Nerdy Geniuses Share The Most Interesting Mathematical Facts In Their Brains

Nerdy Geniuses Share The Most Interesting Mathematical Facts In Their Brains
[rebelmouse-image 18352979 is_animated_gif=Math Nerds, unite!
Chances are if you ask the average person about a math fact, the best they'll be able to come up with is "2+2=4." But not these Redditors. We all know math has to have some cool, complicated concepts, but how could we ever understand them?
Reddit user xxTick asked the masses:
Here are some answers that will make you reconsider those days you skipped intro to calc.
E, Eh?
[rebelmouse-image 18352980 is_animated_gif=e (2.718281828459045...) is the average number of random numbers between 0 and 1 that must be added to sum to at least 1.
Excitable Numbers
[rebelmouse-image 18352981 is_animated_gif=there are exactly 10! seconds in six weeks.
10! = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 how many seconds in 6 weeks? 6 weeks x 7 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes x 60 seconds = (2 x 3) x 7 x ( 2 x 3 x 4) x (2 x 3 x 10) x (5 x 6 x 2) combine the 3's, combine the extra 2's, stick a 1 in front... = 1 x 2 x 3 x 4 x 5 x 6 x 7 x 8 x 9 x 10 seconds.
Classically Trained
[rebelmouse-image 18352982 is_animated_gif=Cantor's diagonal proof which implies more than one infinity. At least for classical mathematicians.
And Beyond
[rebelmouse-image 18352983 is_animated_gif=Gabriel's horn, the volume of the cone is finite, but the surface area is infinite.
Rumors Spread
[rebelmouse-image 18352984 is_animated_gif=As a PhD student in mathematics, this is not a sexy answer, but one of the reasons I fell in love with math was in my differential equations course when we discussed modeling epidemic using mathematical equations. It was so incredible to me that back in 1927, Kermack and McKendrick came up with a simple formulation of how to model a disease. This idea has been expanded greatly, but their original version of the S-I-R compartmental model is still one of the coolest things. And it can also model rumors as well!
Unsatisfied
[rebelmouse-image 18352985 is_animated_gif=I love Fermat's Last Theorem:
no three positive integers a, b, and c satisfy the equation an + bn = cn for any integer value of n greater than 2.
It just intuitively seems that some n should work, given infinite possible numbers, but it's been proven that nothing but 2 fits.
2D Life
[rebelmouse-image 18352986 is_animated_gif=If you take enough random steps in two dimensions, you'll always eventually get back to your starting point. The same cannot be said of three dimensions.
I just find the idea that you will always get back to where you started by making random moves absolutely mind boggling, and the fact things change just because you can go up and down is even weirder.
Imaginarium
[rebelmouse-image 18352987 is_animated_gif=ii = 0.20787957635
So an imaginary number to an imaginary power is a real number.
Jokes For Days
[rebelmouse-image 18352989 is_animated_gif=99999999999999999989 is the largest prime number that can also be a Reddit username.
Beep Booop Boop
[rebelmouse-image 18352991 is_animated_gif=1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
And on it goes
Algorithm
[rebelmouse-image 18352992 is_animated_gif=The maximum number of moves needed to solve a Rubik's cube from any configuration is a mere 20.
Expecting Numberphile subscribers to have a strong showing in this thread.
Belphegor's Prime
[rebelmouse-image 18352993 is_animated_gif=There is a prime number named after one of Satan's devils. It is a 1 followed by 13 0s. 666. 13 more 0s. And a 1.
Conjecture Lecture, What's Your Texture?
[rebelmouse-image 18352994 is_animated_gif=The Collatz Conjecture: It's an unsolved mathmatical conjecture that can be summarized as follows; Take any positive integer, or "n". If n is even, divide it by 2 to get n / 2. If n is odd, multiply it by 3 and add 1 to obtain 3n + 1. Repeat the process indefinitely. The conjecture is that no matter what number you start with, you will always eventually reach 1. For example, start with 21. it's odd so I multiply by 3 and add 1, to get 64. 64 is even so I divide by 2 to get 32, again to get 16, 8, 4, 2, 1. No one has found a number that doesn't follow this rule.
Birthday Drama
[rebelmouse-image 18352995 is_animated_gif=The Birthday Problem.
If you have 23 people in a room, there is a 50% chance that at least two of them have the same birthday. If you put 70 people in, the probability jumps to 99.9%.
