The fun facts thread.

[FernandoV]

There is not time before the big bang, as the theory goes time and space were created in the big bang so it is incorrect to say "before the big bang there was nothing in space" because there was neither space nor time.

I don't think an argument in semantics count as a fun fact.

*Sorry for the double post, I thought my previous post timed out.

 

[Genixma]

As soon as I saw the title I had to post this.

 

[Torrasque]

Black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners; they exert a gravitational force in the same way that any other massive object does. If the Sun were to somehow be compressed enough to become a black hole (without losing any of its mass), there would be almost no noticeable effect on the Solar System (in terms of orbits and the like, obviously suddenly there's no light etc.).

Except you would have to ignore several details of physics, and what makes black holes, black holes, for your scenario to work =P
Your super condensed sun would be a neutron star before it became a black hole.
The key factor of black holes, that makes them black holes, is the massive gravitational force they exert on everything around them.

There are also more humans in the world that donate with no thought of receiving, than people who give with a hope of receiving. This can apply to clothes, food, or blood. The fact remains, that more humans give without a thought of reward, than people who give because they think they get something in return.

That's not entirely true. As you said, most humans believe in a higher power, and the vast majority of the time, said higher power looks favorably on those who donate to charities, and therefore doing so increases your chance of getting into your version of heaven.

Well no, that is still a thought of reward, which I said: most people don't do.
If you really want to be picky, every action a person does in their life, is for themselves.
Getting gifts for others: self satisfaction
Helping old ladies across the road: satisfying one's conscience
Stepping in front of the president to stop a bullet: thoughts of "for the good of the country" usually, which boil down to "I want my country to be awesome"

So take your pick, either most people are selfless and do things that need doing, just cause, or everyone is a selfish asshole.

 

[Hitokiri_Gensai]

the Model 1911 by John Browning and put into production by Colt Firearms, celebrated 100 years of service as of this past March.

Between 1907 and 1911, the US Army came down to testing the Colt 1911 and the Savage Arms 1905. One of the final tests in 1910, Browning fired 6,000 rounds through his design, cooling it by dunking it in water. The pistol fired flawlessly, while the Savage had 37 failures.

Finally adopted March 29th, 1911, the gun entered service with the US Army, later adopted by the Navy and Marine Corps in 1913.

 

[ultrachicken]

There are also more humans in the world that donate with no thought of receiving, than people who give with a hope of receiving. This can apply to clothes, food, or blood. The fact remains, that more humans give without a thought of reward, than people who give because they think they get something in return.

That's not entirely true. As you said, most humans believe in a higher power, and the vast majority of the time, said higher power looks favorably on those who donate to charities, and therefore doing so increases your chance of getting into your version of heaven.

Well no, that is still a thought of reward, which I said: most people don't do.
If you really want to be picky, every action a person does in their life, is for themselves.
Getting gifts for others: self satisfaction
Helping old ladies across the road: satisfying one's conscience
Stepping in front of the president to stop a bullet: thoughts of "for the good of the country" usually, which boil down to "I want my country to be awesome"

So take your pick, either most people are selfless and do things that need doing, just cause, or everyone is a selfish asshole.

Wow, way to completely ignore what I just said. I stated that religious people see eternal bliss as a reward for "selflessness." It's not the feeling of pride and self satisfaction, it's the promise of eternal bliss, that drives those actions.

 

[Torrasque]

There are also more humans in the world that donate with no thought of receiving, than people who give with a hope of receiving. This can apply to clothes, food, or blood. The fact remains, that more humans give without a thought of reward, than people who give because they think they get something in return.

That's not entirely true. As you said, most humans believe in a higher power, and the vast majority of the time, said higher power looks favorably on those who donate to charities, and therefore doing so increases your chance of getting into your version of heaven.

Well no, that is still a thought of reward, which I said: most people don't do.
If you really want to be picky, every action a person does in their life, is for themselves.
Getting gifts for others: self satisfaction
Helping old ladies across the road: satisfying one's conscience
Stepping in front of the president to stop a bullet: thoughts of "for the good of the country" usually, which boil down to "I want my country to be awesome"

So take your pick, either most people are selfless and do things that need doing, just cause, or everyone is a selfish asshole.

