Ah, science. The framework for literally everything in existence. Learning science as a kid in school could get super boring, but every now and then there's those facts you learn that make you look at the subject in a whole new way. Here are some of those facts.
One Redditor asked:
What's the most mindblowing and mesmerizing science fact not much people know about
Incredible.
"You can build a device at home for about $30 to see subatomic particles. It's called a cloud chamber, and muons from cosmic rays, or alpha particles from americium taken from a smoke detector will leave trails of condensation that you can see with your own eyes."
"Here is a video of a piece of uranium in a cloud chamber. The slower, larger particles (mainly alpha particles aka helium nuclei) leave the shorter fatter trails."
"And here is a guide to building a cloud chamber at home. How much you see depends on things like whether or not you are indoors, and your altitude. In order to increase the amount of radiation you see, you can take the americium out of a smoke detector. Americium is radioactive (you are totally safe unless you do something stupid like swallow it, and even then choking is probably* your bigger concern), and will randomly release alpha particles that your cloud chamber will pick up."
I'd drink that.
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"Near the centre of the Milky Way, there's a dust cloud known as Sagittarius B2. This dust cloud is really, really big -- almost 150 light years across -- and has a mass about 3 million times that of the sun. Spectrographic analysis has shown what it's made of, and it has fairly high concentrations of both ethanol (which is what gives you the buzz when you make a cocktail), and ethyl formate -- a compound which has a distinct smell of rum, and is also one of the compounds that gives raspberries their taste."
"If you could condense it down to a level where it was detectable, then, the centre of the galaxy would smell not dissimilar to a raspberry daiquiri."
Mind. Blown.
"You have probably heard that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on Earth."
"But what I find more amazing is that there are more atoms in a single grain of sand than grains of sand on Earth. Just shows you how small they really are."
Say its name three times.
"If Betelgeuse, a fairly nearby giant star, goes supernova, it will light up our sky for 2 months."
"The really freaky thing is that if it went supernova today, because of its distance, the light wouldn't reach the earth for over 600 years."
She thicc.
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"The mass of the Sun makes up 99.98 percent of the total mass of our solar system."
"And Jupiter takes up most of the remaining mass."
Just some confused particles.
"If you take two different types of metal and hold them together in Space they will bond together in a process called "cold-welding".
"I loved how a friend of mine explained it:"
"Then the two metals touch and there is nothing in between. So the electrons start going out for a walk and they become confused because they don't know where one piece of metal ends and where the other one begins. So they wander around both and BOOM now it is just one piece of metal because the electrons don't know where they are."
Mud world!
"Sharks existed before trees!!!"
"And grass. Right? Grass wasn't around either. All those dino movies with lush grassy floors. IT WASN'T THERE! MUD WORLD!"
Beautiful.
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"Humans are bioluminescent and glow in the dark, but the light that we emit is 1,000 times weaker than our human eyes are able to pick up."
"Poor humans, their glow is so lovely and they can't even see it."
The past is in the past.
"The images your eyes give are 1/100th of a second in the past."
"Because of the time it takes your brain to process inputs from all senses, what is happening in front of you is 1/100th of a second behind."
"Yeah. It's crazy how the present doesn't actually exist."
Amazing.
"Water can boil and freeze at the same time:"
"It's called the triple point, and it occurs when the temperature and pressure is just right for the three phases (gas, liquid, and solid) of a substance to coexist in thermodynamic equilibrium."
This sounds fake.
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"If you move backwards at the speed of light, you will see a still of the very thing you saw before you started moving, until you slow down."
Terrifying.
"The Amazon rainforest, which is quickly being destroyed, produces 20% of all oxygen on Earth. If the amazon rainforest is cut down, breathing difficulties will become much more common and much more threatening. Just shows how much we are killing ourselves by killing our planet."
We'd all be so tiny!
"Supermassive black holes have masses millions to billions times greater than the sun and have such a great gravitational pull that IF it would swallow the earth we would be compressed to the roughly size of a marble."
Pretty colors.
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"Mantis shrimps can see in 12-15 different colours, while humans can only see in 3."
"Bonus colour fact: you have no way of knowing that the colour you know as red is the same as the colour everyone else knows as red."
"Bonus mantis shrimp fact: when they "punch", their fists move at around 50mph; bubbles caught near the punch have hit temperatures exceeding 4000 Celsius, nearly the surface temperature of the sun."
There is so much out there to learn! Do you have similar things to share? Let us know.
Every now and then, a friend of ours might say something, or we might overhear a complete stranger say something that makes us stop in our tracks.
More often than not, what we can't believe we just heard is something so ridiculous, we can't help but put the person who said it in their place.
Other times, however, what we just heard might have stunned us silent because of how shockingly clever it was.
Resulting in our not wanting to scold or yell at someone, but rather give them a handshake.
Redditor SubmergingOriginal was curious to hear the sharpest and wittiest things they've ever heard, from friends and strangers alike, leading them to ask:
"Enough with the dumbest; what is the wittiest thing you've ever heard someone say?"
Don't Give Me So Much Credit...
'I was on a team at work that was on a project working insane overtime."
"One night after an 80-90 hour week, we were all sitting around the table trying to finish up so we could go home."
"Around 11, my buddy's wife called, dubious about the hours he'd been keeping."