It seems f-cking weird to me but I haven't done math since high school so what do I know.
Impossible Parchment
[rebelmouse-image 18352996 is_animated_gif=if you fold a piece of paper 103 times, the thickness of it will be larger than the observable universe - 93 billion light-years
The Ball
[rebelmouse-image 18352998 is_animated_gif=Banach-Tarski paradox, in a nutshell what it says is that if you take a (let's make it simpler) 3 dimensional ball, you can partition it in finite number of pieces (which is only true for 3-dim case, otherwise it's countably infinite) and then rotate and translate some of the pieces and you can get two exactly identical balls that we started with. So you might think we doubled the volume, indeed we did.
It's Everywhere To Me
[rebelmouse-image 18352999 is_animated_gif=Astronomer here! Do you remember a few months ago when NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized planets around a star called TRAPPIST-1? Astronomers and mathematicians freaked out a bit about it because it turned out all those planets were in resonance, where objects orbit in a simple multiplicative of another (so, if Earth were to orbit the sun one time every time Venus orbited twice- not really the case). These simple ratios can be good in celestial mechanics for sure- Pluto crosses Neptune's orbit, for example, but they are in a 2:3 resonance so will never crash into each other. But it's also very likely to lead to amplified gravitational forces that then eject planets, and frankly, TRAPPIST-1 should not be stable based on the resonances we see there and is just very luckily in a few million year gap or so where that system can exist according to mathematics and computer simulations.
The cool thing about this though is resonance is a mathematical concept that just describes vibrations, from that in a violin string to stability in a bridge. And acoustic resonance is very important for making music sound good- some resonances work, some make music sound "bad."
The cool thing here though is because mathematics shows up in everything, some Canadian astronomers realized you can "hear" TRAPPIST-1 because it has "good" resonances. (No really, they tried other systems, but apparently they all sounded awful.) They sped up the orbits of the system 212 million times (so you wouldn't have to wait ~18 years to hear the full piece), and frankly the resulting piece is pretty awesome. You should check it out!
Math is everywhere!
Solitaire
[rebelmouse-image 18353000 is_animated_gif=One of my favorite is about the number of unique orders for cards in a standard 52 card deck.
I've seen a a really good explanation of how big 52! actually is.
Set a timer to count down 52! seconds (that's 8.0658x1067 seconds)
Stand on the equator, and take a step forward every billion years
When you've circled the earth once, take a drop of water from the Pacific Ocean, and keep going
When the Pacific Ocean is empty, lay a sheet of paper down, refill the ocean and carry on.
When your stack of paper reaches the sun, take a look at the timer.
The 3 left-most digits won't have changed. 8.063x1067 seconds left to go. You have to repeat the whole process 1000 times to get 1/3 of the way through that time. 5.385x1067 seconds left to go.
So to kill that time you try something else.
Shuffle a deck of cards, deal yourself 5 cards every billion years
Each time you get a royal flush, buy a lottery ticket
Each time that ticket wins the jackpot, throw a grain of sand in the grand canyon
When the grand canyon's full, take 1oz of rock off Mount Everest, empty the canyon and carry on.
When Everest has been levelled, check the timer.
There's barely any change. 5.364x1067 seconds left. You'd have to repeat this process 256 times to have run out the timer.
The Bayes
[rebelmouse-image 18353001 is_animated_gif=Suppose a drug test is 99% sensitive and 99% specific. That is, the test will produce 99% true positive results for drug users and 99% true negative results for non-drug users. Suppose that 0.5% of people are users of the drug. If a randomly selected individual tests positive, what is the probability that he is a user?
The answer is around 33.2%
Factorial Follies
[rebelmouse-image 18353004 is_animated_gif=69! (69 factorial; approximately 1.711224524×1098 ) is the largest factorial number that most hand-held calculators can handle. This is because it also happens to be the last factorial number that is less than a googol (10100 ), and these calculators can't handle numbers larger than a googol.
1729 is the smallest number that is the sum of two positive cubes in two different ways:
1729 = 1^3 + 12^3 = 9^3 + 10^3
A Googolplex Of Text
[rebelmouse-image 18348911 is_animated_gif=Graham's number! Short version: it's really big. I'll try to explain how big, but you won't understand it. You literally can't. I'll explain that bit, too.
