Showing posts with label Fact. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fact. Show all posts

Thursday, June 4, 2026

What is the coolest fact you know?

 How awesome it would be to have a library which contains everything ever written or will be written!

Well, surprisingly, such a library already exists! Its known as The Library of Babel!

Library of Babel is an online website built by Jonathan Basile, that currently offers everything which has been or could be written!

You can search for any 3200 character string and you’ll find that it is already present in one of the books in the library!

It is organized into a hexagon shaped room, each with 4 walls, having 5 shelves with each shelf having 32 volumes of books, each containg 410 pages!

The concept itself was taken from a short story, The Library of Babel, by Argentine author and librarian Jorge Luis Borges, which talks about conceiving of a universe in the form of a vast library containing all possible 410-page books of a certain format and character set.

The About page of the website says:

The Library of Babel is a place for scholars to do research, for artists and writers to seek inspiration, for anyone with curiosity or a sense of humor to reflect on the weirdness of existence - in short, it’s just like any other library. If completed, it would contain every possible combination of 1,312,000 characters, including lower case letters, space, comma, and period. Thus, it would contain every book that ever has been written, and every book that ever could be - including every play, every song, every scientific paper, every legal decision, every constitution, every piece of scripture, and so on. At present it contains all possible pages of 3200 characters, about 10^4677 books.

Since I imagine the question will present itself in some visitors’ minds (a certain amount of distrust of the virtual is inevitable) I’ll head off any doubts: any text you find in any location of the library will be in the same place in perpetuity. We do not simply generate and store books as they are requested - in fact, the storage demands would make that impossible. Every possible permutation of letters is accessible at this very moment in one of the library's books, only awaiting its discovery. We encourage those who find strange concatenations among the variations of letters to write about their discoveries in the forum, so future generations may benefit from their research.

When I found out about the website, I thought it was a fluke or someone might be joking around, but still I was curious, so I checked it out.

So, I clicked on Search and typed the following string, “the rain fell upon makemake and realised that it had no atmosphere

It returned me few search results. Each result had a title name, page name and a Location(hex name). When I clicked on the location, It took me to a page having that string!

I further clicked on the location(hex name), and it gave me the exact address of the page containg the string!

To cross check that its not generating this string temporarily, I noted down the Hex name, Wall number, Shelf number, Volume number and page number.

Later I went to the home page and clicked on Browse and entered the hex name and pressed enter. It gave 4 me bookshelfs placed in a hexagonal room

I went to Wall : 1, Shelf : 3 and Volume : 2, and opened the Page number : 327, and Voila! My string was there!

It was amazing! :D

Here’s the link to the page containing my string: fczzxvt327

How it works(taken from this video by Michael Stevens from Vsauce):

Each page is given a unique sequential page number in base-10,

The text on each page is encased inside the number 9431.

An algorithm created by Basile uses the page number as a seed to generate a unique big number(base-10), that output is then converted into base-29 so that it can be represented by every letter in English alphabet as well as the coma, space and full stop. Basile has ensured that the algorithm will produce every possible combination and the same page number will create the same output every time!

Which means that, what is on each page, is already predetermined! So, in a way, every page already exists! It only needs to be looked up.

This library is still under progress and once completed it will contain everything! Every future novel, book, scientific paper, joke etc. This is truly enthrilling in itself whenever I think about it and its really eerie to imagine that, whatever I am saying right now, or whatever I am writing right now, has already been written somewhere before!

Thursday, April 2, 2026

What are some fun fact about the bullet train in Japan?

 Here some fun facts about the about the bullet train in Japan.

You’ll struggle to find bullet train references in Japan. Use the correct word - shinkansen - which means new main line. When in Japan, look out for  shinkansen signage.

On the Joetsu shinkansen line, the 14.8 km Nakayama Tunnel 中山トンネル deviations slow down the train to just 160 km/h. Construction was difficult, with water flooding and a new route inside the mountain was needed. Kanji readers will translate with ease: Nakayama means middle mountain.

On the subject of tunnels, more than half the 553.7 on Sanyo shinkansen is in tunnel - with several over 15 km long. When travelling on this route, make the most of the glimpses of passing Japanese countryside.

As well as full sized shinkansen, there is also the mini-shinkansen. These trains operate both on the dedicated high speed line and on two secondary routes converted converted for shinkansen use. These trains have narrow profile and special retractable steps which are deployed on converted routes.

An eastbound shinkansen train emerges from the 7.9 km Kobe tunnel, to stop at Shin-Kobe station. When the train leaves this station, it will immediately enter the 16.2 km Rokko tunnel. Picture taken by Nicholas Stone, the author of this answer.

Monday, March 23, 2026

What's your #1 obscure animal fact?

