Fun Facts

[livius drusus]

I just found out today that Moby (http://www.mobymusic.com/bio.html) is actually a descendant of Herman Melville's. That's why his parents nicknamed him Moby. How fucking cool is that?

Any other excellent tidbits out there I should know about?

[Ensign Steve]

8675309 is prime, but that was brought up in another thread. Still cool, tho.

[ceptimus]

8675309 is prime, but that was brought up in another thread. Still cool, tho.
What's special about that number (besides its primality)? :chin:

11 is prime and can be written as R2 (as the '1' repeats 2 times)

1111111111111111111 is also prime and as it has 19 digits, can be written as R19

Using the same notation, R23, R317 and R1031 are also prime.

[Ensign Steve]

8675309 is prime, but that was brought up in another thread. Still cool, tho.
What's special about that number (besides its primality)? :chin:



It's from a lame eighties pop song by artist Tommy Tutone. It's a phone number for some girl, I guess. 867-5309. I find the juxtaposition of a lame pop song and a large prime number to be just delicious.

[wildernesse]

Did no one read the title to this thread? :giggle:

[livius drusus]

Thank you! Damn math nerds multiply like flies. Only without the whole getting laid thing. :runaway:

[ceptimus]

Surely you can't be implying that prime numbers aren't fun? :chin:

What a strange concept.

[ApostateAbe]

Largest prime number ever discovered: 2^24036583 - 1

I would write it out, except it is over seven million digits, which would be a lot of scrolling for you.

[wade-w]

Damn math nerds multiply like flies. Only without the whole getting laid thing. :runaway:

Damn. I'm just feeling the love all over the place today.

[livius drusus]

Sigh... You weren't posting about prime numbers here, wade, and I wasn't serious. I'm sorry if I offended you.

[ApostateAbe]

You can actually find all 7,235,733 digits of the largest prime number written out in text at http://www.isthe.com/no.index/chongo/merdigit/long-m24036583/prime-c.html

It took me about ten minutes, but I saved it on my hard drive just in case I need to pull it out to impress the ladies.

[livius drusus]

Thanks, Abe. :)

[Ensign Steve]

You can actually find all 7,235,733 digits of the largest prime number written out in text at http://www.isthe.com/no.index/chongo/merdigit/long-m24036583/prime-c.html

It took me about ten minutes, but I saved it on my hard drive just in case I need to pull it out to impress the ladies.

It's so ... big! *swoon*

[wildernesse]

Thank you! Damn math nerds multiply like flies. Only without the whole getting laid thing. :runaway:

Um. . .how do I say this? When I said no one, I meant no one. :lol:

[livius drusus]

Hey! :glare:

[viscousmemories]

:roflmao:

Wildy: :highfive:

[wildernesse]

Heeheehee. Don't you wish I'd put you on ignore, liv?

[ApostateAbe]

You can actually find all 7,235,733 digits of the largest prime number written out in text at http://www.isthe.com/no.index/chongo/merdigit/long-m24036583/prime-c.html (http://www.isthe.com/no.index/chongo/merdigit/long-m24036583/prime-c.html)

It took me about ten minutes, but I saved it on my hard drive just in case I need to pull it out to impress the ladies.
It's so ... big! *swoon*Ensign Steve, I assume that most sexy chick pics I see in forum avatars represent only the wishful persona instead of the homely reality (sometimes male). But a little investigation reveals that your picture is the real you and the fact that you are a Star Trek fan makes you a math nerd's wet dream (second only to solving the Goldbach conjecture).

[Dragar]

In order to match the density of a neutron star, you would need to put more than 50 million elephants into a thimble.

[Clutch Munny]

The way I heard it was that you'd have to be dense as a neutron star to try putting even a single elephant into a thimble. Maybe that's a different fact, though.

[Clutch Munny]

"Did you know that you've got four miles of tubing in your stomach?" [/peter cook]

[livius drusus]

That's a great one, Dragar, and yes, I did know that, Mr. Cook. :giggles:

[Ensign Steve]

Oh, I saw on TLC that sweat glands are 1.5 meters long! That is unconceivable to me.