First, we need to understand iterative operations. We'll start with easy stuff, but we'll get to the fun stuff soon. First, a so-called "zero order" operation called the "sequence function." If you give it a number, it gives the next one. So if you give it a four, it gives a five. If you give it 283, it returns 284.
Now, the main first order operation is used as shorthand for how many times you want to do the sequence function. You can take a six, and say "start here, and do the sequence function four times." You'll end up with ten. You might recognize this as addition. 6+4 just means 6 -> 7 ->8 -> 9 -> 10.
Now, the second-order function is a way to compress a lot of addition. If you want to take six and add it until you have four sixes together, you write 6 x 4, which means 6 + 6 + 6 + 6. Multiplication, of course.
Exponentiation is just iterated multiplication: 64 just means four sixes, multipled: 6 x 6 x 6 x 6.
That's as far as most people need to know, but you can keep going. Tetration is iterated exponentiation. 6 tetrated by four means four sixes raised to each other: 6666. And 7 pentated by three means seven tetrated by seven tetrated by seven.
Now we're ready to begin. We're going to start with three sexated by three. That is, three pentated by three pentated by three, where three pentated by three equals three tetrated by three tetrated by three, and that tetration means 333 = 7.6 billion. So if you take 3333333... until you have 7.6 billion threes, you'll have three pentated by three. This number is incomprehensibly large. Trust me. Then if you pentate three by that number, you'll have three hexated by three. And this number is truly beyond the realm of human comprehension. But this number is not Graham's number. This number is called G(1).
Notice how each level of operations creates huge numbers far, far faster than even one level down. Sequentation is just counting. Addition gets bigger numbers a little faster. Multiplication with small numbers can get you into the hundreds quickly. Exponentiation very swiftly takes us into pretty big numbers, and tetration accelerates much faster than most real-world things ever call for. Remember how even just with two threes, tetration creates 7 billion.
Now, remember G(1)? What we're going to do now is take two threes, and the operation we're going to perform on them is a G(1)-order operation. Even one step up the operation orders makes a tremendous difference. Now we're taking a number of steps that is an unbelievable number. And when we're done, we have a number we'll call G(2).
Now keep going. Don't even begin to think of how big G(2) is. It's actually impossible. Just do a G(2)-order operation on two threes, and call it G(3). And then keep going. I'll skip to the end now: Graham's number is G(64).
I want to explain why I said you literally can't imagine it. I was not exaggerating. It's been proven, because numbers are information, and information has a fundamental relationship with entropy, and entropy with energy, and energy with mass. All that means that there is no way, even with quantum physics, to compute this number, in any fashion, without something that cannot exist.
Do you know the Planck length? The smallest measurable space that exists, the resolution size of reality. There are about 100000000000000 of them to cross the approximate diameter of a quark. Now imagine that every cubic space on Planck3 could be used to store one binary digit. One quark would have 10 with about 3000 zeroes of them, enough to store information about every atom in the solar system. But we don't need one quark. If we stored a bit on every cubic Planck length in the known universe we would still not have enough space to store Graham's number. You wouldn't even fit G(1). A complete computation of G(1) would literally destroy the universe.
That's what I love about Graham's number. We begin with numbers that without exaggeration are too big to fit in our reality, and then raise them to powers beyond comprehension. It's not nuclear overkill. It's cosmic scales of nuclear overkill repeated in terms no one can imagine, all before we've even really begun, and the power of words is exhausted. And yet... we can write it, in a recursive formula, on a sticky note of the palm of your hand in about thirty seconds.
Of course, it's not the biggest number. You could have Graham's number plus one. Graham's number times 2. G(65). G(Graham's number). But at that point, what difference does it make? If math is the language of the universe, what's the point of numbers the universe itself can never represent? Human language is the greatest limiting factor in human thought and communication, but human thought cannot keep pace with its own vision into the language of math.
Graham's number: for those times when someone's just learned Googolplex and you need to top them. Just make sure that guy's not in the room who knows about TREE functions.
Bob Barker Or Monty Hall?
[rebelmouse-image 18353005 is_animated_gif=Suppose you're on a game show, and you're given the choice of three doors: Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats. You pick a door, say No. 1, and the host, who knows what's behind the doors, opens another door, say No. 3, which has a goat. He then says to you, "Do you want to pick door No. 2?" Is it to your advantage to switch your choice?
The answer is yes.
It's a teacher's job to leave a lasting impression and set a good example for their students.
