What is a fact that blows people's minds every time you tell it?

 The physics behind an Ice-Popsicle not falling off the stick.

A colourful Ice-Popsicle (Ice-Gola in Hindi)

When I eat an Ice-Popsicle (which we call as Ice-Gola in Hindi) with someone and ask the question:
Why does the ice stay still on the stick without just falling off?

Either he/she is confused and doesn’t know the answer or I get the reason “The shredded pieces of ice don’t move because of friction between surrounding ice particles” as an answer.

And then… to blow his/her mind, I tell that the reason behind this is a phenomenon in physics called Regelation.

But hey, I just don’t leave after blowing minds.
I explain the mechanism properly after that.
(To explode minds).
Lol.

Before knowing about the phenomenon, you should know this fact:
When we apply pressure on the ice, its melting point decreases.

• I will explain Regelation with an example:
  
  I take an ice block, which is frozen at the room temperature. Then I apply some pressure on it. We know that the melting point of ice is 0°C.
  This value of melting point decreases for the ice (of the ice block) near the area where the pressure is applied (say -1°C). So, this part of the ice block starts melting.
  
  Now, I remove the pressure. The value of the melting point of ice is restored back to 0°C. So, the ice (which was melted to liquid water due to a decrease in melting point) is frozen back.
  
  We call this phenomenon as Regelation.

Coming to the making of Ice-Popsicle.

The person (who makes it) takes an ice slab and shreds it into fine ice particles using a shredding machine.

Ice-shredding machine

Then he takes the shredded ice and puts it inside a frustum shaped object made of a non-crystalline transparent amorphous solid (i.e. a cup of glass).

After that, he puts a thin stick inside the cup and compresses the ice hard.

Once the shredded ice is compressed for long, all of the tiny ice particles exert pressure on surrounding particles.

To understand what goes on at the microscopic level, consider a pressurized contact between any two ice particles:

When the person compresses the shredded ice, a resultant pressure is created between neighbouring ice particles at the microscopic level.

For the two ice particles, this pressure decreases the melting point of ice present near their surface of contact. So, this part of both ice particles melts and forms liquid water, which is stuck between their surfaces of contact.

On releasing the pressure, this layer of liquid water is frozen back to ice.
As a result, the two ice particles are attached.

Similarly, all of the neighbouring ice particles inside the shredded ice (all around the thin stick) are attached to each other by forming a strong bond.
And finally, the compressed shredded ice becomes a single object, which is attached to a stick.

What is the psychological fact behind movie 'Kartik calling Kartik'?

 In the film Karthik calling Karthik, Farhan Akhtar suffers from schizophrenia and alter ego.

An introvert Karthik holds himself responsible for his brother’s untimely death due to a childhood incident. He fails to understand reality and exhibits abnormal social behaviour. A person with schizophrenia often mixes reality and fiction.

A delusioned Karthik finds it difficult to distinguish between external reality and internal thoughts. His chaotic work environment worsens his situation and he decides to end up his life.

The Alter Ego:

He starts receiving his own voice messages. He would wake up in the night, leave messages for himself and then receive them at a specific time in the morning.

He gives suggestions to himself and there is a good change in his personal life. His alter ego threatens him not to reveal his calls to anyone and if he does, his life will be ruined.

Here the mystery caller is the manifestation of his own alter ego who offer him advices. In one way a secondary alternative personality that exists within Karthik.

Finally with the help of a psychiatrist he stops engaging with his alter ego (the phone) and confronts the reality that he himself is responsible for his own life.

Image(s) Courtesy: Google

What is the most shocking fact?

In the 18th century, it was fashionable for wealthy Europeans to keep their own dwarves. They played music for entertainment and were given as gifts. A small price to pay for entertainment.

Ancient Chinese people practiced foot binding on young girls, which involved bending the toes or curving the feet to make the girls appear smaller and more attractive.

In 1866, Liechtenstein sent 80 men to participate in the Austro-Prussian War. They returned with 81 soldiers, suffered no casualties, and gained one friend.

The ancient Greeks exercised naked. The word "gymnasium" comes from the Greek word meaning "place where one exercises naked."

In 1325, two rival Italian city-states, Bologna and Moderna, went to war over a stolen bucket.

Between 1913 and 1915, it became possible to mail babies using the U.S. postal service.

Ancient Thebes once had an elite army of 150 pairs of homosexual men. They remained undefeated in war for many years.

In the 18th century, pineapples were rented out as a symbol of wealth and power. Some people would rent one for just one night, simply to show it off to partygoers.

The population density of ancient Rome was eight times that of modern-day New York City.

Because diarrhea was very common, and opium consumption caused constipation, people began to use opium habitually in the 19th century.

What is the craziest thing a cricketer has done on the field during a match?

 India vs England, 2014

The first test match between India and England was heading towards a draw with India scoring 385/8 with 3 overs remaining (India saved the match courtesy the tailenders like Bhuvaneshwar Kumar and Mohammad Shami). So nobody was expecting any result and to kill time Cook decide to do bowling something he has rarely done in any form of cricket.

So Cook rather than bowling with a regular bowling action started imitating the bowling action of different Bowlers, particularly imitating Bob Willis, a bowler he had imitated in the county cricket as well. Commentators started guessing which bowler is he going to imitate now. Even tha batsman Ishant Sharma was enjoying the process.

And then suddenly he nicked a ball on the leg side and it was taken by Matt Prior. And jokingly Cook got his first and only Test wicket!! The match ended in a draw with Shami hitting a four off Cook. With this Cook ended his bowling career with one wicket in 3 overs (he had bowled 1 over in 2008) and with an economy rate of 2.33 which is impressive. Wish he had bowled more.

What is the most unbelievable fact?

 It's difficult to choose just one of the most unbelievable facts. Therefore, here are a few:

• The sun shrinks by approximately 1.5 meters every hour.

• If two metals come into contact in space, they will stick together permanently.
• Albert Einstein never wore socks.
• The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
• Adolf Hitler was named Time magazine's "Person of the Year" in 1938.
• All continent names end with the same letter as the first letter.
• There are approximately 200 bodies on Mount Everest.
• The 1996 Webster's Dictionary had over 300 words misspelled.
• The U.S. Navy is the world's second-largest air force. Of course, the largest is the U.S. Air Force.

Where would you never enter?

 

In the deepest cave in the world.

It was discovered in 2018-

It is located in Veryovkina, Georgia.

To enter this cave you have to climb a 2285 meter mountain.

Then from there you enter the cave whose depth is 2212 meters downwards-

Crazy stuff.

Release:

do not share, do not translate

I'm a foreigner and I make mistakes

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!

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.

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

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.