[Ensign Steve]

Ensign Steve, I assume that most sexy chick pics I see in forum avatars represent only the wishful persona instead of the homely reality (sometimes male). But a little investigation reveals that your picture is the real you and the fact that you are a Star Trek fan makes you a math nerd's wet dream (second only to solving the Goldbach conjecture).

:blush: aw shucks

[The Lone Ranger]

"Did you know that you've got four miles of tubing in your stomach?" [/peter cook]

Hmm. I had to Google this, as it made no sense on the surface.

This, I presume, is the full quote?:
Did you know that you've got four miles of tubing in your stomach?
Aren't you interested in your intestines? Well, you SHOULD be!
Because if you didn't have intestines, you wouldn't be able to digest! And then you'd look a bit of a fool!...See how far the food has to travel? Four miles at one mile an hour!
This means that none of the food in your stomach is ever really FRESH!

Not to be pedantic or anything, but it really matters what is meant by "tubing" here.

I mean, on the surface, this quote is utter nonsense. Food doesn't travel anywhere near that far through a person's digestive tract -- not by orders of magnitude! The total length of an adult human's digestive tract is about 30 feet. That's certainly impressive, but it's a far cry from four miles!

This sort of thing really bugs me at times, because a lot of those things that "everybody knows" are simply wrong.

[Please don't get me wrong, I'm not accusing Clutch or anyone else of knowingly distributing falsehoods! I do hope no one takes offense. I just can't stand to see falsehoods repeated as "facts."]



Now, if we call blood vessels and lymphatic vessels "tubing," we could indeed make a case that there are 4 miles of "tubing" in the stomach. Actually, if you go down to the level of microscopic capillaries (both blood and lymphatic), 4 miles would be something of an underestimate.

Cheers,

Michael

[ApostateAbe]

Question: How many elephants do you need to stuff into a thinble to get the density of a neautron star?

Facts:

Weight of an elephant:
4500 kg
http://www.upali.ch/weight_en.html (http://www.upali.ch/weight_en.html)
4500 kg = 4.5 x 10^6 g

Density of a neutron star:
3 x 10^14 g/cm^3
http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/lec23.htm (http://instruct1.cit.cornell.edu/courses/astro101/lec23.htm)

Volume of a thimble:
Assume 1 cm^3 for simplicity.

Math:
1 thimble = (1 cm^3)(3 x 10^14 g/cm^3)(E/4.5 x 10^6 g)
where E is the number of elephants.

Solving in terms of E gives:
1 thimble = 1.5 x 10^8 E = 150,000,000 E.

Conclusion: You would need to stuff rougly 150,000,000 elephants into a thimble to get the density of a neutron star.

EDIT: If anyone checked my math, he or she would have found my conclusion to be horribly awry.

Solving in terms of E gives:
1 thimble = 1.5 x 10^8 E = 150,000,000 E.

Conclusion: You would need to stuff rougly 150,000,000 elephants into a thimble to get the density of a neutron star.

EDIT: Please forgive me. There is room for only 66,000,000 neutronized elephants in that thimble. It was a calculation error. Terribly sorrry.

[Brimshack]

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence contains numerous diacritic marks indicating intonation and emphasis. Jefferson planned out the full performance.

[justaman]

Arnold Schwarzenegger starred alongside Jesse Ventura in "Predator".

Who'd have thought two future governers would come from that movie :P

[justaman]

Also I only found out recently that there has been a long-standing rumour that Jamie Lee Curtis was born a hermaphrodite.

[Dragar]

EDIT: Please forgive me. There is room for only 66,000,000 neutronized elephants in that thimble. It was a calculation error. Terribly sorrry.

Forgive you for what? You questioned the truth in the fact I posted, and admitted to making a mistake. Those are virtues, not faults. :)

[Ronin]

"Silent" has the same letters as "Listen".

So does:

Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one

[ceptimus]

(n - 1)! + 1 is divisible by n, if and only if n is prime.