With this in mind, particularly in this age of viral videos and social media, teachers have to be very careful of what they say during class hours.
Even so, there are very few teachers who haven't said something they've regretted when teaching a class.
Sometimes to control unruly students, other times when they've simply had enough.
Then too, sometimes teachers leave their students baffled and perplexed by what they say in their classroom, well aware of what they were saying.
Always making for a memorable story.
"What’s the wildest thing you’ve ever heard teacher say in class?"
And Anyone With Such Closed Minded Views Shouldn't Be Teaching...
"Had the Head of the Department in college claim in class that anyone who actually needs accommodations for mental health issues should not be in college to begin with."
"This was while we were discussing 'Death of a Salesman' and the discussion had veered over to unhealthy pressure and social standards for success."- RavensQueen502
Wait what?!
"My very well-respected Biology teacher in college spent almost an entire lecture telling us that Jamie Lee Curtis was a hermaphrodite."
"It seemed oddly personal to him."- Urbane_Cowboy
Sad On So Many Levels
"Not heard but my freshmen year high school teacher once pulled a bottle of Jack out of his desk and took a shot during class."
"He was dying so towards the end I think he just stopped caring."- Mangothefello
Can't Take The Heat, Then Stay Out Of The Classroom...
"High school science teacher told my class that a kilometre was longer than a mile."
"Refused to budge when refuted and kicked out several students for doing so."- SupersonicDebris13
"5th grade teacher: 'Mount Whitney in California is the tallest mountain in the world'."
"5th grade me blurts out: 'No it isn't, Mount Everest is."
"Whitney is not even the tallest mountain in the USA, which is Mount McKinley in Alaska'."
"I got in trouble for 'contradicting the teacher'."- gtmattz
It's Not Just Students Who Are Bullies...
"I had a teacher ridicule a fat kid about his lunch choices in front of the whole class."
"He ran out crying as she was making fat guy blimp gestures and telling him he was going to be huge as an adult."- SnooOwls5859
Some Dramatic License It Seems...
"I had a literature teacher who told the class that he didn't believe in dinosaurs, because the universe is only a couple thousand years old."
"The bones were put there by Satan."
"Thank f*ck he wasn't a science or history teacher."- AllBadAnswers
Everyone Deserves Nice Acomodations...
"My English teacher told us that he genuinely believes that the Rothchilds own a hotel for aliens in the Bermuda triangle."- TroyLear77
Well, Then...
"We had this kid in our 6th-grade class."
"Very dark skinned kid from Africa."
"His name was Tajak."
"Every now and then when we'd line up to go to another class or lunch and the lights would go out some of his friends would go 'where Tajak at?'"
"Anyway one day we had a sub and we we're lining up for lunch, the lights went out and there went the 'where Tajak at?' and the SUBSTITUTE TEACHER who was also black went 'Boy you darker than night'."
"6th grade was f*cking wild."- 11221mikew
Sad Premonitions
"Psych teacher in high school told us that 1 in 10 of the people were friends with in high school would be dead within 5 years of graduating."
"At the time I thought it was hyperbole, but it turns out he was being conservative."
"3 of the people in my high school friend group were dead by the time I was 22."- Reddit
Do They Really Need A Reason?
"'Now girls, don't you let them boys touch your breasts'."
"'It'll give you cancer'."- jondru
Maybe Should Have Checked With The Geography Teacher?
"A teacher in Elementary school claimed during history class that the Colosseum was in Greece, as an Italian kid I was very confused, this was in Mexico."- Spascucci
So Much For Instilling Hope...
"Didn't hear this personally, but read in a book about a guy who recalled his teacher skipping chapters in a textbook and saying 'You will not need to know this when you are down in the mines'."- futanari_kaisa
The mark of a good teacher is that students will take everything they hear from them with them for the rest of their lives.
Though, the less-than-wonderful teachers may also say things their students will never forget.
People Who've Had A Serious Illness Describe The Exact Moment They Knew Something Was Really Wrong
As a kid, I never raised alarm bells even when I started to feel sick. My mom got stressed easily and was busy taking care of my younger brother, so I never wanted to be a burden by making her take me to the doctor only to find out nothing was wrong.
However, in fifth grade, my ears started to hurt and I knew something was wrong. I told my mom, she took me to the doctor, and I found out I had an ear infection.