  1. Vultures are filthier than you can imagine.
    They urinate on their legs and feet to cool off on hot days — a process called 
    urohydrosis. Their urine also helps kill any bacteria or parasites they’ve picked up from walking through carcasses or perching on dead animals.
  2. Penguins have a gland above their eye that converts salt water into fresh water. How useful would it be if our kind could do that same!
  3. Almost every cartoon illustrations of rabbits you see are wrong. Rabbits don't have those pink pads on their paws. Only fur.
  4. One of the most beautiful of insects is also the most bloodthirsty. Butterflies will devour blood given the option.
  5. Here is a double standard! Roosters deafen themselves temporarily every time they crow so they don’t damage their own hearing.
  6. Bees have five eyes.
    Two are complex like a fly's and three simple eyes like a spider.
    The two main eyes are called compounds because they're made from tons of little subunits called ommatidia. Together, these eyes provide an image for them.
    The three simple eyes are ocelli and function not to provide images, but for day/night cycles, seasons, and to some extent orientation.
  7. Army Ants are also architects! During floods, they will create "balls". The ball will roll on the water as it moves, allowing every ant to get a breath.
  8. Woodpecker tongues wrap around the back of their brains. This helps the brain stay protected during high-speed pecking.
  9. Sloths are literally too lazy to go looking for a mate. A female sloth will often sit in a tree and scream until a male hears her and decides to mate with her.
    There are heights to laziness!

10) This one is my favourite and the scariest.

We started with penguins. We will end with them — as they end themselves.

Penguins are the weirdest animals present. Some of the emperor penguins do this strange thing that even the scientists are stumped.

Once in a while, a penguin will leave its colony and head towards the interior of the continent (Antarctica). It will leave food, water and safety behind.

Possibly to leave Earth forever.

Most scientists believe that the penguin is depressed and is committing suicide. Others point at the possibility of a fungal infection similar to the cordyceps infection, potential signs of brain tumours, or other medical conditions the birds are exposed to.

No autopsies have been performed yet on these rogue creatures.

Until then, we can never unravel this mystery.

Source: Reddit

Monday, March 9, 2026

What are some mind-blowing facts about food?

 1). Eat ice cream for glossy hair. A few scoops can do wonders for your crowning glory due to ice cream's high levels of Vitamin B2.

2). Fried eggs can cure a hangover. They're rich in cysteine, an amino acid which helps purge toxins via the liver.

3). One 100-gram chocolate bar takes approximately 1700 litres of water to make.

4). Potatoes can absorb and reflect Wi-Fi signals because of their water content and chemistry

5). Monk fruit extract is about 300 times sweeter than sugar.

6). Tea bags were created by accident as customers inaccurately started to use tea samples in the same way as infusers.

7). Nibbling nuts can prevent blood clot. Nuts boost nitric oxide, a compound that relaxes blood vessels and eases blood flow.

What is the most disturbing fact about the universe?

 The creepiest part of the Universe is that it's mostly patch black empty space.

If the milky way and andromeda galaxies merge it's unlikely any stars will collide because of staggeringly empty space.

If you still can't comprehend how empty space is, here is an example.

Imagine you are traveling in space and a huge cloud of sand is approaching at high speed. Even if your ship gets hit by one grain of sand, it can severely damage your spaceship.

Except that wouldn't happen because each grain of sand on average is TEN KILOMETERS apart from every other grain of sand.

That much empty the space.

Friday, March 6, 2026

What is the most interesting fact that you know and I don't, but I should?

See this little guy? This is an Irukandji jellyfish. This little guy is no bigger than 1–2 cm around the bell and so fragile that in captivity, it needs to be kept in round tanks with water current running along the border of the tank to keep it from hitting the glass and dying. It’s also pretty transparent which makes it hard to see underwater. Why would you need to see it underwater? Because this little guy is one of the most venomous creatures on the planet. Its venom makes that of cobras and tarantulas sound like cough syrups: 100 times more potent than a cobra and 1,000 times more potent than a tarantula. Its venom is so potent there is a syndrome named after it: Irukandji syndrome

In 1964 Jack Barnes confirmed the cause of the syndrome was a sting from a small box jellyfish: the Irukandji jellyfish. To prove that the jellyfish was the cause of the syndrome, he captured one and deliberately stung himself while his son Nick and a local lifeguard observed the resulting symptoms, before being rushed to the ICU.

On the television program “Super Animal”, a woman compared her experience with Irukandji syndrome to the pain of childbirth.

These venomous creatures send 60 to 100 people to the hospital every year. And they live off the coast of, you guessed it, Australia.

So the next time you go swimming in Australia, don’t look out for salties, look out for these little baddies.

Saturday, February 7, 2026

What is the weirdest geographical fact that you know?

 Manhattan vs. Iceland

More people (about 80,000 more) live south of 14th Street in Manhattan, New York City than in the whole country of Iceland. This part of Manhattan is roughly only 0.0001% the size of Iceland.

