According to relativity theory, a transatlantic concorde flight leaves you two millionths of a second younger than your earthbound pals
Lightening can strike the earth with a force as great as 100 million volts.
Music was sent down
a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.
Sound travels
through water 3 times faster than through air.
A square piece of
dry paper cannot be folded in half more than 7 times.
Air becomes liquid
at about minus 190 degrees Celsius.
Liquid air looks
like water with a bluish tint.
A scientific
satellite needs only 250 watts of power, the equivelant used by two hour light
bulbs, to operate.
The thin line of
cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.
Radio waves travel
so much faster than sound waves that a broadcast voice can be heard sooner
18,000 km away than in the back of the room in which it originated.
A US ton is
equivalent to 900 kg (2000 pounds). A British ton is 1008 kg (2240 pounds),
called a gross ton.
Industrial hemp
contains less than 1% of THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana.
Since space is
essentially empty it cannot carry sound. Therefor there is no sound in space, at
least not the sort of sound that we are used to.
The Space Shuttle
always rolls over after launch to alleviate structural loading, allowing the
shuttle to carry more mass into orbit.
The word
"biology" was coined in 1805 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.
Most of the air is
about 78% nitrogen gas. Only 21% consists of oxygen. The remaining 1% consists
of carbon dioxide, argon, neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xenon and ozone.
Argon is used to
fill the space in most light bulbs. Neon is used in fluorescent signs.
Fluorescent lights are filled with mercury gas.
Hydrogen gas is the
least dense substance in the world.
Water expands by
about 9% as it freezes.
Hot water freezes
quicker than cold water.
The smallest
transistor is 50-nanometres wide - roughly 1/2000 the width of a human hair.
A compass does not
point to the geographical North or South Pole, but to the magnetic poles.
The double-helix
structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick. The
length of a single human DNA molecule, when extended, is 1.7 metres (5 ft 5 in).
In a desert, a
mirage is caused when air near the ground is hotter than air higher up. As light
from the sun passes from cooler to warmer air, it speeds up and is refracted
upward, creating the image of water.
The typical bolt of
lightning heats the atmosphere to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
An electric oven
uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity in about 20 minutes, but one kilowatt-hour
will power a TV for 3 hours, run a 100-watt bulb for 12 hours, and keep an
electric clock ticking for 3 months.