Science and Technology - Bizarre Facts Page 2

Bizarre Fact #51:
Did you know...
The first domain name ever registered was Symbolics.com on March 15, 1985.

Bizarre Fact #52:
Did you know...
The first jet engine was invented by Frank Whittleof of England in 1930.

Bizarre Fact #53:
Did you know...
The first spacecraft to visit the planet Venus was Mariner 2 in 1962.

Bizarre Fact #54:
Did you know...
The first subway system in America was built in Boston, Massachusetts in 1897.

Bizarre Fact #55:
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The Great Comet of 1843 had a tail that was over 300 kilometres long.

Bizarre Fact #56:
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The Hubble telescope is so powerful that it is like pointing a beam of light at a dime that is two hundred miles away.

Bizarre Fact #57:
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The iron disulfide (Pyrite) is considered "fool's gold" because it looks very similar to gold.

Bizarre Fact #58:
Did you know...
The largest diamond that was ever found was 3106 carats.

Bizarre Fact #59:
Did you know...
The longest recorded duration of a total solar eclipse was 7.5 minutes.

Bizarre Fact #60:
Did you know...
The only commercial aircraft that is able to break the sound barrier is the Concorde.

Bizarre Fact #61:
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The Saguaro Cactus, found in South-western United States does not grow branches until it is 75 years old.

Bizarre Fact #62:
Did you know...
The speed of sound must be exceeded to produce a sonic boom.

Bizarre Fact #63:
Did you know...
The stapler was invented in Spring Valley, Minnesota.

Bizarre Fact #64:
Did you know...
The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that it breaks the sound barrier. The crack of the whip is actually a tiny sonic boom.

Bizarre Fact #65:
Did you know...
The United States has paved enough roads to circle the Earth over 150 times.

Bizarre Fact #66:
Did you know...
The United States Mint once considered producing donut-shaped coins.

Bizarre Fact #67:
Did you know...
The USSR launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, in 1957.

Bizarre Fact #68:
Did you know...
The wheelbarrow was invented by the Chinese.

Bizarre Fact #69:
Did you know...
The width of a tornado can range from less than ten yards to more than a mile.

Bizarre Fact #70:
Did you know...
The word "laser" stands for "Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission by radiation."

Bizarre Fact #71:
Did you know...
The world's first underground was the London Underground in1863. It has 275 stations and 253 miles of track.

Bizarre Fact #72:
Did you know...
There are approximately 90 people that have been frozen after their death.

Bizarre Fact #73:
Did you know...
There are mirrors on the moon. Astronauts left them so that laser beams could be bounced off of them from Earth. These beams help give us the distance to the moon give or take a few metres.

Bizarre Fact #74:
Did you know...
There are six million parts in the Boeing 747-400.

Bizarre Fact #75:
Did you know...
There has only been 193,000 metric tonnes of gold discovered to date.

Bizarre Fact #76:
Did you know...
There is an automobile model called Stutz Bearcat.

Bizarre Fact #77:
Did you know...
There is no element on Mendeleev's (the current) periodic table of elements abbreviated, either partially, or fully, with the letter J.

Bizarre Fact #78:
Did you know...
Thomas Watson, who was the chairman of IBM in 1943 predicted that their would probably only be a world market for five computers.

Bizarre Fact #79:
Did you know...
Traveling by air is the safest means of transportation.

Bizarre Fact #80:
Did you know...
Using recycled aluminum cans and making news cans out of them saves 75% energy compared to making it from new material.

Bizarre Fact #81:
Did you know...
When the Galileo Probe entered Jupiter's atmosphere, it was traveling at a speed of 106,000 miles per hour. This is the fastest impact speed ever achieved by a man-made object.

Bizarre Fact #82:
Did you know...
A "fulgerite" is fossilized lightning. It forms when a powerful lightning bolt melts the soil into a glass-like state.

Bizarre Fact #83:
Did you know...
A ball of glass will bounce higher than a ball of rubber. A ball of solid steel will bounce higher than one made entirely of glass.

Bizarre Fact #84:
Did you know...
A bowl of lime Jell-O, when hooked up to an EEG machine, exhibited movement which is virtually identical to the brain waves of a healthy adult man or woman.

Bizarre Fact #85:
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A brown dwarf is a very small, dark object, with a mass less than 1/10 that of the Sun. They are 'failed stars', globules of gas that have shrunk under gravity, but failed to ignite and shine as stars.

Bizarre Fact #86:
Did you know...
A bucket filled with earth would weigh about 5 time more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the sun. However, the force of gravity is so much greater on the sun that the man weighing 150 pounds on our planet would weigh 2 tons on the sun.

Bizarre Fact #87:
Did you know...
A car traveling at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour would take over 48 million years to reach the nearest star (other than our sun), Proxima Centauri. This is about 685,000 average human lifetimes.

Bizarre Fact #88:
Did you know...
A car traveling at a constant speed of 60 miles per hour would take over 48 million years to reach the nearest star (other than our sun), Proxima Centauri. This is about 685,000 average human lifetimes.

Bizarre Fact #89:
Did you know...
A chip of silicon a quarter-inch square has the capacity of the original 1949 ENIAC computer, which occupied a city block.

Bizarre Fact #90:
Did you know...
A cosmic year is the amount of time it takes the sun to revolve around the center of the Milky Way, about 225 million years.

Bizarre Fact #91:
Did you know...
A cosmic year is the length of time it takes the sun to complete one revolution around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. That's approximately 225 million earth years.

Bizarre Fact #92:
Did you know...
A day on the planet Mercury is twice as long as its year. Mercury rotates very slowly but revolves around the sun in slightly less than 88 days.

Bizarre Fact #93:
Did you know...
A dog was killed by a meteor at Nakhla, Egypt, in 1911. The unlucky canine is the only creature known to have been killed by a meteor.

Bizarre Fact #94:
Did you know...
A downburst is a downward blowing wind that sometimes comes blasting out of a thunderstorm. The damage looks like tornado damage, since the wind can be as strong as an F2 tornado, but debris is blown straight away from a point on the ground. It's not lofted into the air and transported downwind.

Bizarre Fact #95:
Did you know...
A full moon always rises at sunset.

Bizarre Fact #96:
Did you know...
A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continually from the bottom of the glass to the top. This is because the carbonation in the drink gets pockets of air stuck in the wrinkles of the raisin, which is light enough to be raised by this air. When it reaches the surface of the champagne, the bubbles pop, and the raisin sinks back to the bottom, starting the cycle over.

Bizarre Fact #97:
Did you know...
A scientist at Michigan State University has calculated that the production of a single hen egg requires about 120 gallons of water, a loaf of bread requires 300 gallons, and a pound of beef, 3,500.

Bizarre Fact #98:
Did you know...
A shrimp has more than a hundred pair of chromosomes in each cell nucleus.

Bizarre Fact #99:
Did you know...
A temperature of 70 million degrees Celsius was generated at Princeton University in 1978. This was during a fusionism experiment and is the highest man-made temperature ever.

Bizarre Fact #100:
Did you know...
About 500 meteorites hit the Earth each year. The largest known meteorite was found at Grootfontein in Namibia, southwest Africa, in 1920. It is 9 feet (2.75m) long and 8 feet (2.43m) wide.