Examples:

using n = 5: 4 x 3 x 2 + 1 = 25.

using n = 6: 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 + 1 = 121. 121 doesn't divide by 6, so 6 isn't prime.

This is Wilson's Theorem, and it's telling us something spooky about numbers, but I'm not sure exactly what.

Note that with n = 5, (n - 1)! + 1 divides by n2 as well as n. This makes 5 not only prime, but extra special in some way. There are very few primes that have this property.

[The Lone Ranger]

"Poisonous" and "venomous" do not mean the same thing, even though they're often used interchangably. A poisonous plant or animal is one whose body tissues contain toxic substances that will make you sick (or dead) if you eat it, but it has no means of injecting those substances into your body. A venomous animal (or plant -- there are a few) has some sort of specialized means of injecting harmful substances into the body of a victim.

A rattlesnake, for instance, is venomous, but it isn't poisonous. So, you can eat a rattlesnake. A poison-arrow frog is poisonous, but not venomous. So, you can hold one in your hand without worrying, but it would be foolish to try to eat it.



In 1992, a species of poisonous bird was discovered -- the Hooded Pitohui of Papua, New Guinea.

Cheers,

Michael

[livius drusus]

Excellent fun fact, Michael. I did not know that. /:carson:

[The Lone Ranger]

The plural of "fish" if you're talking about one species is "fish." So, if I have two goldfish in a tank and no more fishies, then the tank has "fish" in it.

The plural of "fish" if you're talking about more than one species is "fishes." So, if I have goldfish and tetras in the tank, the tank has "fishes" in it.


My students often look at me strangely when I use the word "fishes"; then I have to explain to them that it is, in fact, the proper word.

Cheers,

Michael

[viscousmemories]

Wait a minute. I didn't know about the poisonous/venomous distinction and that's cool. But you say you can eat a rattlesnake 'cause they're venomous not poisonous? But if they're venomous don't they still have to have poison in them to inject?

[Dingfod]

Rattlesnake is good. Tastes like chicken... well, not really... but sort of... but different.

[livius drusus]

My great grandmother was known for her rattlesnake cooking prowess. There are almost no rattlers left in Connecticut now, but my dad remembers them being all over the place when he was a boy in the 40s.

[Clutch Munny]

Wait a minute. I didn't know about the poisonous/venomous distinction and that's cool. But you say you can eat a rattlesnake 'cause they're venomous not poisonous? But if they're venomous don't they still have to have poison in them to inject?

Presumably a distinction that hinges on assumptions about which bits of the critter are the obvious ones to eat. A venomous but non-poisonous snake might yet be poisonous if you hankered after eating its head raw; a poisonous bird might be perfectly safe if you only wanted to eat its claws.

[ceptimus]

The plural of hoof is hooves (sometimes). But the plural of roof is not rooves.

[viscousmemories]

Presumably a distinction that hinges on assumptions about which bits of the critter are the obvious ones to eat. A venomous but non-poisonous snake might yet be poisonous if you hankered after eating its head raw; a poisonous bird might be perfectly safe if you only wanted to eat its claws.
Ah, good point. For some reason I just pictured a venomous animal having poison running through its body like blood, but dispersed through the fangs. I have no idea why I thought that, though. It makes a lot more sense that it would just be in storage sacks in the head or neck area.

Neck. Hehe.

[The Lone Ranger]

Yep, "poisons" are generally distributed throughout an organism's tissues -- so, of course, the organism is immune to its own toxins.

"Venom" is generally stored in specialized organs, from which it can be injected into a victim through fangs, stingers, whatever. A venomous animal is not necessarily immune to its own venom.


Theoretically, you could drink rattlesnake venom, since it's just enzymes. If you have an open sore in your mouth, that would be a very bad idea, since it'll start destroying tissues once it gets into your blood. But the stomach would treat the venom like it would any other protein and simply digest it.

Cheers,

Michael

[Dragar]

Charge is the source (or sink) for elecric fields. They can come in seperate types - positive and negative.