Now, an ear infection isn't serious at all, and it was easily treatable. Still, I learned something from that experience: no one knows your body better than you. You know if and when you're sick and how serious it is, even if you don't now exactly what is wrong.
Redditors can corroborate this. Many of them have experienced symptoms that told them they were sick in some way -- usually with a very serious illness -- and are ready to share those experiences.
It all started when Redditor thelearner18 asked:
"People who have had a serious disease (cancer, MS, organ failure, etc) when did you realize something was really wrong?"
A Lesson Learned
"Hust found out i have rectal cancer. 42 yrs old. multiple stools per day, not fully emptying, thin poop. so got a colonoscopy. bam! cancer. starting chemo next week. lesson learned for everyone....if your stools or stool schedule changes, go see a doctor"
– shawngee03
A Lucky Break
"I had been having a lot of pain in my midsection, and all around my torso for several weeks. I went to the doctor and it was dismissed as gynecological cramping (menopausal?). It remained. After several weeks (6-8) I couldn’t take it anymore. I went to emergency in the middle of the night. I got a CT scan that showed a large kidney stone. They also found a mass on my ovary. The kidney stone lead them to finding a rare ovarian cancer. If not for that stone, I wouldn’t have known about the cancer and might not have caught it in time. I have been in remission since September 2021."
– peachsqueeze66
Cause For Concern
"My kid, who was 14 at the time, kept throwing up in the morning and having weird headaches. Her doctor thought it was migraines. She went back a couple of times, but the doctor was not concerned. Then one day she complained of a whooshing noise in her ear. Went to the children’s hospital and found out it was a brain tumor near her cerabellum. She was in ICU for a month, but turned out it was non cancerous and it never grew back. She is doing great now."
– Evilelfqueen
"I heard a whooshing noise in my ear a few years ago I only really heard it at night when it was quiet it would sometimes switch ears now I basically never hear it. I'm pretty sure it was just pulsatile tinnitus but still scary."
– fallen-summer
It Was The Salt
"I have Cystic Fibrosis (terminal lung disease) and it was found out when I didn't sh*t for 3 days after I was born and then my mother gave me a kiss and said I tasted REALLY salty."
"Now I'm on a gene modification drug called Trikafta and this is some serious witch craft a** sh*t because I no longer feel sick to death and I basically feel like a normal person. It's f*cking wild!
"Went from 19% lung function to 87% in 3 months. I no longer cough my a** off or feel like I'm suffocating from mucus. Go science!"
– Sudden_Blueberry_477
A Funky Optic Nerve
"I was diagnosed with MS when I was 22 after having blurred vision in one eye after a ski trip. I went to the optometrist and they said I had a dry eye probably from not wearing goggles while snow boarding. So they gave me steroid drops. After a week it kept getting worse, so I went back and they told me my eye looked much better so they did a field of view test, which showed I couldn’t see anything out of the lower half of one eye. They sent me straight to the emergency room since nothing was wrong physically wrong with my eye. They did some tests and I was diagnosed with MS and ended up going completely blind in one eye. My vision eventually came back and I got on medication within a month so haven’t really had any symptoms or issues since thankfully. I’m only 29 now though."
– johnjohn9312
Caught It In Time
"This isn't me, but this happened to my best friend VERY recently. Like in the last couple of months."
"Was perfectly fine and healthy one day. Then the next he started feeling a little bit of pain in his kidney. He'd had kidney stones before, so he figured it was that again. Then he started peeing blood. He thought it was still part of the kidney stone thing so let it go for a couple days, but he was still peeing blood and the pain was getting worse."
"That's when he decided to go to the doctor. They did an X-ray and found a mass in his kidney and told him that based on where it was located they can't remove the mass, and they can't do a partial kidney removal, and it's about a 90% chance it's cancerous, but they wouldn't be able to do a biopsy without removing the kidney first. They did the whole insurance dance, but it went fast and within two weeks he was in surgery having his kidney removed."
"He's still recovering at home right now, but they got the biopsy results last week. It was indeed cancerous, but they caught it before it spread."
– SweetCosmicPope
Happily Ever After
"I couldn’t walk anymore with my crutch I had been using to get by. Had Been on Percocet for 8 months because of the extreme pain. Nobody was finding answers to my pain but I knew something was wrong, badly. After finally having an ultra sound on my hips at the age of 26 I found out I had to undergo a double hip replacement to walk again due to a serious rare disease. I was stage 4 Avascular Nercrosis. Took a year to recover from both. But Happier ending, I’m doing good now. However it was very very upsetting news to get over a phone call at 26."
