Facts that shocked you

[Catastrophic Poo]

Matt Harper said:

In the USA, 10,000 people attain the age of 65 - every day.

Genuinely surprising given the gun crime.

[Alickadoo]

Wacky Racer said:

GetCarter said:

Only 17,410,742 of 46,500,001 of the entire (entitled to vote) electorate voted to leave the EU, and we still got screwed.

And only 16,141,241 voted to remain.

The rest obviously couldn't care less.

It's called democracy.

Whom do you blame?

Those who voted to leave, or those who didn't vote at all?

[john2443]

Catastrophic Poo said:

Matt Harper said:

In the USA, 10,000 people attain the age of 65 - every day.

Genuinely surprising given the gun crime.

...and the fast food!

[DodgyGeezer]

Alickadoo said:

Wacky Racer said:

GetCarter said:

Only 17,410,742 of 46,500,001 of the entire (entitled to vote) electorate voted to leave the EU, and we still got screwed.

And only 16,141,241 voted to remain.

The rest obviously couldn't care less.

It's called democracy.

Whom do you blame?

Those who voted to leave, or those who didn't vote at all?

Obviously those who voted to leave - those who didn't bother to vote all wanted to stay

[GroundEffect]

Not so much shocked me, but surprised how many people don't understand it:

People don't "float" in low earth orbit because they're too far from earth for gravity to work. It's because they're falling at the same rate as their spacecraft.

Orbital mechanics is a very curious thing.

[ZedLeg]

GroundEffect said:

Not so much shocked me, but surprised how many people don't understand it:

People don't "float" in low earth orbit because they're too far from earth for gravity to work. It's because they're falling at the same rate as their spacecraft.

Orbital mechanics is a very curious thing.

Yeah, and it scales to the whole universe. Everything in space is falling off the edge of the nearest gravity field big enough to hold it.

[otolith]

On the geographical stuff, this is a good one (and makes a point about map distortion too)



Mercator projection vs actual size

[Pitre]

otolith said:

Mercator projection vs actual size

I get the first one (Africa size v rest of the world) but I don't get what the Mercator one is trying to show?

[ajprice]

Super Sonic said:

thegreenhell said:

More people in the UK are killed by cows than by dogs.

Not disagreeing, but aren't they usually mobbed by the cows because they have a dog?
Cows do kill more people than sharks though!

[thegreenhell]

Pitre said:

I get the first one (Africa size v rest of the world) but I don't get what the Mercator one is trying to show?

It's showing the common Mercator projection with all of the countries shrinking to their real relative size rather than being distorted to fit a 2d projection system designed to make Northern hemisphere countries appear bigger than they actually are.

[otolith]

Pitre said:

I get the first one (Africa size v rest of the world) but I don't get what the Mercator one is trying to show?

When you flatten a spheroid into a map, you distort the shape and size of the shapes on it. There is more than one way of doing it (more than one projection), but whichever you choose, it's going to be wrong (because a flat plane is not a curved surface). The Mercator projection squishes stuff nearer the equator.

https://www.geographyrealm.com/types-map-projectio...

[ben5575]

GroundEffect said:

Not so much shocked me, but surprised how many people don't understand it:

People don't "float" in low earth orbit because they're too far from earth for gravity to work. It's because they're falling at the same rate as their spacecraft.

Orbital mechanics is a very curious thing.

When you say falling, do you mean falling? I thought (which means I'm highly likely to be wrong!) that it was because they were constantly accelerating as they were travelling in an orbit (velocity and all that).

At least I knew it wasn't because there was no gravity though, so I can be cut a little bit of slack...

[p1doc]

cuprabob said:

...and only 13 episodes of Mr Benn.

wow-i thought there were loads more than that!

[dandarez]

If you think you're safe staying inside your home, get out now!

According to the OFNS approx 6,000 people 'die' from accidents inside their own homes every year in the UK.

The odd bit about the statistic is that most of these deaths occur in the 'living room'.

[spants]

You can only fold a normal piece of paper 7 times.

[Doofus]

spants said:

You can only fold a normal piece of paper 7 times.

You can only fold a normal piece of paper in half 7 times.

[dandarez]

Alickadoo said:

Wacky Racer said:

GetCarter said:

Only 17,410,742 of 46,500,001 of the entire (entitled to vote) electorate voted to leave the EU, and we still got screwed.

And only 16,141,241 voted to remain.

The rest obviously couldn't care less.

It's called democracy.

Whom do you blame?

Those who voted to leave, or those who didn't vote at all?

Neither. Life's too short. It's for 'living', although far too few seem to realise that these days ...until it's too late!

[spants]

Doofus said:

spants said:

You can only fold a normal piece of paper 7 times.

You can only fold a normal piece of paper in half 7 times.

Yep - missed that important bit out - thnx

[JackJarvis]

Another age one I saw on here which surprised me. When the last episode of The Sweeney was filmed, John Thaw was 36 years old.

[ZedLeg]

ben5575 said:

GroundEffect said:

Not so much shocked me, but surprised how many people don't understand it:

People don't "float" in low earth orbit because they're too far from earth for gravity to work. It's because they're falling at the same rate as their spacecraft.

Orbital mechanics is a very curious thing.

When you say falling, do you mean falling? I thought (which means I'm highly likely to be wrong!) that it was because they were constantly accelerating as they were travelling in an orbit (velocity and all that).

At least I knew it wasn't because there was no gravity though, so I can be cut a little bit of slack...

They aren't constantly accelerating but the horizontal speed is part of the equation. Basically to sit in orbit the object has to be travelling fast enough that the effect of gravity isn't strong enough to actually pull it towards the centre. The object should be going fast enough that it's essentially skipping along the edge of the gravitational force without building up enough energy to actually break out of the field.