Magnetic fields have poles - these can be north or south. However, there has never been a north or south pole found on its own; only ever in pairs.

On their own, they would be called magnetic monopoles, and are generally thought not to exist (despite a substantial effort in finding and/or making them). While finding one wouldn't revolutionise physics, it would be neat.

[Ymir's blood]

Medieval theologists said that lycanthropy was impossible as a human soul could not be contained in the body of a beast nor could it leave its own body without dying. Reports of humans changing into beasts and astral projection* were said to be caused by Satanic delusions.

*The term was unknown then.

[The Lone Ranger]

Speaking of snake venom . . .

Snake venom is highly modified saliva. Saliva contains digestive enzymes, which is why a cracker begins to taste sweet after a minute or two if you leave it in your mouth -- the amylase in your saliva breaks down the starch into simple sugars.

Snake venom comes in two varieties, broadly speaking (very broadly speaking). Vipers (such as the adder) and pit vipers (such as copperheads and rattlesnakes) have venom that is primarily hemotoxic. That is, when injected into body tissues, it begins to break them down. So, when a rattlesnake bites a mouse, for instance, by the time the snake swallows the mouse, it is already partially digested. (The destruction of tissues is generally quite painful.)

Snakes in the family Elapidae (cobras and coral snakes, for example) have venom that is primarily neurotoxic. It works by binding to muscle receptors and preventing them from receiving nerve impulses, so they don't contract. So the victim stops breathing. There have been some fairly well-documented reports of cobra-bite victims being kept alive by CPR long-enough for their bodies to metabolize the venom so that they could resume breathing on their own. (Unlike hemotoxic venom, neurotoxic venom often causes little or no pain, so the victim may not realize s/he has been envenomated until it's too late.)

Most snake venom has a mixture of hemotoxic and neurotoxic components. The Mojave Rattlesnake, for example, is notorious for having a relatively large amount of neurotoxins in its venom, so antivenins that normally work well in treating rattlesnake bites tend to be much less effective if you're bitten by a Mojave rattler.



Vipers (including Pit Vipers) have movable fangs. When the snake's mouth is closed, the fangs can be folded up against the roof of the mouth and out of the way. If the snake chooses to strike at an attacker or a prey item, it can contract muscles to erect the fangs. When threatened, vipers will sometimes strike without erecting their fangs -- so no venom is injected. If the attacker persists, the viper can erect its fangs and strike again.

By contrast, the fangs of elapids are immovable and therefore permanently erect. (They also tend to be much shorter than are vipers' fangs, for obvious reasons.)

The Atractaspidae (stiletto snakes) are particularly bizarre in that they have movable fangs that they can stick out of the sides of their mouths -- they can even do this while keeping their mouths closed! They're called "stiletto snakes" because they slash at attackers instead of biting them.


Speaking of "pit vipers," they're called that because they have a pair of heat-sensitive pits near their nostrils. It has been shown that the nerves from the pits lead to the visual center of the brain, so a rattlesnake can literally see a warm-blooded animal's body heat. Rattlesnakes and other pit vipers can hunt warm-blooded prey in total darkness.



Snakes' forked tongues allow them to track prey (or potential mates) extremely accurately. If the "taste" (technically, it's neither taste nor smell that they're using, but vomeroreception) is stronger on the left fork, the snake turns left; if it's stronger on the right fork, it turns right. In this way, a snake can track potential prey with tremendous efficiency; all it has to do is keep turning so that the "taste" is equally strong in both forks as it moves forward, and it can track its hapless victim over just-about any surface.

All in all, snakes are pretty darnded interesting animals.


Cheers,

Michael

[Corona688]

Charge is the source (or sink) for elecric fields. They can come in seperate types - positive and negative. The terms 'positive' and 'negative' were assigned arbitrarily, having been given before the particle responsible for these fields -- the electron -- was discovered. As a result of this, an accumulation of electrons is considered a negative charge and a lack of electrons is considered a positive charge, when it could easily have been vice versa.

