Interesting Facts thread part 2

[Dead kate moss]

Elvis Presley was a huge fan of Monty Python, and would often recite the 'Knights Who Say 'Ni!' bit from Holy Grail.

[ThickAndCreamy]

If completely flattened, the plucky Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan would be the world's biggest country.

Bollocks.

Just the Tibetan province of China has a higher average elevation (over 4500m), compared to Bhutan's 2500m. Also, it's much, much bigger.

[mook]

^ it may well be taller, but it's nowhere near as wrinkly - fractals and all that old son. i'm sticking with nev on this one.

[Absorb the anus burn]

Richard Briers is the second cousin of actor Terry Thomas.... GOOD Show!

[ThickAndCreamy]

^ it may well be taller, but it's nowhere near as wrinkly - fractals and all that old son. i'm sticking with nev on this one.

You always stick with the wrong-un's though, when really you should just stick it up ya arse.

[mook]

^ you're the wrong 'un here lovelumps. nev has never once suggested i should stick a small mountainous country up my fundament.

[steve98]

Imagine the earth was a perfectly round sphere, you strech a piece of string round the equator and it measures a certain length (23,000 miles or summat, doesnt matter)
You then raise the string one metre all the way round while keeping the same tension in the string. How much longer is the string?

Surprisingly only just over 6 metres.

[momatt]

Imagine the earth was a perfectly round sphere, you strech a piece of string round the equator and it measures a certain length (23,000 miles or summat, doesnt matter)
You then raise the string one metre all the way round while keeping the same tension in the string. How much longer is the string?

Surprisingly only just over 6 metres.

I had to check this.  It's right, but on reflection this makes perfect sense.  The increase in circumference is just the increase in diameter multiplied by pi.
Mmmmm, Pi...

[shiftwork2]

If you could construct an evacuated tube right through the centre of the earth then jumped in it (holding your breath of course) you would arrive in Australia 42 minutes later.  An old Physics degree chestnut there that made it on to QI at some point.

[katzenjammer]

So I'm sure if this was QI there'd be a loud siren at this point, but wouldn't you get stuck in the middle because of gravity, or lack of it?

[copylight]

As humans we operate at around 100Hz. If we could be magically downloaded into to a computer we would run at 800 megaHz.

That means that we could be able to operate eight hundred million more things than is currently possible whilst reading this post at 100Hz.

Sauce-> Terence Mckenna.

[mook]

So I'm sure if this was QI there'd be a loud siren at this point, but wouldn't you get stuck in the middle because of gravity, or lack of it?

i think this was broached when that little factoid came up on QI. something about you will accelerate towards the centre of the tube (the tube needn't go through the core of the earth, you could have a tunnel from say london to barcelona.) after the centre you would slow down at the same rate as you accelerated at the beginning, so you'll pop out happy as larry* at speed you started of at at the other end.



*presuming that larry is happy to be squished flat and dead.

[shiftwork2]

wouldn't you get stuck in the middle because of gravity, or lack of it?

Yeah, what he said ^.  Basically the net force on you is proportional to your distance from the centre of the earth so it's just simple harmonic oscillation and all those A level equations work, including the one to get the period of 42 mins.  You're right, there's no net gravitaional force at the centre but by that point you're hooning it at a few km per second so fly right through, then gradually slow down and come to a stop on the surface at the other side.

[MojoJojo]

The really interesting thing is it doesn't matter which two points on the Earth's surface are connected - it will still take 42 minutes[nb]Assuming gravity is the dominant force and you start with near 0 velocity[/nb]. London to Paris - 42 minutes.

Although if you don't go through the middle of the Earth you have to come up with some way to counter the gravity that is pulling you towards the side of the tube. And you have to do it in a way that means you don't lose any energy to friction or other forces.

[katzenjammer]

@shiftwork and mook.  of course.  Duh.  Thanks.

[shiftwork2]

Thinking about it, you'd be doing about Mach 8 at the centre but you wouldn't have broken the sound barrier as you're in a vacuum.  Along with the space one up there, I think we can conclude that vacuums are interesting, and yet Nature abhors 'em.

[Treguard of Dunshelm]

As humans we operate at around 100Hz.

