11 Random and Crazy Facts About Everything

In Strasbourg, about 400 people danced so hard that they died from it.

The Dancing Plague (or Dance Epidemic) of 1518 was a case of dancing mania that occurred in Strasbourg, France (then part of the Holy Roman Empire) in July 1518. Numerous people took to dancing for days without rest, and, over the period of about one month, some of the people died from heart attack, stroke, or exhaustion. (link)

A can of Diet Coke floats, while a can of regular Coke sinks.

 Many science teachers perform a demonstration in which they immerse sealed cans of Coke and Diet Coke in a tank of water. The can of Coke immediately sinks, while the can of Diet Coke floats.
Both the Diet Coke and Coke cans contain 12 fluid oz of liquid. Both beverages consist primarily of water. The primary difference lies in the sweetener. In regular coke, more sugar is used as a sweetener also makes it more dense than water and the more dense the substance, it is the more likely to sink. (link)

Gorgias of Epirus was born during his mother’s funeral

 Gorgias of Epirus (3rd century BC), a Greek sophist, was born in his dead mother’s coffin! Pallbearers heard him crying out as they carried his mother’s coffin to the grave. (link)

NASA put a man on the moon with less computer memory than you use when taking a picture on your iPhone

The statement is true – however it needs qualification. The programs used for Apollo mission navigation were “machine code” a very efficient form of computer programming that requires a
lot less memory space to run. The presentation to the astronauts was also straight “text only”, no graphics. The graphical elements on modern systems are the biggest user of computer space. 

 

 

 

 

Removing Scotch Tape emits X-rays

It turns out that if you peel the popular adhesive tape off its roll in a vacuum chamber, it emits X-rays. The researchers even made an X-ray image of one of their fingers.

Who knew? Actually, more than 50 years ago, some Russian scientists reported evidence of X-rays from peeling sticky tape off glass. But the new work demonstrates that you can get a lot of X-rays, a study co-author says.

“We were very surprised,” said Juan Escobar. “The power you could get from just peeling tape was enormous.” “If you’re going to peel tape in a vacuum, you should be extra careful,” he said. But “I will continue to use Scotch tape during my daily life, and I think it’s safe to do it in your office. No guarantees.” (link)

Saddam Hussein wrote romance novels

 Saddam Hussein, the late President of Iraq, wrote four novels, and a number of poems. All of his works were published under the pen-name ‘the author’. (link)

Bruce Lee was so fast that they had to slow the film down so you could see his moves

Technology of cameras wasn’t as good as today with high definition and high speed cameras. When you watch his movies look at how perfect his form is and you can tell he is really pulling his punches by lowering his speed.

There are more possible moves in a game of chess, than grains of sand in the world

There are 400 different positions after each player makes one move apiece. There are 72,084 positions after two moves apiece. There are 9+ million positions after three moves apiece. There are 288+ billion different possible positions after four moves apiece. It goes on, by 40 moves each we won’t be surprised if there were more than the atoms in 20 universes.

If a man with normal vision and a color-blind woman have children, the daughters will have normal vision and the sons will be color-blind.

 Red-green color blindness appears to be the most common form of color blindness among people. This is a genetically passed mutation that is generally linked to sex, as it affects men more often than women. The reason why men are more prone to this type of color blindness is because it is transmitted via the X chromosome. (link)

A monk lived for 39 years on a small platform on top of a pillar

Saint Simeon Stylites or Symeon the Stylite was a Christian ascetic saint who achieved fame because he lived for 39 years on a small platform on top of a pillar near Aleppo in Syria.

In order to get away from the ever increasing number of people who frequently came to him for prayers and advice, leaving him little if any time for his private austerities, Simeon discovered a pillar which had survived amongst ruins, formed a small platform at the top, and upon this determined to live out his life. It has been stated that, as he seemed to be unable to avoid escaping the world horizontally, he may have thought it an attempt to try to escape it vertically. For sustenance small boys from the village would climb up the pillar and pass him small parcels of flat bread and goats’ milk. (link)

The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in Sweden.

 The world’s oldest recorded tree is a 9,550 year old spruce in the Dalarna province of Sweden. The spruce tree has shown to be a tenacious survivor that has endured by growing between erect trees and smaller bushes in pace with the dramatic climate changes over time.

In the Swedish mountains, from Lapland in the North to Dalarna in the South, scientists have found a cluster of around 20 spruces that are over 8,000 years old. (link)