Physics Trivia

*Laser is an abbreviation of Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.
*The Dead Sea is so dense with salt, you can easily float on it without drowning.
*Albert Einstein pointed out that the faster you move, the heavier you get
*Lake Baikal in Russia contains more water than all the North American Great Lakes combined.
*The world's densest wood, the Black Ironwood (Olea laurifolia), does not float on water and therefore sinks.
*The mass of our entire atmosphere is estimated to be some 5.5 quadrillion tons (55 followed by 14 zeros).
*Because of differences in gravity, a 100kg (220 pound) person would only weigh 38kg (84 pounds) on Mars
*The amount of water beneath our ground soil is 50 times as much as all the water in the rivers and lakes combined.
*The bark of the redwood tree is fireproof.
*Electric eels can stun both predators and prey with electric shocks of around 500 volts.
*American Benjamin Franklin carried out extensive electricity research in the 18th century, inventing the lightning rod among his many discoveries. Lightning rods protect buildings in the event of lightning by conducting lightning strikes through a grounded wire.
*Back in the 1880’s there was even a ‘war of currents’ between Thomas Edison (who helped invent DC) and Nikola Tesla (who helped invent AC). Both wanted their system to be used with AC eventually winning out due to the fact that it is safer and can be used over longer distances.
*Uranus is the only planet in our solar system that rolls on its side like a barrel, while Venus is the only planet that spins in the opposite direction to Earth.
*While formula one racing drivers may feel around 5 g’s under heavy braking, they can experience over 100 g’s if a crash causes them to decelerate extremely quickly over a very short distance.
*The human body can handle increased g-forces as seen in activities such as dragster races, airplane acrobatics and space training. The highest known acceleration voluntarily experienced by a human is 46.2 g by g-force pioneer John Stapp.
*Other animals can see parts of the spectrum that humans can’t. For example, a large number of insects can see ultraviolet (UV) light.
*Our ears vibrate in a similar way to the original source of the vibration, allowing us to hear many different sounds.
*The loud noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound!
*UV light can be used to show things the human eye can’t see, coming in handy for forensic scientists.
*Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful arrangement of sounds.
*Water can work against gravity, moving up narrow tubes in a process called capillary action.
*Traveling in space makes you 2.5-5 cm taller
*A spacecraft that was crashed into the moon last year threw up debris that included not only water but also higher-than-expected amounts of silver.