Average human lifespan, by era:
Neanderthal: 20 years
Neolithic: 20 years
Classical Greece: 28 years
Classical Rome: 28 years
Medieval England: 33 years
End of 18th century: 37 years
Early 20th century: 50 years
Circa 1940: 65 years
Current (in the West): 77-81 years
Today the average Zambian dies at age 37, the average Japanese at age 81.
Albert Einstein said, "You cannot beat a roulette table unless you steal money from it." He might have been surprised. Roulette wheels have subtle flaws, and in this technological age a sophisticated observer can make some serious money:
In 1873, British engineer Joseph Jaggers hired six clerks to study the wheels at the Beaux-Arts Casino in Monte Carlo. One wheel showed a clear bias, which Jaggers exploited to the tune of $325,000.
As early as 1961, mathematician Claude Shannon had built a wearable computer to find likely numbers.
By the late 1970s, a group of computer hackers known as the Eudaemons were frequenting casinos wearing computers in their shoes.
In the early 1990s, Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo used a computer to analyze the roulette wheels at the Casino de Madrid. He won more than $1 million over a period of several years.
In 2004, a group in London was using a special laser cameraphone and microchip to predict a ball's path, a technique called sector targeting. They won £1.3 million.
In both of the latter two cases, the casinos mounted legal challenges — and lost. If you're not influencing the ball, the courts ruled, you're not cheating. Modern casinos monitor their wheels to keep them as random as possible, but the long-term odds favor the engineers.
In 1897, Indiana physician Edward J. Goodwin decided that pi was wrong.
siagonology
n. the study of jawbones
In the 20th century small pox killed more people than world war 2
world's most popular languages, by number of native speakers:
Chinese, 937 million
English, 335 million
Spanish, 332 million
Hindi/Urdu, 291 million
Arabic, 193 million
Bengali, 189 million
Malay/Indonesian, 176 million
Portuguese, 170 million
Russian, 165 million
Japanese, 125 million
"The great thing about human language," wrote Lewis Thomas, "is that it prevents us from sticking to the matter at hand."
"Can't Be Done":
"You can't stand for five minutes without moving, if you are blindfolded."
"You can't stand at the side of a room with both your feet lengthwise touching the wainscoting."
"You can't get out of a chair without bending your body forward, or putting your feet under it; that is, if you are sitting squarely on the chair, and not on the edge of it."
"You can't break a match if the match is laid across the nail of the middle finger of either hand, and passed under the first and third finger of that hand, despite its seeming so easy at first sight."
"You can't stand with your heels against the wall and pick up something from the floor."
"Don't try to rub your ear with your elbow, for it will be a failure."
"It takes a clever person to stand up when placed two feet from a wall with his hands behind his back and his head against the wall."
In October 1998, 300 dead starlings fell out of the sky in Tacoma, Wash.
No one knows why.
IQ scores around the world have been going up by about three IQ points per decade.
The sum of the numbers 1 through 10 is 55.
The sum of the numbers 1 through 100 is 5,050.
The sum of the numbers 1 through 1,000 is 500,500.
Standing shoulder to shoulder, all the people in the world could fit on the Indonesian island of Bali
Egypt's Great Pyramid weighs 5,750,090 tons.
25 percent of people sneeze when exposed to bright light.
solar year = 365.2422 days
Except for the beds, Sweden's Ice Hotel is made completely of ice blocks
Until 2000, calling 760-733-9969 would connect you to a single phone booth in the Mojave desert, 15 miles from the nearest interstate and miles from any building.
"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment." — Ansel Adams"
A "sonic alphabet" composed by Harry Matthews:
Hay, be seedy! He-effigy, hate-shy jaky yellow man, O peek! You are rusty, you've edible, you ex-wise he!
sonnet, composed in 1936 by David Shulman each line an anagram for WASHINGTON CROSSING THE DELAWARE.
3. A train leaves New York for Chicago at 90 mph. At the same time, a bus leaves Chicago for New York at 50 mph. Which is farther from New York when they meet?
Answer: Neither — when they meet they'll be equally distant from anywhere, n'est-ce pas?
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