"We heard her through the line - 'are you cheating on me?'"
"Exasperated, he looked at our boss, then replied 'honey, if I was cheating on you, I would have been home by now'."- lionbatcher
Eternal Optimism...
"Asked a blind guy if he'd been blind his whole life."
"He said 'Not yet'."- Feeling_Mode_6465
Free time Isn't The Only Thing He Has On His Hands...
"My brother got a vasectomy and when the doctor was releasing him and giving him instructions (with the nurse listening in), one of the orders was to 'come back and have a follow-up appointment after you’ve ejaculated 30 times'.”
"Without missing a beat my brother asked 'what time do you open tomorrow?'”
"The nurse couldn’t keep it together after hearing that."- UtahUtopia
Awkward Season 8 GIF by The Office
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Double Whammy!
"My pal uses the phrase 'he doesn’t look strong enough to carry information' and it cracks me up every time."
"Calling someone stupid and weak in one fell swoop."- JennyW93
Can't Hide Your DNA...
'Whenever I jokingly insult my mum, she says 'that must be where you get it from'."
"She cracked the code."
"I can never offend her without offending myself."- JennyW93
Self-Sufficient!
"My brother was a line cook at a New Orleans restaurant."
"My mom was in town, staying at a fancy hotel, and he stopped by after work, still wearing his kitchen whites."
"He was reading a newspaper in the lobby waiting for her to come down when the shocked lobby manager sputtered at him, 'MAY I HELP YOU!?!?'
"He answered, 'thanks, but I know how to read',” and went back to his paper."- jobrody
Morph Current Affairs GIF by Aardman Animations
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A Miracle!
"My brother-in-law’s comment."
"The entire family went out for my mother’s 80th birthday and after the meal we all went to a local park, largely occupied by the elderly, to rest."
"My mother needed crutches at this point, and they were resting against her bench."
"My 10-year-old niece, who looked like every starving waif image from Dickens, grabbed the crutches and started hobbling round the park."
"All the OAPs were following her progress with looks of pity until my brother ran up behind her, and kicked away the crutches."
"There was an audible gasp from round the park and then my niece picked the crutches back up and started chasing my brother, clearly intending to hit him."
"In the confused silence my brother-in-law’s voice rang out 'Praise be! She can walk again!'"
"We still think this was the highlight of the birthday celebrations."- DdraigGwyn
Still Legal, Whichever Way You Cut It...
"I picked up my pleasantly tipsy boyfriend from a nightclub."
"We were stopped by the Police for a random breath test."
"They asked me my age, and I said, 33."
"My bf blurted out '33? You told me you were 22'."
"Police just laughed and let me go."- Aggravating-Corgi379
Music Video Police GIF by Andrew W. K.
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A Bit Too On The Nose?
"Business law class in college years ago, talking about the issues that black Americans had before the Civil Rights."
"Amendment, trying to travel through the south with the discrimination so rampant, trying to find restaurants to serve them and decent lodgings."
"My instructor was posing a hypothetical: 'So you pull up out front of this place, you're exhausted from driving for hours, and you see the sign out front says 'Ku Klux Klan Motel'."
"'What would you expect to find there?'"
"Without missing a beat, from the back of the room came this gem: "'Extra sheets in every room?'"- NedsAtomicDB
Not Yet, Anyway...
"I was working with my friend and his dad."
"My friend (26) heard an ice cream truck near where we were working."
"He asked his dad if he could have a couple dollars."
"His dad asked, 'what for?'"
"My friend told his dad that there was an ice cream truck in the neighborhood, and that they were playing music."
"My friends dad told him "'They don't charge anything to listen to the music'."- tatersalad1234567890
Words Escape You In The Literal "Heat" Of The Moment...
"A friend of mine is a teacher and her husband is known for his wit."
"She told this story to him:"
"One day at school a kid took the hall pass and returned reeking like smoke."
"She asked the kid if he’d been smoking and he denied it over and over."
"She was about to send him to the office when she noticed smoke coming from somewhere."
"She told the kid and he realized that he didn’t put his cig out completely and it was burning in his pants pocket."
"The kid noticed and frantically tried to put it out and someone finally poured water on it."
"Her husband sat listening to this with a weird look on his face."
"She asked him what was wrong."
“'What’s wrong???'"
"'This was probably the only chance you’ll have in your life to say literally, ‘liar,liar, pants on fire’ and you missed your chance'."- Luder714
On Fire No GIF by PEEKASSO
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Amazing What You Might Say A Few Drinks In...
"When I went to a renaissance faire once, I went to a beer tent and ordered a Newcastle Brown Ale (seemed the most fitting for the surroundings)."
"The beer wench, without skipping a beat, said, 'Everyone wants a Newcastle - no one wants to remodel!'"- jayhof52
Read The Room People!
"My dad wiped out when skiing down a mountain and lost a ski."
"After a few minutes of hunting for it, he gives up, slings the one remaining ski over a shoulder and starts walking down the mountain in his ski boots."
"About half-way down, another skier stops and goes 'Gee! Did you lose a ski?'"
"My dad instantly replied 'No, I was out for a walk and found one!'"- PeterJoAl
There's a reason your mother always told you to "use your words".
As clever remarks can have a much more lasting effect on people than a push or shove.