Today I Learned

  • Thread starter Thread starter Greg Bernhardt
  • Start date Start date
Click For Summary
Today I learned that cleaning a white hat can be done with bleach cleaner, but it’s important to rinse it before wearing it again. I also discovered that "oyster veneering," a woodworking technique from the late 1600s, is experiencing a minor revival despite its labor-intensive nature. Additionally, I learned that the factorial of 23 (23!) equals 25,852,016,738,884,976,640,000, which interestingly has 23 digits, a unique coincidence among factorials. I found out that medical specialists often spend less than 10 minutes with patients, and that watching TV can contribute to weight gain. Other insights included the fact that a kiss can transfer around 80 million microbes, and that bureaucracy can sometimes hinder employment opportunities. The discussion also touched on various trivia, such as the emotional sensitivity of barn owls and the complexities of gravitational lensing around black holes.
  • #5,731
fresh_42 said:
TIL: Today I listened to a piece of music and I thought: "Sounds like Beethoven but isn't Beethoven." I found Otto Nicolai (symphony in D major), a German composer in the first half of the 19th century who founded the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Life isn't fair. We (Germans) gave Austria Mozart, Beethoven, and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and I do not need to mention whom they gave us.
You have Bach and Gauss!

Einstein was born in Ulm part of Germany. So, is that one two three?
We have Shakespeare and Tolkien so have you there.
 
Physics news on Phys.org
  • #5,732
pinball1970 said:
You have Bach and Gauss!
A propos musical exchange. I listen to Sir Cliff Richard's German version of "Lucky Lips" these days. Boy, that lyrics would cause a giant s**tstorm today. What a sexist text! And he wasn't alone. Those texts in the 60s regardless of whether English or German were often very borderline.

DYK that the Beatles recorded songs in German, too?
 
  • #5,733
fresh_42 said:
A propos musical exchange. I listen to Sir Cliff Richard's German version of "Lucky Lips" these days. Boy, that lyrics would cause a giant s**tstorm today. What a sexist text! And he wasn't alone. Those texts in the 60s regardless of whether English or German were often very borderline.

DYK that the Beatles recorded songs in German, too?
Yeah the Beatles loved Germany, cut their teeth in Hamburg I think.
 
  • #5,734
pinball1970 said:
Yeah the Beatles loved Germany, cut their teeth in Hamburg I think.
 
  • #5,735
pinball1970 said:
Yeah the Beatles loved Germany, cut their teeth in Hamburg I think.
Must be a Liverpool thing.
 
  • #5,736
fresh_42 said:
A propos musical exchange. I listen to Sir Cliff Richard's German version of "Lucky Lips" these days. Boy, that lyrics would cause a giant s**tstorm today. What a sexist text! And he wasn't alone. Those texts in the 60s regardless of whether English or German were often very borderline.

DYK that the Beatles recorded songs in German, too?
Cliff Richard? I'll check it out.

I think the Beatles did a few in German.

 
Last edited:
  • #5,737
pinball1970 said:
Cliff Richard? I'll it out.

I think the Beatles did a few in German.


These are the 2 I know about, too. There could be some more during their time in Hamburg that weren't recorded. I should have an album with Pete Best somewhere in the basement.

I do not recognize the voice of that one ...

... only the slight English accent.
 
  • #5,738
TIL that caesarean sections have been performed for thousands of years.
The surgery has been performed at least as far back as 715 BC following the death of the mother, with the baby occasionally surviving... Descriptions of mothers surviving date back to 1500 AD.
 
  • #5,739
I always thought it was named after Julius Ceasar but the wiki link (thanks @Borg ) shows that's not true. TIL...
 
  • #5,740
pinball1970 said:
I think the Beatles did a few in German.
I picked up this CD somewhere. Take a look at the Liner Notes for the songs auf Deutsch

20240203_120621.jpg


20240203_120654.jpg
 
Reply
  • Informative
Likes pinball1970
  • #5,741
TIL, but I am not convinced, yet, what the second most mammal species after humans is.

Guesses?
 
  • #5,742
fresh_42 said:
Guesses?
Rats?
 
  • #5,743
Bystander said:
Rats?
No. I even thought about cattle or pigs. But it is neither of them according to that documentary I watch.

Hint: we share the menopause with them! This is extremely rare. Females usually die before this happens.
 
  • #5,744
Bats?
 
  • #5,745
When I google it, I get "rats."
 
  • #5,746
It was about orcas. I am skeptical, too. However, who knows anything about the worldwide population of orcas? The oceans cover almost three times the area of land.

Rats definitely do not have menopause. I wonder whether elephants have.
 