Wow, way to completely ignore what I just said. I stated that religious people see eternal bliss as a reward for "selflessness." It's not the feeling of pride and self satisfaction, it's the promise of eternal bliss, that drives those actions.

Oh thats your main point? Thats easier to handle.
Most religions don't reward more good acts, with more eternal bliss. Take Christianity for instance, all you have to do to get into heaven, is accept jesus as your lord and saviour. Anything after that, gets you a pat on the back. The bible says (and denounces) good acts, but the Christian god generally doesn't give a fuck. Islam is a bit trickier, but is generally the same. Bhuddism is the only faith I know of, that rewards good behaviour; do good on others, do good on yourself, do good on the universe, thats good.

I remember in a philosophy class of mine, god got brought up, and since we finished the material of the day, the prof was fine with entertaining free dialogue between each other, with a bit of moderation. The prof asked "why do people do good things?". This was of course a religious question, since there are no "good" things in philosophy. For this question, the prof told us all that we are christians who believe in god and whatnot. One person brought up your argument, "because it gets me into heaven". Another person denounced that with the argument you see me giving above, and another person added "because god gets mad at me if I don't". Obviously, few of us were religious, we were just entertaining reasons to do good. The prof got that person to repeat themselves, and he said, "so, you do good things because you fear god's wrath, and not god's praise?". This got the class thinking, and I added, "I suppose I do good things because I know god is watching, and want to be seen as worthy of his praise". The prof laughed and said, "there you go, praise. The act of seeking praise, is selfish and self-satisfying, so you are doing it for yourself, not because the action is good, but because it makes you feel good".

TL;DR, my argument still applies for religious folk.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

Grey hair doesn't exist, people with 'grey' hair actualy have a mix of black and white hairs.

Then explain the pure grey hair I found on my head last week, still grey when plucked and isolated!
*sobs* AAARGH! I'M 21 AND GETTING OLD ALREADY![/quote]

Dunno why I'm quoting you on this but 'meah' never mind here goes anyway;

- When your hair goes gray it's not because your body is not producing the pigments that colored your hair before, it's still producing the pigments just fine. However what it's not dong is producing a peroxidase enzyme that brakes down peroxide that is naturally produced as part of the metabolic process. This then bleaches the color out of the hair in the same way that hairdressers do.

 

[Jimmy T. Malice]

Stafford, England has streets named Chell Road and Portal Road.

 

[Wyes]

Black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners; they exert a gravitational force in the same way that any other massive object does. If the Sun were to somehow be compressed enough to become a black hole (without losing any of its mass), there would be almost no noticeable effect on the Solar System (in terms of orbits and the like, obviously suddenly there's no light etc.).

Except you would have to ignore several details of physics, and what makes black holes, black holes, for your scenario to work =P
Your super condensed sun would be a neutron star before it became a black hole.
The key factor of black holes, that makes them black holes, is the massive gravitational force they exert on everything around them.

I'm sorry, but no =P

The only reason black holes exert such large gravitational forces is because they tend to have extremely large masses. Now, in a black hole all of this mass is concentrated at a single point, but that does not make them exert any more force than any other object with the same mass.
Using Gauss' Law, we know that the gravitational force exerted (obviously in this case at distances larger than the radius of the object) by an object with some radius r is the same as a point mass (at the position of the centre of mass of the previous object) with the same mass as our original object.
What makes black holes dangerous is that there is nothing to stop you from getting quite close to this mass, namely you can inside its Roche Limit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_Limit]. This is why black holes tend to have accretion discs.
However, that does not mean that overall black holes exert any more force than another object of the same mass. My example with the Sun remains true; if you were to somehow compress the Sun without losing any of its mass (by the power of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever, this is a thought experiment), down to its Schwarzschild Radius [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzchild_radius], it would form a black hole. And the gravitational force it exerts on the objects in the Solar System would be no greater than that exerted by the Sun originally. The only other gravitational effect to consider would be certain tidal effects which would disappear, but that's already almost negligible.

