Quirky Science Facts!

[Overdog]

Speaking of Eunuchs...I just came across this quirky factoid...

"Gang Bing" was Patron Saint of Eunuchs in China, who castrated himself to demonstrate his loyalty to emperor Yongle.

How'd he get a name like that?
Eunuch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Michaelangelica]

# Scuba diving,
the use of a self-contained breathing apparatus.

Although I thought it was originally French? (Cousteau etc)??

[DougF]

you forgot the U= underwater
self-contained underwater breathing apparatus

The term SCUBA arose during World War II and originally referred to United States combat frogmen's oxygen rebreathers, developed by Dr. Christian Lambertsen for underwater warfare.[2][3][4] Today, scuba typically refers to the in-line open-circuit equipment, developed by Emile Gagnan and Jacques-Yves Cousteau, in which compressed gas (usually air) is inhaled from a tank and then exhaled into the water. However, rebreathers (both semi-closed circuit and closed circuit) are also self-contained systems (as opposed to surface-supplied systems) and are therefore classified as scuba.

Although the SCUBA is an acronym for "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus", usage is mainly as a normal word "scuba", it has become acceptable to refer to scuba as "scuba equipment" or "scuba apparatus"

Scuba diving - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Moontanman]

You have

LIES, DAMN LIES and PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY!

New Laser Weapon

US boasts of laser weapon's 'plausible deniability' - tech - 12 August 2008 - New Scientist Tech

[Moontanman]

Originally Posted by Overdog

Speaking of Eunuchs...I just came across this quirky factoid...

"Gang Bing" was Patron Saint of Eunuchs in China, who castrated himself to demonstrate his loyalty to emperor Yongle.

How'd he get a name like that?
Eunuch - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Maybe his name was Gang Bang originally and then he changed it after the big demonstration!

[Donk]

Originally Posted by Mercedes Benzene

Fact: No matter its size or thickness, no piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.

Does anyone know the science behind this?

Many years ago I was working with punched paper tape, which came in reels about an inch wide and a foot across. I thought about the folding-paper problem and wondered how it would work on a very long thin strip, all folds going the same way.

The reel contains about 125 metres (= 125000mm) of paper. How hard could it be to fold it and keep on folding?

A quick bit of measurement showed that the tape was about .2mm thick. It goes like this

              layers       length     thickness        side
fold 1	          2       62,500.0        0.4            0.0
fold 2           4       31,249.6        0.8            0.4
fold 3           8       15,623.6        1.6            1.2
fold 4          16        7,809.0        3.2            2.8
fold 5          32        3,898.5        6.4            6.0
fold 6          64        1,936.9       12.8           12.4
fold 7         128          943.2       25.6           25.2
fold 8         256          420.8       51.2           50.8
fold 9         512          108.4      102.4          102.0

At each stage you have to allow for the fact that some of the length is going up the side. A minor factor at the start, but becoming increasingly important after a few folds. The ninth fold leaves a block 108.4mm long x 102.4mm thick - almost square, and impossible to fold again. To get to 10 folds you have to multiply the original length by 4, then by 4 again for 11, and so on. 1000km gets you to 15 folds. A half million kilometres would just about get you to 20.

Doing it again with cigarette paper, about a tenth the thickness of normal paper:

              layers       length     thickness        side
fold 1	          2       62,500.0        0.0            0.0
fold 2           4       31,250.0        0.1            0.0
fold 3           8       15,624.9        0.2            0.1
fold 4          16        7,812.2        0.3            0.3
fold 5          32        3,905.5        0.6            0.6
fold 6          64        1,951.5        1.3            1.2
fold 7         128          973.2        2.6            2.5
fold 8         256          481.5        5.1            5.1
fold 9         512          230.6       10.2           10.2
fold 10      1,024           94.8       20.5           20.4
fold 11      2,048            6.5       41.0           40.9

You get to 11 folds, but the last one looks kinda chunky! 1000km gets to 17 folds. 20 would need about 80,000km of tape.

Gold leaf is very thin - about 1/2000 the thickness of ordinary paper. You only need about 300 kilometres of it to get to 20 folds.

I did all this with pen and paper. Excel? Give me a break - this was in the dark ages before even Visicalc!

I showed off my brilliant calculations to a co-worker, telling him it proved that you can't fold a sheet or a strip of paper 12 times. He put 12 folds in a strip of tape, zigzag fashion, and handed it to me with a grin on his face. The moral of this story: when describing a problem, Clarity and Precision are all-important.

[Donk]

Octopuses have two legs and six arms
A study by scientists at Sea Life centres across Europe found that the invertebrates move across the sea bed using their two rearmost limbs, leaving the other six free for the important business of feeding.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by Donk

Octopuses have two legs and six arms
A study by scientists at Sea Life centres across Europe found that the invertebrates move across the sea bed using their two rearmost limbs, leaving the other six free for the important business of feeding.

And other important business
Octopuses have two penesis (boys) two vaginas (girls)

All knuckle-dragging comments gratefully received.

[Boerseun]

System meltdowns happened - no joke!

Undefined Behavior Causes CPU Meltdown in IBM PC's!

The suggestion of undefined software behavior causing CPU meltdown isn't as farfetched as it first appears.
The original IBM PC monitor operated at a horizontal scan rate provided by the video controller chip. The flyback transformer (the gadget that produces the high voltage needed to accelerate the electrons to light up the phosphors on the monitor) relied on this being a reasonable frequency. However, it was possible, in software, to set the video chip scan rate
to zero, thus feeding a constant voltage into the primary side of the transformer. It then acted as a resistor, and dissipated its power as heat rather than transforming it up onto the screen. This burned the monitor out in seconds.

Voilà: undefined software behavior causes system meltdown!