  • #5,747
fresh_42 said:
what the second most mammal species after humans is.
By numbers or by mass?
Usually, the little things win both categories just because there so many of them. This makes me think mice would be the winners.
Ants for example may have the most biomass of animals.

I have seen things in the last few years about how the wild world is giving way to the domesticated world.
Human impact on wild habitat is extensive.
 
  • #5,748
The wiki on orcas says the population is 50,000, minimum. OK, it doesn't list the maximum. But 50,000 is a long way from 7 billion. Am I missing something here?
 
Reply
  • Like
Likes DaveE and BillTre
  • #5,749
gmax137 said:
The wiki on orcas says the population is 50,000, minimum. OK, it doesn't list the maximum. But 50,000 is a long way from 7 billion. Am I missing something here?
Maybe the ocean biologists in that documentary had a bit of a biased view. 50,000 seems pretty low given that they live almost everywhere and the ocean is three times the area of land. 50,000 means around about 5,000 to 10,000 groups. I don't believe this number either.
 
  • #5,751
Reply
  • Like
Likes pinball1970 and BillTre
  • #5,752
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Haha
Likes OmCheeto, mfb and fresh_42
  • #5,753
Orcas as second-most common mammal species would be really weird. That minimum of 50,000 might be too low, but it won't be too low by several orders of magnitude. There are around 1.5 billion cows, 1.2 billion sheep and 700 million cats.
 
  • #5,755
fresh_42 said:
It was about orcas. I am skeptical, too. However, who knows anything about the worldwide population of orcas? The oceans cover almost three times the area of land.

Rats definitely do not have menopause. I wonder whether elephants have.
I got rats also. About 10M in the UK, estimate. I thought there would be more based on sayings/old wives tales in my neck of the woods. "More rats than people" "You are never more than 6 feet from a rat."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-20716625
 
  • #5,756
Today I learned, or rather rediscovered this, admittedly factually wrong, qoute by Orson Welles:

The Borgia Dynasty gave us 30 years of constant war, power play, secret assainations, nepotism and general mayhem. This resulted in the Renaissance, Michelangelo and a plethora of high-quality art.

Meanwhile (and here it appearently breaks down), Switzerland prospered in peace, democrazy and what was the result?

The cuckoo clock.

Apochryphal and wrong. Switzerland, I think, wasn't democratic and the cuckoo-clock was invented elsewhere.

Nevertheless, I still find it funny.
 
  • #5,757
mfb said:
Orcas as second-most common mammal species would be really weird. That minimum of 50,000 might be too low, but it won't be too low by several orders of magnitude. There are around 1.5 billion cows, 1.2 billion sheep and 700 million cats.
I said I had my doubts, too. On the other hand, I have read recently that 100,000 dolphins per year are killed by humans. So you need a considerably higher (orders of magnitude higher) population of dolphins to achieve this without extinguishing them.
 
  • #5,758
TIL that Facebook bans photos of a 25,000-year-old sculpture as pornography. LOL.
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Wow
Likes sbrothy and pinball1970
  • #5,759
fresh_42 said:
TIL that Facebook bans photos of a 25,000-year-old sculpture as pornography. LOL.
That's not strange at all. That figure is so hot I can easily imagine it making teenagers do crazy things. Then again I can imagine teenagers do crazy things without much incentive at all. :)
 
Reply
  • Like
  • Haha
Likes BillTre, fresh_42 and Borg
  • #5,760
TIL the 1983 final episode of MASH attracted 106 million viewers. Most ever in the fiction category.
 

Similar threads

Things that you regret not continuing to practice?
  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
2K
What Did You Learn Today? A Tradition of Daily Learning and Sharing
  • · Replies 26 ·
Replies
26
Views
6K
Home Repair & Maintenance Advice for Newbie?
  • · Replies 11 ·
Replies
11
Views
4K
Understanding the divide white/black/blue
  • · Replies 161 ·
6
Replies
161
Views
14K
Studying I feel I have lost it. How do I be dissolved in studies again?
  • · Replies 4 ·
Replies
4
Views
2K
Fighting for Financial Relief: Surviving COVID Debt
  • · Replies 9 ·
Replies
9
Views
2K
Optimizing Prisoner Strategy for the Hat Riddle: A Simple Solution
  • · Replies 35 ·
2
Replies
35
Views
7K
MHB Effective learning techniques for abstract mathematics?
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
3K
My experience as a hostage
  • · Replies 2 ·
Replies
2
Views
339
Learn to Play Piano - Tips for Beginners
  • · Replies 27 ·
Replies
27
Views
6K