h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Absolutely everything everywhere of any kind (with the possible exception of black holes) is over 99.9% empty space. The nucleus of an atom comprises 99% of its total mass, and if a typical atom were the size of an American football field, the whole nucleus would be the size of a grain of salt on the fifty yard-line, with the rest being made of absolutely nothing. How's that for mind-boggling?

During WWII Willys-Overland produced 1 jeep every 1.25 minutes

The view of the atom as empty space is a common and useful one, but it is not strictly true. Think rather of a football pitch with a grain of salt at the centre representing the nucleus and a very thin soup filling the rest of the field. The electron doesn't occupy a single position around the atom. Instead it is spread out very thinly over the whole of the space around the atom. To be really accurate, each electron is spread very thinly over the rest of the entire universe.

The molecules in air have a volume of approximately 0.008 cubic nm. And, in our atmosphere each molecule occupies a volume of (roughly) 0.037 cubic nm (multiply that with 6.022E23 and get 22.3). That means, the molecule itself, in a gas, occupies only 20% of the volume in which it is in. So 80% of the air volume consists of pure vacuum.

HELL

During WWII, the Clydeside shipyards produced a greater tonnage of ships than the entire US. While being bombed.

The Phoenician economy was based on Silver - not Gold.

Ireland has the remains of over 40,000 Celtic ring-forts, which were left undisturbed because people thought they were inhabited by fairies.

I'm sure there are one or two people on the "Freeedom From Faith Foundation" conversation forum who'd be prepared to believe that

You mean it isn't true?

F

The Statue of Liberty was originally planned to be a lighthouse for the Suez canal. It was not a *present* of the French for the Americans. In reality most of the statue (70%) was financed by ordinary american citizens through small donations. The French only paid for the transport.

Hmm, not quite sure about that whole atom thing. It's true that you could think of it as soup, because an election can be thought of as a wave, but it can also be thought of as a particle. In that case, it would occupy only one position in space, but according to certain things like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, you can only know certain things about its position, speed, etc. In that case, it isn't spread out through the whole universe, but it affects the whole universe in a VERY VERY small way. The whole duality thing is what makes everything on that level so hard to visualize.

more money was spent filming Tora Tora Tora than was lost in hardware during the bombing of Pearl harbor

Hell, what you say about the Statue of Liberty does not match with the Edited Entry on it, A985287. According to that Entry, the statue was originally intended for America and was a gift from the French, although the pedestal was funded by average American citizens making small donations.

Oops... So let me try to put it right. Last week I read an article in the paper (in German - link here: http://www.zeit.de/2004/41/A-Bartholdi) - And it confirmed what I was suspecting, when I saw the designs for the lighthouse "projet de phare pour Suez" in the Bertholdi Museum in Colmar.

Originally the design for the statue was intended to be a lighthouse on the mediterranean side of the Suez canal. According to the article I read, Bartholdi was inspired by monumental constructions, like the pyramids and the colossus of rhodus. He started doing designs for the lighthouse. One of them is *very* *very* similar to the Liberty, the inscription was to be: "Progress or Egypt, bearing the light to Asia" (in original "L'Égypte ou progrès éclairant l'Orient" compare that with "Liberté éclairant le monde" which is the Liberty's inscription) However, the whole negotiations with the Egyptians ended at an early stage. Nevertheless he exposed the designs on the World-Expo of Paris 1867. (I tried to google for that design, maybe someone has more success). *Later* on he embarked in (an already progressing) initiative (started by Édouard-René Lefebvre de Laboulaye) to construct a memorial to celebrate the American centennial. So he took the designs back from the drawer and re-coined them to fit the spirit. Hence my affirmation that *originall* the Statue was planned for the Suez canal.

As to funding - my bad - I should've written, it was not a present of the French *government*, they only (half-heartedly) funded the transport. The statue was a gift of ordinary French people who raised the money (250,000 bucks) via donations. The pedestal was paid by ordinary american people, via small donations.

So in the end, there's not such a big conflict with the Edited Entry, the Entry starts at a later point of the History and omits the preceding episode of the Lighthouse design. The funding part was my bad, sorry.

H

I know the facts in this thread are useless, but I like to make sure that they are at least facts.

As was stated in a trailer for a Channel 4 programme a while back "Only one of these three facts is true".

Come again?

RF

If someone loses 1.8kg in 3 weeks, 6.6kg are lost in 11 weeks.
(After 1 year 31.2 kg are lost)

H

... assuming a linear rather than exponential reduction.

Again referring to shenanigans on the Freedom From Faith Foundation conversation...there are some on there who refuse to acknowledge the very existence of such a thing as a 'fact'. Apparently, there is a small probability that the world is not round.

Flat earth: what if you use spehrical coordinates?