15 Counterintuitive Facts to Cook Your Noodle
Daniel Bonfiglio
Published
12/06/2024
in
wow
Humans get tunnel vision sometimes, especially when it comes to concepts outside of our day to day existence.
These 15 facts might sound counterintuitive, but you best believe they're real. (As far as our brains can figure out.) Get ready to have your head noodle cooked!
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1. Half of Earth’s water is older than the Sun.
The Earth is younger than the Sun, but is believed to have gotten half of its water from the cloud of gas that created the Sun. -
2. If you have a room of 23 people, there is a 50% chance that 2 of them have the same birthday.
With 23 people in the room, there are 253 pairs of people to compare. That’s more than half of the 365 days in the year. -
3. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.
The Aztec Empire originated in 1325. The first class at Oxford was in 1095. -
4. "Flammable" and "inflammable" are synonyms.
The English language is confusing. Biannual is twice a year. Biennial is once every two years. -
5. The majority of people have an above average number of legs.
Unfortunately, not everybody has two legs, meaning the average number of legs will always be less than two. -
6. Maine is the closest state to Africa.
The Earth is round you dummies! -
7. Blowing your nose makes the blockage worse.
The vibration inflames your sinuses and causes the restricted air flow. -
8. Slow down to speed up in orbit.
To dock to vessels in orbit, if one vessel is behind the other it needs to "speed up" to catch the first.This is accomplished by slowing the craft down so that it is in a lower orbit, thus going at a faster speed. Slowing an object in orbit makes it go faster. Buzz Aldrin wrote his MIT aeronautics Doctoral thesis on this in 1963. -
9. An average cloud weighs 1.1 million pounds.
Water is heavy, even when it is less dense than air. -
10. Jerry Seinfeld is older than Ruby Bridges.
Seinfeld and Bridges were each born in 1954. -
11. It's safer to skydive than run a marathon.
There are eight deaths per million skydivers, while there are 26 per million marathon runners. Of course, if you’re young and healthy these stats might change. -
12. The bagpipe is not native to Scotland.
The country’s most iconic instrument actually originated in ancient Egypt, before going through various adaptations in ancient Greek and Rome. -
13. Australia is wider than the Moon.
Australia is 4000 km wide, while the Moon's diameter is 3,475 km. Also, people in Australia, (and in the Southern Hemisphere), see the Moon upside down compared to those in the US and Europe. -
14. Hitler, Stalin, Trotsky, Tito, Freud, and Archduke Franz Ferdinand were all living in Vienna in the summer of 1913.
I guess that was the place to be. -
15. The Monty Hall Problem
One of the most confusing logic thought experiments goes like this. Say on a game show there are three doors, two with goats behind them, and one with a new car. The host asks you to pick a door. After you pick, he opens up one of the two remaining doors, revealing a goat. He then asks if you want to switch your guess to the last remaining door, or go with your original guess.
Shockingly, choosing the last door gives you ⅔ odds of winning the car, while sticking keeps you at your original ⅓ chance.
Essentially, “choosing” door one actually means choosing both doors two and three, as you’ll know for sure between the two which is eliminated. Thus, the ⅔.
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