What amazing fact can you tell?

There are no bridges over the Amazon river.

Wiki says no, sorry munch.

Most men have longer ring finger than index finger. Women have it the other way around.

This is a genetic disposition.

The shortest gramatically correct (albeit slightly meaningless) sentence to contain all the letters of the alphabet in English is:

"Jackdaws love my big sphinx of quartz"

Which repeats 'a' (twice) and 'i' and 'o' once each.

By comparison,
"The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog"
wastes a whole nine extra letters

This is something I hadn't realised and I'm curious whether there are any others who didn't know this:

When a spaceship leaves Earth to go into space, they require continual fuel so they can orbit the Earth. They don't just break away from the atmosphere and orbit due to lack of friction, they are actually always falling because the ship is thrusting (!) around the planet.

So 'weightlessness' isn't a static thing, it is just the spaceship ensuring that the astronauts are always falling as it always tries to maintain orbit....

Jon

mmmmmmmm...

What about all those satellites that are still up there after all these years - they'd have run out of fuel ages ago wouldn't they? If they needed thrust to maintain orbit they would have crashed back to earth by now.

The satellites are moving at a speed where they are constantly falling round the earths curvature/relative to it's gravational pull. Any slower it will fall back down , any faster and it will be gone. I would think once they get the ship up to speed they would shut down all main thrusts as there would be no resistance slowing it - therefore constantly falling. I could be wrong but i think it's called - escape velocity.

Steve

Around 5 miles a second.
I suppose if you threw a stone and it travelled at 5 miles a second without burning up from resistance it would never land, compensating for the earths curvature!

Regards, Steve

Tall people earn more money

quote:

Originally posted by Jason Damon:
Tall people earn more money

Mexican lemons improve road safety immensely:



Alternatively, correlation does not imply causation.

'Dissection' is not pronounced as 'Die section' but rather as 'Diss Section' (rhymes with 'hiss'.)

Stephen Fry on Radio 4 didn't know that.

You do now. Get it right from now on.

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by Asp:
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.

In 2009 this would probably have been awarded a GCSE A* in English!

You can prick your finger.
You can not finger your prick.

I seem to remember being able to prick a boil, but not the converse.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Jason Damon:
Tall people earn more money


Mexican lemons improve road safety immensely:



Alternatively, correlation does not imply causation.

This is the same as saying there is a positive correlation between number of icecreams bought and shark attacks!!

Surely similar and not ... the same?

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:
'Dissection' is not pronounced as 'Die section' but rather as 'Diss Section' (rhymes with 'hiss'.)

Stephen Fry on Radio 4 didn't know that.

You do now. Get it right from now on.

Stephen

I prefer dat section over there.

quote:

Originally posted by Consciousmess:

This is the same as saying there is a positive correlation between number of icecreams bought and shark attacks!!

Is it?!

I'd argue that, much like my proven example of Mexican lemons and road traffic accidents, there is a negative (inverse) correlation between ice cream sales and shark attacks, allowing us to conclude that the ice creams protect people from attack by shark. The hypothesis is that since people don't swim while they are eating ice cream, then the ice cream has prevented them from entering the environment where shark attacks occur.

Another amazing fact: extensive research undertaken in Saxony, Germany, over a fifteen year period, has shown that there is a positive correlation between the local stork population and the number of out-of-hospital births.

Draw your own conclusions.

How many feet have you got? Feet in the senset that you walk on them, not measurement.

If your answer is two, you have above the average number of feet.

quote:

Originally posted by Consciousmess:
How many feet have you got? Feet in the senset that you walk on them, not measurement.

If your answer is two, you have above the average number of feet.

Surely not as there are many more four, six, and eight footed creatures on the earth than two footed humans ...

ATB from George

The learning pyramid is a model that has been published in pedagogical literature for several decennia.
It’s a myth. There is no evidence of it being based on research.

quote:

quote:
Originally posted by Consciousmess:
How many feet have you got? Feet in the senset that you walk on them, not measurement.

If your answer is two, you have above the average number of feet.

Surely not as there are many more four, six, and eight footed creatures on the earth than two footed humans ...

ATB from George

Sorry about that, George, what I meant is if you have two feet (which you walk on) you have an above average number of feet for humans.

The MODE number of feet is two, but the MEAN will be something like 1.99999912376588631265 (give or take a little).

Regards,

Jon

PS It's like saying the mean number of children per household is 1.9.

PPS It's also like saying the MEAN income in the UK is £24000, but most people earn less.

Dear Jon,

I was teasing you a little!

ATB from George

quote:

Another amazing fact: extensive research undertaken in Saxony, Germany, over a fifteen year period, has shown that there is a positive correlation between the local stork population and the number of out-of-hospital births.

I think that is an example of a 'confounder'. Storks favour the chimneys of new-build properties for their nests. Young (thus fertile) people favour new-build properties also. Hence the correlation.

Fraser