste my time talking to you... simples! !

31st December 2018, 01:24 AM	#29
This is The End Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 10,920	Originally Posted by Cheetah You have been alive for more than 4.5 billion years, sort of. Literally every living cell in your body has been functioning continuously for all that time. What am I missing here? Did you mean "every atom" and not "every living cell"? ETA: ninja'd
This is The End Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 10,920	__________________ ________________________ Last edited by This is The End; 31st December 2018 at 01:26 AM.

31st December 2018, 02:34 AM	#30
GodMark2 Master Poster Join Date: Oct 2005 Location: Oregon, USA Posts: 2,169	Originally Posted by Brainache I don't think this is true. Cells die all the time and are replaced by new ones. You might be thinking of the fact that every atom in our bodies was formed billions of years ago inside stars (one of my favourite facts). Nope, cells simply divide: there is no 'replacement'. 'New ones' are just halves of old ones. The old ones were, themselves, just parts of older ones, all the way back...
	__________________ Knowing that we do not know, it does not necessarily follow that we can not know.

31st December 2018, 03:09 AM	#31
Guybrush Threepwood Trainee Pirate Join Date: Jun 2007 Location: An Uaimh Posts: 3,038	Paedophiles have more genes in common with crabs than with you or me.

31st December 2018, 03:10 AM	#32
MEequalsIxR Muse Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 535	Not so much a specific fact but the way some things in the math keep turning up like pi, e and sequences like the Fibonacci series or sines and cosines or how often parabolas turn up. It's impressive to me how universal some of these things are.
MEequalsIxR Muse Join Date: Dec 2018 Posts: 535

31st December 2018, 03:48 AM	#33
Brainache Nasty Brutish and Tall Join Date: Aug 2006 Location: Canberra Posts: 17,459	Originally Posted by GodMark2 Nope, cells simply divide: there is no 'replacement'. 'New ones' are just halves of old ones. The old ones were, themselves, just parts of older ones, all the way back... I can't tell if you are joking...

31st December 2018, 04:01 AM	#34
baron Guest Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 8,627	Originally Posted by TheGnome To continue in RecoveringYuppy's vein, things people consider to be scientic facts sometimes aren't. This e.g. is definitely not true in the case of ball games like the four you mentioned, except as a rough first order approximation. It neglects the rotational momentum of the balls. It's not true for photons (i.e. light), either. A photon impacting a mirror is absorbed and another emitted at a random angle. It's only when multiple photons are involved that the wave phases interfere and the probable trajectory of the beam matches the quoted rule.
baron Guest Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 8,627

31st December 2018, 05:25 AM	#35
Norman Alexander Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Gundungurra Posts: 8,458	Originally Posted by cullennz Banana trees "walk" V.....e.....r.....y s.....l.....o.....w.....l.....y!
	__________________ _{...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015}

31st December 2018, 05:27 AM	#36
Norman Alexander Philosopher Join Date: Nov 2014 Location: Gundungurra Posts: 8,458	The male elephant has a motile penis.
	__________________ _{...our governments are just trying to protect us from terror. In the same way that someone banging a hornets’ nest with a stick is trying to protect us from hornets. Frankie Boyle, Guardian, July 2015}