[ceptimus]

The E.Coli bacterium has evolved a tiny electric motor which it uses to swim. The motor is attached to flagella which act as a propeller. When the bacterium wants to move it switches on its motor which rotates about 280 revolutions per second.

This is true rotary motion; if larger scale animals had evolved a similar function, we might have wheels for locomotion, rather than legs.

The problems with true rotating joints on large animals is how the rotating part could be supplied with nutrients for growth and repair via the axle bearing, and also how nerve communication could work through the bearing. Bacteria are small enough for this not to be a real problem - on small scales, mere chemical diffusion through and around the bearing is enough to keep the rotating part 'fed'.

[livius drusus]

No wonder those fuckers are so hard to kill when you've got a UTI.

[viscousmemories]

I'll be damned. I finally understand how Roadrunner and Coyote get around.

[The Lone Ranger]

There are more bacteria living in the average person's intestines than there are people living on the planet.

Don't fret, though; you wouldn't be able to digest your food properly if they weren't there.

Cheers,

Michael

[Dragar]

The terms 'positive' and 'negative' were assigned arbitrarily, having been given before the particle responsible for these fields -- the electron -- was discovered. As a result of this, an accumulation of electrons is considered a negative charge and a lack of electrons is considered a positive charge, when it could easily have been vice versa.

Even more entertaining - a flow of negative charge clockwise indicates a positive current running anti-clockwise.

Since all our electricity is based on electrons (negative) the actual movement of charge is the reverse to the current direction!

[maddog]

Look, you guys, I already can't tell time and I have a hard time knowing my right from my left. Stop all this posi-nega-clock-flowing-counterwise stuff right now! :dizzy2: :hypno2:
#224

[ceptimus]

There's nothing moving in this image (except where the image is inside your brain).

http://www.mround.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/munu/images/Image1.gif

[viscousmemories]

That's really cool. :yup:

[livius drusus]

That's super cool. :shrooms:

[viscousmemories]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae
we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

-source (http://home.cogeco.ca/~cipher/cyhome.htm)

[Ensign Steve]

Wow, that's exactly how I type when I'm been drinkin'! :)

[ceptimus]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae
we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

-source (http://home.cogeco.ca/~cipher/cyhome.htm)

Eecxpt taht leertts cnat be mevod bweeetn sbayellls or it gtes hedrar:

Iltnsegnetiry I'm sdutynig tihs crsrootaivnel pnoheenmon at the Dptmnearet of Liuniigctss at Absytrytewh Uivsreitny and my exartrnairdoy doisiervecs waleoetderhlhy cndairotct the picsbeliud fdnngiis rrgdinaeg the rtlvaeie dfuictlify of ialtnstny ttalrisanng sentences. My rsceeerhars deplveeod a cnionevent ctnoiaptorn at hnasoa/tw.nartswdbvweos/utrtek:p./il taht dosnatterems that the hhpsteyios uuiqelny wrtaarns criieltidby if the aoussmpitn that the prreoecandpne of your wrods is not eendetxd is uueniqtolnabse. Aoilegpos for aidnoptg a cdocianorttry vwpiienot but, ttoheliacrley spkeaing, lgitehnneng the words can mnartafucue an iocnuurgons samenttet that is vlrtiauly isbpilechmoenrne.

[Ensign Steve]

That's for damn sure.

[livius drusus]

That one's not so much fun. :bleh:

[Rosencrantz]

The word "salary" comes from the Latin word for "salt," meaning "salt money," the money that Roman soldiers were paid so that they could buy salt.

[livius drusus]

/me smiles
I used to live not far from the Via Salaria.

[xouper]

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer
in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae
we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

-source (http://home.cogeco.ca/~cipher/cyhome.htm)
More "fun facts" about that at this Cambridge University link:
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/personal/matt.davis/Cmabrigde/

and here:
http://www.snopes.com/language/apocryph/cambridge.asp

[viscousmemories]

Cool stuff, ceptimus and xouper. :yup: