The Utterly, Completely, and Totally Useless Science Fact-o-pedia: A Startling Collection of Scientific Trivia You’ll Never Need to Know. Steve Kanaras
go from an infinitely dense point to its ever-expanding astronomical grandeur.
• The first galaxies were created about 500 million years after the Big Bang.
• Our solar system was created about eight billion years after the Big Bang.
• The basic ideas of the Big Bang Theory were first published by Belgian priest and astrophysicist, Monsignor Georges Henri Joseph Édouard Lemaìtre, although these ideas are often inaccurately credited to Edwin Hubble.
• The term “Big Bang Theory” was originally coined by Sir Fred Hoyle as a contrast to his own theory of a steady-state universe.
• The original cause of the Big Bang still eludes scientists.
Black Holes
• Albert Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity predicted that:
• When a massive star dies, it leaves behind a small, dense remnant core.
• According to his equation, if the core’s mass is more than about three times the mass of the Sun, the force of gravity overwhelms all other forces, producing a black hole. He was correct!
• Most black holes form from the remnants of a large star that dies in a supernova explosion.
• As the surface of the star nears an imaginary surface called the “event horizon,” Time on the star slows relative to the time kept by observers far away.
• While a star is in the process of collapsing (under the overwhelming influence of gravity), two very cool things happen, from the perspective of an observer from a distance:
• The passage of Time on the surface of the star will appear to be moving in slow motion as it approaches the “event horizon”.
• Then, once the star’s surface reaches the “event horizon,” Time will appear to totally stand still (no movement, nothing; just frozen).
• However, from the perspective of the star, it just keeps collapsing!
• It’s all relative!
• A Princeton physicist named John Wheeler didn’t coin the term “black hole” until 1967.
• Just for the record—and as predicted by Einstein—smaller stars don’t become black holes. Instead, they become dense neutron stars, which aren’t massive enough to trap light.
Blood
• Blood is formed in your bone marrow, which is the soft, spongy center of your bones.
• Blood is actually one of your connective tissues; it’s a liquid tissue and the only liquid tissue in your body.
• Blood makes up around 7% of the weight of the human body.
• Blood cells circulate in the human body for about 120 days.
• Blood helps your body regulate body temperature. It does this by redistributing heat to skin to facilitate cooling via the evaporation process.
• While blood in the arteries is bright red, blood in the veins is more of a dark maroon shade because it carries impurities back to the kidneys and liver for disposal.
• When looking at our skin, the blood looks bluish because of light refraction and other factors but blood really is a reddish color. And just for the record, our veins are actually white!
Brain
• The average adult human brain weighs about 3 pounds (1.4 kg). For comparison, a whale brain weighs 8 to 15 pounds (3.6 to 6.8 kg); an elephant brain weighs 8 to 11 pounds (3.6 to 5 kg); a chimp brain weighs about 0.75 pounds (0.35 kg); and a dolphin brain weighs about the same as a human brain, about 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg).
• Although it makes up just 2% of the body’s weight, the brain uses around 20% of its energy.
• Albert Einstein’s brain weighed only 2 pounds (0.9 kg)—less than the average adult brain. Einstein’s brain had significantly more neurons—a.k.a. brain cells—packed into those 2 pounds!
• The right side of the human brain thinks in pictures and is “present” focused, meaning it’s focused on what’s going on right here and right now. The left side of the brain—which thinks in language—processes linearly and methodically and is focused on the past and the future.
• Exclusive to Homo sapiens, one of the many responsibilities of the prefrontal cortex of the brain—located just behind the forehead—is to function like an experience simulator. Yes, this amazing region of the brain is what allows us to imagine things without having to actually do the thing. For example, we don’t have to taste the combination of fish, onion, butterscotch, and ice cream to know it will be disgusting; we don’t have to drive off a cliff to know that doing so is very bad idea.
Brasswinds
(Far from “Bore-ing”)
• Ever wonder why a trumpet and a trombone have very clear, straight tones, while French horns have a rounder, mellower sound? It’s because of a construction concept called “bore.”
• Much like a rifle bore, a brass instrument’s bore describes the inner diameter of a tube.
• Trumpets and trombones are “cylindrical bore,” meaning that aside from the mouthpiece and the flare of the bell, their bore stays the same diameter for the length of the instrument.
• Horns, on the other hand, have “conical” bores, meaning the tube increases in diameter throughout its length, resulting in the warmer, rounder sound.
• Thus, a trombone can have that very cool slide, which would be physically impossible for a conical bore instrument! For a slide to work, the tube has to be a constant diameter.
Buckyballs
• Buckyballs are spherical molecules of pure carbon with the chemical formula C60 (the “C” standing for carbon). They resemble a tournament soccer ball with 20 hexagon and 12 pentagon faces.
• The proper name for C60 is Buckminsterfullerene, so named because it looks like the geodesic dome structure made famous by the American architect R. Buckminster Fuller.
• Buckyballs are the third naturally occurring form of pure carbon after graphite and diamond.
• Buckminsterfullerene was named the 1991 Molecule of the Year by Science magazine.
• Specially modified buckyballs have wide applications in the fields of electronics (superconductivity), medicine (drug delivery and medical imaging), chemistry (catalyst), and renewable energy (hydrogen storage in fuel cells).
Butterflies and Moths
• Butterflies and moths are both of the order Lepidoptera. Butterflies and moths are holometabolous, meaning that they undergo a complete metamorphosis from egg to caterpillar and from chrysalis to adult.
• There are far less species of butterflies than moths. Butterflies and skippers (a skipper is a type of butterfly that has hooked-shaped antennae) make up 6–11% of Lepidoptera order, while moths make up 89–94%.
• The largest and rarest butterfly in the world is the Queen Alexandra Birdwing (Ornithoptera alexandrae). From the rain forests of Papua New Guinea, it has a wingspan of 11 inches (28 cm).
• The smallest known butterflies are the blues (Lycaenidae), which are found in North America and Africa. They have wingspans from ¼ to ½ inches (6 to 13 mm). The largest known moths are the Atlas moths (Saturniidae) with wingspans as large as 12 inches (30.5 cm).
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