Humans don't have quartz clocks, so that doesn't make any sense. It doesn't even make any sense to say the human brain operates at the equivalent of 100Hz, because 2 different computers having the same clock speed doesn't mean they can execute the same amount of instructions per second, it depends on things like their architecture, memory management etc.

If we could be magically downloaded into to a computer we would run at 800 megaHz.

Why 800MHz? My PC at home's CPU runs at 3.2 GHz, so if I was downloaded into that wouldn't I run at that speed? And anyway, clock rate is a measure of hardware performance, not software, which is what a human consciousness would be.

Sauce-> Terence Mckenna.

Hmmmm.

[small_world]

The through the earth thing:
Wouldn't you reach a maximum speed? Like free fallers do? And that would only happen on the 'deacent'. So you'd act like a bouncing ball, but without the bounce... Wouldn't you?

[MojoJojo]

No, because you are in a vacuum.

I suppose it might be possible to get to relativistic speeds with a really big planet. It's probably a bit harder to work out how long it would take in those circumstances.

[mook]

sorry...  ignore that. i just went and gone and confused myself. this happens alot to me.

[momatt]

So I'm sure if this was QI there'd be a loud siren at this point, but wouldn't you get stuck in the middle because of gravity, or lack of it?

I've got into this arguement so many times.  It's surprising how many people think that gravity doesn't apply in a vacuum.
I think friction with air is the only thing that could stop this from happening.  So a perfect vacuum would work nicely.
This tunnel is definitely worth a shot though.  Come on boffins!

42 (mins) is the answer of life.

As humans we operate at around 100Hz. If we could be magically downloaded into to a computer we would run at 800 megaHz.

Eh?  In what way?  Can't tell if you're joking or not.

[Nik Drou]

Sarah Michelle Gellar is a registered Republican.

[biggytitbo]

Former James Bond Roger Moore really does have 3 nipples, and for the scene where he had to impersonate the 3 nippled villain in The Man with the Golden Gun his real third nipple had to be painted out using a travelling matte and the fake nipple added later in post production.

[biggytitbo]

Despite all the fuss in the news about the CERN scientists finding the Higgs Boson particle, it has in fact been discovered before. Fat dancers the Roly Polys actually founds it in a Fray Bentos pie in 1982 and were going to hand it in to the authorities, but unfortunetly they lost it on the bus on the way there.

[biggytitbo]

The two oldy but goodies are Ernie Wise, who of course invented the mobile phone and Reg Varney, who invented the cash machine.

[biggytitbo]

Ubiquitous hamster cheeked particle physicist Brian Cox is always getting mixed up with ubiquitous ruddy faced Scottish character actor Brian Cox, with the pair often getting each others bookings. One such mix up in 2006 lead to the actor Brian Cox inventing a new type of toroidal linear accelerator and the scientific Brian Cox briefly dazzling director David Fincher with his off the cuff interpretation of celebrity lawyer Melvin Belli in the film Zodiac.

Another incident resulted in the highly respected actor Brian Cox playing keyboards on 'Shoot me with your Love'.

[xxxx xxx x xxx]

The through the earth thing:
Wouldn't you reach a maximum speed? Like free fallers do? And that would only happen on the 'deacent'. So you'd act like a bouncing ball, but without the bounce... Wouldn't you?

And....when you came out of the other end in Australia, would you somehow be standing upright with your feet on the ground, or would you just fly off into the sky below you?  Serious question, I've always had trouble with the whole 'earth is round' thing.

[small_world]

Hmm... I think you are taking the Michael.

I'm talking about terminal velocity though, not the film.
But as pointed out it wouldn't be a problem in a vacuum.
Although i don't see how our hypothetical hole through the centre of the earth would be vacuumed. I know Dyson's are pretty good now, but fucking hell. Eh lasses?

[Nobody Soup]

I've always wondered about that hole through the earth. what I wonder is, if it's like objects that have a mass that have a gravitational pull and stuff, wouldn't that mean the exact centre of the hole wasn't the exact point of the gravitational pull? meaning that when you got near the centre you'd veer off to the side and putrify as you skidded down the side.

oh wait, edit, I suppose you'd have equal gravitational pull around you technically so you wouldn't.

[sirhenry]

I know Dyson's are pretty good now, but fucking hell. Eh lasses?

I thought Dysons were spheres, not tubes.