 

[Mr Box]

Apples can keep you awake more effectively than coffee.

if thats true thats very interesting.. how do you know that?

I tried it. I guess I should have said *Results may vary*

 

[Mr Box]

Fun Fact: Many people believe that in a nuclear holocaust, that cockroaches would be the only thing to survive. Those people are wrong.

Without humans, cockroaches have no way to survive. They depend on our housing to provide warmth for them, and they eat our garbage.

No humans means no place for the roaches to live, and no food for them to eat.

There are cockroaches in nature you know, right?
Like... Cockroaches that live their entire existence away from human influence?

Cockroaches wouldn't survive a nuclear holocaust because their bodies are complex enough to be damaged by the radiation, the most likely survivor would be jellyfish because their bodies are simple, they can survive for long periods of time in an extremely low oxygen environment and some jellyfish can produce their own food.

 

[Fetzenfisch]

Fanta was invented by the coca-cola corporation so they could sell soda to nazi germany.

not the whoe truth. cola was already sold in germany, but after america entered the war, the coca cola company couldnt keep on selling their product to the nazis and stopped to ship the ingredients , so the people running the factories had to be creative to stay in business and used the resourcess available in germany, in combination with worlds #1 chemistry and created Fanta.


And female ferrets die when they dont mate.

 

[Rhaff]

Black holes are not cosmic vacuum cleaners; they exert a gravitational force in the same way that any other massive object does. If the Sun were to somehow be compressed enough to become a black hole (without losing any of its mass), there would be almost no noticeable effect on the Solar System (in terms of orbits and the like, obviously suddenly there's no light etc.).

Except you would have to ignore several details of physics, and what makes black holes, black holes, for your scenario to work =P
Your super condensed sun would be a neutron star before it became a black hole.
The key factor of black holes, that makes them black holes, is the massive gravitational force they exert on everything around them.

I'm sorry, but no =P

The only reason black holes exert such large gravitational forces is because they tend to have extremely large masses. Now, in a black hole all of this mass is concentrated at a single point, but that does not make them exert any more force than any other object with the same mass.
Using Gauss' Law, we know that the gravitational force exerted (obviously in this case at distances larger than the radius of the object) by an object with some radius r is the same as a point mass (at the position of the centre of mass of the previous object) with the same mass as our original object.
What makes black holes dangerous is that there is nothing to stop you from getting quite close to this mass, namely you can inside its Roche Limit [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roche_Limit]. This is why black holes tend to have accretion discs.
However, that does not mean that overall black holes exert any more force than another object of the same mass. My example with the Sun remains true; if you were to somehow compress the Sun without losing any of its mass (by the power of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or whatever, this is a thought experiment), down to its Schwarzschild Radius [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwarzchild_radius], it would form a black hole. And the gravitational force it exerts on the objects in the Solar System would be no greater than that exerted by the Sun originally. The only other gravitational effect to consider would be certain tidal effects which would disappear, but that's already almost negligible.

Actually, it wouldn't be classifiable as a black hole, since one unit of solar mass (mass of the sun) is generally considered to small to be considered a black hole, and if it were one, it would be considered a primordial black hole, which has yet to be proven to exist.

 

[Wyes]

Actually, it wouldn't be classifiable as a black hole, since one unit of solar mass (mass of the sun) is generally considered to small to be considered a black hole, and if it were one, it would be considered a primordial black hole, which has yet to be proven to exist.

I was talking from a purely theoretical point of view (hence thought experiment), but I'll give you that one.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

The Janitor in Scrubs was origenally going to be just a figment of JD's imagination, but he was so popular that they decided to scrap that and just make him a normal person... well, kind of normal anyway. His actual name is Glenn Matthews.

I thought it was Jan Itor.

 

[Rhaff]

Actually, it wouldn't be classifiable as a black hole, since one unit of solar mass (mass of the sun) is generally considered to small to be considered a black hole, and if it were one, it would be considered a primordial black hole, which has yet to be proven to exist.

I was talking from a purely theoretical point of view (hence thought experiment), but I'll give you that one.

To be fair from a theoretical point of view, you are completely right.