– heartpathetic
It Really Sneaks Around
"My wife started getting numbness in her right arm. The breast cancer had spread to her right shoulder and the tumor was crushing the nerves. She has stage four breast cancer in her bones."
– zenos_dog
A Turn For The Worse
"For me, it started May 14, 2014. I went to work and was having a good morning. Then, at about 9:00 in the morning or so, I started to feel some lower abdominal pain. Not to be crude, but it felt like that cramp you get when you really need to go to the bathroom. I did so, but the pain didn't go away. It got worse. I started to feel chills, was sweating, and felt nauseated. My employer has a clinic on site, so I went there. After some poking and prodding, the nurse asked me if I wanted to go home or if I wanted to go to the emergency room. I decided to go home, and if the pain didn't subside, then I'd go to the emergency room. As I was saying that, though, I noticed that my pain had gotten a LOT worse. They always make you rate your pain on a scale of 0 to 10, with 0 being no pain at all and 10 being the worst pain you've ever felt. When I went into the clinic, I was mostly uncomfortable, maybe a high 2 going into a 3. On that very subjective scale, I was now a 6 or a 7."
"I changed my mind and decided to go straight to the nearest emergency room. My boss drove me, and by the time we got there about 15 minutes later, I was now a 10. This was the worst pain I'd ever felt. My previous definition of the worst pain I'd ever felt was when I broke 7 bones in my wrist, it was misdiagnosed as a sprain, and I had to have them rebroken 2 weeks later. The pain in my abdomen was now worse than that. The emergency room admitted me and put me in a wheelchair. They wheeled me to a room, I curled up on the bed they put me in, and passed out."
"At some point, a nurse came in and gave me some morphine. Great stuff. No pain at all anymore. A doctor came in and told me they suspected a kidney stone. He wanted me to get a CT scan to confirm it, and I agreed. An orderly wheeled me off to imaging. I got scanned without contrast and was wheeled back to the room. My wife had arrived while I was getting scanned. Shortly later, the doctor who told me he thought it was a kidney stone came into the room. With another doctor. And two nurses. They all crowd around me with solemn looks on their faces."
"The first doctor told me it was a kidney stone. A 2 to 3 mm kidney stone had been lodged in the ureter of my left kidney. That's the tube that goes from the kidney to the bladder. It passed into my bladder when they gave me the morphine, but they could see evidence of it on the CT scan. Then the other doctor said they were more concerned about the 6 cm mass they found on my right kidney. They had my attention."
"They did another CT scan, with contrast this time, and it was impossible to see anything but a tumor in the pictures they showed me. They made an appointment for me with a urologist for the next day, as well as an appointment in a few days time to get it biopsied. It was an after-hours appointment for the urologist, but he was nice enough to stay late to see me. He looked at the CT Scans and cancelled my appointment to get it biopsied. He said there was nothing else it could be but cancer, and the kidney would have to go."
"Two months later, I had the kidney and the tumor removed laparoscopically. I was incredibly lucky. They caught it in stage 1. The doctor said there were signs it was going to start moving soon. I have no idea how doctors can look at a softball sized lump of cancer and tell anything other than 'gross', but that's why they're the doctors and I'm not."
"My recovery was smooth, and I've been cancer-free for 9 years. I was incredibly blessed. I didn't have to deal with chemo, or radiation. While those can save your life, they are also horrible experiences with nasty side effects. I didn't have to deal with any of them. I was bracing myself to have to. They said it was a possibility. But I didn't. I have every respect for those not as fortunate as me, and wish them all the best in recovery."
– mnementh9999
Reason #5,622 To Start Exercising
"I started jogging again to try and get back into running shape. I kept noticing that just after a mile or so, I'd stop and get REALLY lightheaded. Kept thinking, "oh, I'm really out of shape" and kept going. Went in a few weeks later for my annual physical and doctor said "you ever been told you have a heart murmur?", no. Two months later I spent Christmas of 2017 in the ICU after having a section of my aorta cut out and a new valve put in. Surgeon said it was bad. Said it wouldn't have made it too much longer."
"Edit: for clarification, it was an aortic dissection."
– Itsawlinthereflexes
Slow And Steady
"My dad's friend went on a hike with a doctor who knew him and he was winded not far from the car. The doctor clocked it right away and told him to get his heart checked. He had 98% blockage in his heart arteries."
