Fun Friday Fact - hope you respond weekly to give us all a smile

[Heather Shay]

 

No number from 1 to 999 includes the letter "a" in its word form.

Unless you live in the United Kingdom where it's proper to write 101 as "one hundred and one," there is no number from 1 to 999 that includes the letter "a" in its word form, according to longtime math teacher Jonathan Garnett-Smith. One, two, three, four, five, six… twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty… You can keep going, but you won't find the first letter of the alphabet until you hit "one thousand."

 

Many oranges are actually green.

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While we assume that all oranges are orange in color because of their name, the fruit is often green when ripe, thanks to plenty of chlorophyll. In South America and other tropical locales, oranges are green year round. But in the U.S., where it's colder, oranges lose their chlorophyll and take on the color that matches their name. And because North American shoppers are used to oranges that are actually orange, imported fruit is either exposed to ethylene gas or shocked with cold water in order to remove the chlorophyll.

[Delcina B]

One and one quarter, one & one half, one & three quarters, ... Just saying

 

The orange tidbit is neat.

 

Thanks Heather!

[Heather Shay]

I think they are referring to whole numbers - I guess they weren't specific enough. Good catch.

[Delcina B]

Integer will work, I've been blessed to be able to homeschool two granddaughters. I have to refresh on things I learned years ago. 

[Heather Shay]

The longest musical performance in history is currently taking place in the church of St. Burchardi in Halberstadt, Germany. The performance of John Cage's "Organ²/ASLSP (As Slow As Possible)" started on Sept. 5, 2001, and is set to finish in 2640. The last time the note changed was October 2013; the next change isn't due until 2020.

[Hannah Renee]

There are four numbers in the English language which have homonyms, with each succeeding number being double the previous. 1, 2, 4, and 8.

[miz miranda]

Another fact, In the English language 1000 is the first number to have an 'a' in its spelling

[Davie]

5 hours ago, miz miranda said:

Another fact, In the English language 1000 is the first number to have an 'a' in its spelling

Except for "alot."

[Delcina B]

Cute @Davie! This was part of last week's FFF. I suppose fractional numbers should be excluded too. Integer might be the better word choice.

 

Hugs!

Delcina

[miz miranda]

@DavieI could have included many, bazillion, gazillion, boatloads etc but didn't

 

@Delcina BI suppose the example you're thinking of is one quarter, but being a extreme math nerd that would be a ratio not  number. One quarter = 1/4 = 16/64, ... = 25%

[Delcina B]

Thanks @miz miranda! You win, definitely no math titles held by this girl.

 

Hugs!

Delcina

[Heather Shay]

 

London cabbies have to memorize literally everything.

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If you take a taxicab in London, you can expect the driver to know exactly where they are going, since they are required to take a series of tests known as The Knowledge. These require them to study 320 routes and 25,000 streets, not to mention 20,000 landmarks and places of public interest—estimated to take as long as four years to fully complete.

[miz miranda]

I'll stay on the transport theme

There are 61,000 people in the air over the U.S. at any given time on any given day. T

There’s a lot to explore when heading to Russia. Incredibly, the country is bigger than Pluto.

Introvert personalities are more likely to pick mountainous locations for a holiday, while extroverts prefer the beach.

 

Kiribati is the only country in the world to fall into all four hemispheres, straddling the equator and extending into the eastern and western hemispheres.

 

Apologies for embedded links, they may not work correctly

[Hannah Renee]

7 minutes ago, miz miranda said:

I'll stay on the transport theme

There are 61,000 people in the air over the U.S. at any given time on any given day. T

There’s a lot to explore when heading to Russia. Incredibly, the country is bigger than Pluto.

Introvert personalities are more likely to pick mountainous locations for a holiday, while extroverts prefer the beach.

 

Kiribati is the only country in the world to fall into all four hemispheres, straddling the equator and extending into the eastern and western hemispheres.

 

Apologies for embedded links, they may not work correctly

I have to be honest, 61,000 seems small, although I suppose if it is averaged out over 24 hours.

 

I love the mountains. Beaches, meh! Yes, I am unquestionably an introvert.

[Heather Shay]

Dinosaurs would swallow large rocks which stayed in their stomach to help churn and digest food.

[Jackie C.]

56 minutes ago, Heather Shay said:

Dinosaurs would swallow large rocks which stayed in their stomach to help churn and digest food.

 

Giant Lizard gizzards!

 

Hugs!

