Groucho's Fact Hunt

[degsy]

Pears don't float...unlike apples

 

[ToffeeDoug]

During WW2, George Orwell was a sergeant in the Home Guard!

 

[Groucho]

The largest star known to exist is UY Scuti, 9,500 light years away. It's 5 billion times the mass of the Sun. To give you an idea;

 

[Bilko]

Pears don't float...unlike apples

oh that's class ,i'm going to buy some this weekend just to try it,wonder why ?

 

[summerisle]

Before the invasion of pumpkins from the Great Satan Halloween used to be celebrated with lanterns made out of hollowed turnips, carved with ugly faces to represent goblins.
These were known as spunkies.

A popular rhyme of the the time went :

It's spunky night, it's spunky night
Gie's a candle, gie's a light
If 'ee don't, 'eell have a fright

Such innocent times

 

[Black Belt Jones]

Hydroelectric power is responsible for less than 1% of total energy-related accidents, but 95% of immediate fatalities.

This massive disparity is partly due to the collapse of the Shimantan Dam in China in 1975, killing 171000 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

 

[Fresh Prince of Belle Val]

I've only just realised about the funny thread title.

 

[bluelife]

Hydroelectric power is responsible for less than 1% of total energy-related accidents, but 95% of immediate fatalities.

This massive disparity is partly due to the collapse of the Shimantan Dam in China in 1975, killing 171000 people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam

I'd never heard about that....what an absolutely massive tragedy

 

[Black Belt Jones]

I'd never heard about that....what an absolutely massive tragedy

Yeah, put's stuff like Chernobyl into perspective - 56 deaths plus a suspected 4000 extra from cancer.
Or the Seveso dioxin explosion - 6 tons of the feared carcinogen released into the atmosphere and fell down like snow for children to play in. Pregnant women were offered abortions by the state.
Deaths - zero, and no statistically significant change in cancer rate in the subsequent years after intensive study.

 

[Titus Bramble]

You could fit every planet in the solar system in between the Earth and the Moon with room to spare.

The official name of the Moon is 'The Moon'.

 

[summerisle]

Isaac Newton invented the catflap, allegedly

 

[WA Toffee]

While almost every other substance gets denser as it gets colder, water reaches peak density at 4 degrees centigrade and will start to expand is it goes below this temperature.

 

[degsy]

oh that's class ,i'm going to buy some this weekend just to try it,wonder why ?

It's either something to do with specific gravity of different fruit sugars or it's coz there's 2 of them

 

[Fresh Prince of Belle Val]

Isaac Newton invented the catflap, allegedly

Isaac Newton had a Pomeranian.

 

[admirschleck]

Perhaps the coolest thread on here. Thank you!