Unusual/Astonishing facts post....

/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #1  

Podunkadunk

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Jan 2, 2007
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1,185
I just read online that 1" of rain on 1 acre of land = 27,154 gallons! :eek:

That amazed me!

Here's the proof:
Rain, a valuable resource

Anyone else got any interesting, out of the ordinary tidbits...?

Oh yeah, please back it up with some documentation, if you can find it.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #2  
The term "2 bits" for a quarter and sometimes in old westerns always interested me.

It comes from the California gold rush days when there was no government, or official currency. The miners had their gold made into a wire, and a "bit" was a certain length of that wire. "2 bits" was just twice the length of "1 bit."

Eddie
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #5  
Challenge someone to fold a tarp in half 12 times. Wager a little something on it if you want to be cruel.

If you could fold a large 30' x 30' blue tarp (the thinnest (6 mil) poly tarp) in half 12 times, the folded tarp would be less than 6" x 6" (that's inches), and it would be about 2 feet thick if all the air were pressed out of it.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #6  
If a tomato which is 2" in diameter weighs 4 oz, how much does a tomato which is 4" in diameter weigh?

Most people are surprised to find that the 4" tomato would weigh two pounds.

These aren't "facts" from the Web. They can be proven mathematically. If anyone's interested, I can provide pretty simple proofs.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #7  
For welders, or anyone else:

Suppose the Earth is a perfect sphere, and you have a steel band wrapped tightly around it. Suppose you cut that band and weld in an additional 32 foot section with your new Miller. If this new band is centered around the earth, how far above the surface would the band be? Could you crawl under it? Could you slide a piece of cardboard under it? Could you slide a 0.001" shim under it?

I'll leave this unanswered for now. But I'm pretty sure several posters here can come up with the correct answer.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #8  
if it's touching on the far side of the earth, Manute Bol could walk under it. (32/pi= 10ft+)
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #9  
If you assume that the circumference of the earth is 24,000 miles, then the diameter increase of your band will be just over 10'.

24000x5280/3.14159=40107079.54 feet. Add 32' to circumference and diameter is 40107089.72.

Difference is 10.19 feet
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #10  
Nah, your numbers are off. The world is actually 6" in diameter, it just looks bigger because we're so close. That means that the circumference in 0.5*Pi or about 1.5'. Add 32 to that and divide by Pi and you get a new diameter of 10.7' or so. That means that adding 32' gives you a little over 10' of diameter increase. Wait a minute... :)

Of course, if you center the band it's about 5' above the Earth on either side, high enough to limbo under but I'd have to duck. At least it would be if we didn't all know that the Earth is really flat and not round...
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #11  
Original diameter doesn't even matter. Whether the earth is an inch in diameter or 8000 miles, a 32' increase in circumference yields a 10.186 ft increase in diameter.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #12  
Too Many People?



If you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of Texas. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800 square feet in Texas, divided by the world population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet per person. The population density of this giant city would be about 21,000 somewhat more than San Francisco and less than the Bronx
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #13  
There used to be something about would you rather have x amount of dollars (I forget how many), or a penny a day, doubled every day, for 64 days (1cent, 2,4,8,16, etc.).
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #14  
BTDT said:
There used to be something about would you rather have x amount of dollars (I forget how many), or a penny a day, doubled every day, for 64 days (1cent, 2,4,8,16, etc.).

Take the penny doubling. Even if only for thirty days, you'd have almost 11 million bucks. For the full 64? 1.8x10^17 dollars. I think that's 180 quadrillion dollars.

That will buy a lot...of countries.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #15  
WVaHillbilly said:
Too Many People?



If you allotted 1250 square feet to each person, all the people in the world would fit into the state of Texas. Try the math yourself: 7,438,152,268,800 square feet in Texas, divided by the world population of 5,860,000,000, equals 1269 square feet per person. The population density of this giant city would be about 21,000 somewhat more than San Francisco and less than the Bronx

Let me know when they all get there. Lots of places in the world I want to see, but I hate standing in line.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #16  
cp1969 said:
Take the penny doubling. Even if only for thirty days, you'd have almost 11 million bucks. For the full 64? 1.8x10^17 dollars. I think that's 180 quadrillion dollars.

That will buy a lot...of countries.

Yes, I think the 64 came from a checkerboard, you were supposed to put a penny on square one, then 2 on the next square, ect. The original offer sounded good compared to what you could get, just a few pennies, until you get to about the middle of the first month.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #17  
[QUOTE='Bota Fan]Let me know when they all get there. Lots of places in the world I want to see, but I hate standing in line.[/QUOTE]

You could always sneak across the border....but hey thats where the biggest line is probably at anyway.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #18  
How about 32 feet all the way around.
 
/ Unusual/Astonishing facts post.... #20  
About the thing with the penny and doubling it. My kids got involved in one of those programs where all you have to do is get two people to buy from you and you'll get rich in no time. I wrote out the penny progression to show them how it worked. If everyone did as they were told, and only got two people in one week, and didn't get anyone else (which by the way, gets you a whole lot more money!!!!!!), in 25 weeks the progression would be more than 33, 000,000 people. Now that's if everyone said yes. If half said no, then double that number of people. WOW, I think I'm catching on now. I must have been crazy not to get in on that gooooooood thing.
 
 
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