[miz miranda]

Rocks that are swallowed by animals are called Gastroliths. In addition to dinosaurs, some living creatures swallow rocks; including

 

- Ostriches

- Chickens

- Crocodiles

- Shipworm Clam actually eats and digests limestone

[Delcina B]

On 5/20/2022 at 8:45 AM, Heather Shay said:

Dinosaurs would swallow large rocks which stayed in their stomach to help churn and digest food.

So was this the first blender? 

[Heather Shay]

Cookie Monster's real name is Sid.

[miz miranda]

Some odd facts

 

 

The human brain, which is the core of the central nervous system and a miraculous creation of nature, can process as many as 70,000 thoughts in a day! When I can't sleep it seems like that many a minute

 

 

On an average, a person accidentally eats about 430 bugs in each year of his/her life. Weird. Isn’t it?

 

Science has revealed that a tropical cyclone releases heat energy at the rate of 50 to 200 exajoules per day. This rate of the release of energy comes to about 200 times the world’s capacity of generating electrical energy. This rate of energy release is equivalent to that released during an explosion of a 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes!

 

Polar bears can run about 25 miles an hour and jump to about 6 feet in air. Polar bear fur consists of a layer of thick under-fur covered by an outer layer of guard hair. The guard hair appear in shades of white to tan but are actually transparent. The transparent fur makes the polar bears almost invisible under infrared photography!

 

The blood vessels, which form a vital part of the circulatory system in human beings, are responsible for enabling the transport of blood throughout the body. If blood vessels were made to lay end to end, together they would encircle the Earth twice, by stretching up to a distance of about 100,000 kilometers.

[Marcie Jensen]

Interesting about polar bears. Another thing about them is that they are one of the few animals that actively hunt humans and regard them as prey. I had a crazy uncle who lived in Alaska back in the '60s and '70s t had a crazy uncle who  hunted them with a bow. On foot. On the ice. He never found one, and TBH I think the bears took pity on him and stayed away.

facts about bears in general. Skeletally they are the mammal whose skeleton is most like a human's. And, if one hunts them for meat you can't eat their liver as it is poisonous to humans. (Don't know where I learned that, but it's kinda interesting.) 

Two other 

[Heather Shay]

 Music Helps Plants Grow Faster. According to a study by scientists from South Korea, plants grow at a faster pace when they are played classical music. Using 14 different pieces of music, the scientists played music to a rice field and studied the results.  Findings were that the music helped the crops grow and even suggested evidence that plants could “hear”.  We suggest practicing your instrument in your veggie garden!

 

The World’s Longest Running Performance Will End in the 27th Century. A 639-year performance based on eccentric composer John Cage’s “As Slow as Possible” (ASLSP) started in September 2001 and is still playing at St. Buchard Church in Germany. The performance by an automated organ plays so slowly that visitors have to wait months for a chord change, and is scheduled to end in 2640. The performance is so slow that the organ it’s played on was not even completed before the concert began. Additional pipes were added before the notes and chords changed. A generation of musicians will need to keep the organ going!

[Davie]

Fun facts: Largest and second largest plants:  
1. Posidonia australis, also known as the ribbon weed lives along the southern coast of Australia grew from one seed. It covers about 77 sq miles or three times the size of Manhattan.
2. The "humongous fungus" is a colony of fungal clones that stretch over 3.73 square miles under the forests of Alaska.  
3. Both are too large to eat in one sitting—I know—I tried it once. Not even with ketchup, man. Being vegan is hard!

[miz miranda]

Some additional music facts

 

The longest song title ever is Hoagy Carmichael’s 1943 “I'm a Cranky Old Yank in a Clanky Old Tank on the Streets of Yokohama with my Honolulu Mama Doin' Those Beat-o, Beat-o Flat-On-My-Seat-o, Hirohito Blues.”

 

There are more people in Monaco’s orchestra than in its army.

 

Not a single member of the Beatles could read or write music.

 

Leo Fender, the founder of the iconic electric guitar and bass brand and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, never learned to play either instrument.

 

The first (and only) band to play on all seven continents is Metallica.

 

Music, along with painting, poetry, literature and architecture, was Olympic event from 1912 until 1948.

 

When you listen to music, the brain releases the same feel-good hormone (dopamine) it does during sex and eating.

 

Mozart sold more CDs than Beyoncé in 2016.

 

A 2001 study found that cows produce more milk when listening to relaxing moo-sic (sorry, we couldn’t resist!).

Me either

 

 

 

[Davie]

32 minutes ago, miz miranda said:

Music, along with painting, poetry, literature and architecture, was Olympic event from 1912 until 1948.

What? How did such a great idea die so easily? Post-war cultural PTSD, perhaps?

—Davie