(This picture shows the portion of Manhattan south of 14th Street, a street which starts a bit north of the last bridge to the right of the picture, known as the Williamsburg Bridge.)

Is South America truly due south?

All of South America is east of the city of Detroit in the United States.

The real tallest mountain in the world

Most people think that Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain in the world. But that’s just in relation to sea level. If one measures mountains starting from the plain from which they arise, then Mauna Kea (the biggest volcano on the island of Hawaii) takes the cake, rising at a mighty 33,476 feet (10,203 meters) above the sea floor. That’s about 4,000 feet taller than Mt. Everest, which clocks in at 29,028 feet (8,848 meters) from sea level.

Of Dutch and Belgian exclaves and enclaves

The map below shows the mess of exclaves and enclaves that make the border between Belgium and the Netherlands very complicated indeed. This mess is so bad that the border divides businesses and even some houses, with one part officially in the Netherlands and the other side in Belgium.

A true ancient wonder

The oldest river in the world is the Finke River in Australia, which has been dated to a maximum age of 400 million years old. The below shows the river cutting through extremely old rock, which is part of the proof that the river is very ancient.

One small town indeed!

The whole town of Whittier, Alaska, population 214 people, lives inside the large building below to the right. This includes the mayor’s office, all homes, the schools, the post-office, the chapels, the courthouse, the police and fire departments, and even a tiny jail.

Friday, January 16, 2026

What fact completely ruins a movie?

 Typically in movies you see heroes breaking through glass mirrors or windows like this, more so in action flicks.

Only never even try such stunts in real life. Because what you see in movies is a special kind of glass called “Breakaway Glass”, or rather Sugar glass, a brittle transparent form of sugar thaat looks like glass. Though of late sugar glass has given way to a liquid plastic, made from a type of thermoplastic resin poured into silicon moulds to harden.

In real life if you try to break through a glass window, the result is more likely to be like this.

And unless you have some kind of super power, there is every chance of your hands or feet getting cut badly by one of the shards or edges, which also bears the weight of the glass. And you are more likely to land up in a hospital bed. Even worse those heavy shards of glass can act like a guillotine too at times on your neck,

The other scenario is that the glass does not shatter but rather stays cracked, and you decided to force your way through, again you could end up with a whole lot of cuts all over.

The windows you see in real life are made of regular glass that is quite thick, and needs a whole lot of pressure to shatter, even if the glass does not cut you, the impact could cause serious fractures.

Monday, December 22, 2025

What is the most "badass" fact about a celebrity?

 During his time as Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger signed or vetoed numerous laws.

In 2009, Schwarzenegger paid particular attention to a specific bill.

The bill was drafted by National Assembly member Tom Ammiano, who criticized Schwarzenegger and allegedly told him to "fuck my gay ass."

Schwarzenegger invalidated the bill and sent a note explaining why he did so.

Speaking of which, do you know what an acrostic is?

An acrostic is a poem (or other form of writing) in which the first letter (or syllable, or word) of each line (or paragraph, or other recurring element in the text) forms a word, message, or alphabet.

Now, armed with this knowledge, let's take another look at this note. Hasta La Vista, baby.

Schwarzenegger's office subsequently ignored the incident, calling it "a strange coincidence."

But in October 2019, during The Late Late Show with James Corden, Austrian Oak revealed that the message was, in fact, entirely intentional.

Revenge is a dish best served cold. And who better to serve it than Mister Freeze himself? (Translator's note: a reference to Schwarzenegger's role as Mister Freeze in the film "Batman & Robin.")

Friday, November 28, 2025

What is a scary fact about our universe?

 Suppose, scientists are going for a planet explorations:-

  • 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2
  • 1, BOOM
  • Crossing the outer Atmosphere
  • Stage 1 detach.
  • Stage 2 detach.
  • Moving through interstellar space.
  • Reaches the outer Atmosphere of the planet where scientists are going to explore.
  • Lands with a parachute (hard landing).
  • Rover comes out of lander to see what's there.

Images source: Mars mission on Nationalgeographic.com

AND

A living creature comes out of nowhere infront of the rover, which scientist weren't able to see through any telescope or technique from Earth.

What would happen?

We are searching for life on different planets in this universe. There are billions of galaxies in Universe and in those billions, we are living in one Galaxy.

In that Galaxy, we have a solar system in which we are trying to find and searching for life on Mars to live in future.

We have seen Mars from camera and trying to send Humans on Mars in future. Similarly, scientists are exploring other areas of Galaxy to find a suitable planet to live in.

What if, we find a suitable planet and those living creature are much much more advance than us?

What if, they track us down through those signals and instead of searching for life, we end up losing all the remaining?

Yes, it's only a possibility.

BUT

Who knows, what could happen in future anytime soon!