I am sometimes shocked by things that people don't know.
Tell me something awesome that you think I should know! Maybe I won't know it!
Examples: Mentos and pepsi. xkcd. The trig to prove the world is round.
If I didn't know these things I'd be like ::mind blown:: Show me some stuff that'd blow my mind if I didn't know it!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Geek Husband What Rules is related to Jack Parsons of Jet Propulsion Laboratories fame. I found this out a little while ago, and find it fascinating. (Jack Parsons's mother's maiden name was Whiteside. All Whitesides spring from Blackpool England, ultimately.)
ReplyDeleteCrochet is one of the few fiber arts that cannot be done by machine.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between the irrational numbers and the whole numbers is that the whole numbers has an added axiom "Any set of numbers > 0 has a least member." From that one can prove all the rest of the differences.
ReplyDeleteOh, and do you already know about fractals and their non-whole-number dimensionality?
ReplyDeleteMickey Schulz Your husband is related to Jack Parsons? That's cool.
ReplyDeleteSandy J-T Neat! Why is that?
Tony Lower-Basch And the rationals can be described as a whole number divided by another. Yeah, that follows.
Tony Lower-Basch Say what about non-whole number dimensionality?
6% of beeswax is unknown to science.
ReplyDeleteen.m.wikipedia.org - Beeswax - Wikipedia
Jaye Foster Wait, what? How can that be? Make me one of today's lucky ten thousand!
ReplyDeleteWilliam Nichols i truly have no idea. My best guess is that a spectra of the material has been analysed and there are lots of complex compounds that can't be disentangled from the data.
ReplyDeleteThat and the bees are up to something and have been ensuring the knowledge stays secret.
William Nichols: If you want to define the dimensionality of an object in a sensible way, you do it thus:
ReplyDeleteGiven a size "e", one can cover a shape with f(e) spheres of radius e (i.e. the set of all points within e distance of a common center point). There is an unique number "d" such that limit as e->0 of f(e) x (e^d) is neither zero nor infinity. That limit is the d-dimensional area of the shape, and d is the dimension of the shape.
So, for instance, if you cover a square with spheres, and you take limit e->0 of f(e) x (e^3), you're going to get zero ... because each time you halve e, f(e) increases by a factor of 4, but e^3 is reduced by a factor of 8. On the other hand, e^2 is only reduced by a factor of 4, which is why we describe a square as two-dimensional.
For Sierpinski's triangle, each time you halve e, f(e) increases by a factor of 3. Therefore, the dimensionality of Sierpinski's triangle = ln 3 / ln 2 (or log-base-2 of 3).
Taking its area in a two-dimensional measure results in zero. Taking its surface area (i.e. a one-dimensional measure) results in infinity. Neither of those dimensions make any sense. ln3/ln2 does.
William Nichols crochet is (usually) a foundational slipknot through which a series of thread loops are pulled in a pattern. There are "crochet machines" that produce something that looks like crochet, but can't reproduce the looping-through-loops mechanics of a handheld hook.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you see something verifiably crocheted in a store, a human made that. Every single part.
The only effective way to determine the sex of the spotted hyena is to palpate the scrotum.
ReplyDeleteWombat poop cubes. It's possible to see colors you can't normally see by looking at the inverse of that color and some other visual trickery.
ReplyDeleteThe biomass of all ants is about the same as the biomass of all humans.
ReplyDeleteBut the biomass of all humans is about seven times the biomass of all remaining wild mammals. And the biomass of all livestock mammals is more than twice the biomass of all humans.
Planet of the ants or planet of the humans? Nah... we live on the planet of the cows, pigs, goats, and sheep.
Couldn't find info on brine shrimp. I believe they are one genus that has a much larger biomass than all humans.
http://www.kalaharilionresearch.org/2015/01/16/human-vs-livestock-vs-wild-mammal-biomass-earth/
bbc.com - Ants v humans
omg.
ReplyDeleteAnd then I read an article about the fungus that takes over ants. We had thought it took over the brain. Instead, it controls the muscles directly and ignores the brain. That poor ant becomes mostly fungus.
Wow. Nature is weird.
If you think that's weird, look up Toxoplasma gondii. It's a bacteria that can only reproduce in the digestive tract of a cat. If a mouse becomes infected with Toxoplasma gondii, the bacteria will find its way to the poor rodent's brain and cause behavioral changes... including being less fearful of cats.
ReplyDeleteHumans can get infected, too...
Nice kitty...
Oh I know Toxo!
ReplyDeleteDo you know about the sexual parasitism of the female angler fish?
ReplyDeletetheoatmeal.com - How The Male Angler Fish Gets Completely Screwed - The Oatmeal