"He tells my dad so my dad gets the test to see how his arteries are doing and they found a massive aneurism on his aorta. He is getting it removed tomorrow. He had no symptoms but the doctors said if he had overdone it he would be dead before anyone would even know what was going on. Crazy how a random friend's hike may have saved his life."
– Pencilowner
It Takes A Village
"I never did, my teacher and parents did."
"I was seven, usually an active kid and my first grade teacher noticed that rather than running around at recess I sat down and took a nap. It happened a couple more times and after I fell asleep in class (totally out of character), she gave my parents a call, we had been visiting the doc fairly regularly cause I was also complaining of joint pain and frequent ear infections combined with the new symptoms and a new doc at the practice I was finally diagnosed with leukemia."
– greenmachine11235
Thank goodness for that teacher (and of course, the parents)!
When in the beginning stages of dating, it's important to know as much as humanly possible.
The element of surprise is no longer a fun aspect of romance.
Ask the small questions. Ask the hard questions.
Interrogate. Grill. Investigate.
Of course, you should do it with a subtle hand instead of an interrogation lamp.
The truth is all we have.
Ask everything.
Redditor RedditPenguin02 wanted to make a list of the best inquiries to make when starting a relationship, so they asked:
"What is a good question to ask before you start dating someone?"
From what I've learned in my past, always ask... "Are you into Buffy the Vampire Slayer? The TV show."
If it's a no, then it's a dealbreaker.
I Do
"Are you married?"
wrenchmonkey135
"I would ask that. If they said no, the next question was 'Would your wife agree?'"
"If they laughed, they were telling the truth. If they got indignant and pissed off that I thought they were lying…they were married."
"Worked every time."
Squibit314
We Lived!
"Do you clap when the plane lands?"
dont_u_know
"I swear people used to do this all the time when I was a kid (early 2000’s), and I don’t think I’ve heard anyone do it in 5+ years. I guess 9/11 really made people afraid of flying for about 10 years and then most folks decided they didn’t need to applaud when the plane landed safely?"
jmims98
Family Planning
"Do you want kids in the future? If one person wants kids and the other wants to stay child-free, then they are not compatible. And it is better to try dating someone else."
GoodAlicia
"It confuses me whenever some couples who disagree on this end up in a conundrum because one expected the other to change their mind. This is something I bring up early cause I see no future with someone who wants kids when I do not."
GoodAlicia
"You should always put childfree on your dating profile. It's not a small thing. Either you agree on it or not. If I had to date, I would put childfree on my profile too."
GoodAlicia
Carb it on...
"Do you like bread? That is the extent of my flirting skills."
HumpieDouglas
"Being German, bread is like a frickin' cultural phenomenon here, we have around 300 kinds of bread, there's a bread museum, every time I go on vacation I'm like yeah it's nice here but the bread ain't it yall, never as good as home lol. So yeah, valid question and the only answer to this is an enthusiastic yes."
Nayeliq1
Room Temperature
"What temperature do you set the thermostat to throughout the year?"
OneFingerIn
"Haha this one always gets me as someone who needs low temps - you can always put on more clothes, I can't peel my skin off to get cooler."
djdante
The thermostat is a dealbreaker for me.
It's gonna be 60. Love it or move on.
Discovery
"When was the last time you changed your mind about something?
"Opens a window to how they think."
youcantkillanidea
"If that was really early on in the dating I’d think it was a bit of a head-f**k question. I’d probably find that question a red flag, tone dependent, although I agree with the sentiment."
LivestockMarc
Personal Time
"Aside from major differences about finances, kids, politics, or religion, a big one is; What are your hobbies? If they don’t really have any, you may be the next hobby, which isn’t going to work unless you’ve got that kind of time. If the hobbies are time-consuming ones generally done with a SO."
"But you have no interest in them, that could be an issue as well. If only one of you likes camping, wanted to spend vacation lounging instead of exploring, didn’t like sports, etc either that partner is annoyed or the other feels like they don’t get to enjoy what they love."
Githard
Past Issues
"Ask them about their exes. If they think every single one of them is an a**hole... they are likely the real a**hole."
CantTakeMeSeriously
"I have mixed feelings about that - I've been in three previous relationships and all three were emotionally abusive towards me (one wasn't nearly as bad as the other two, though) in various ways. I know this is a common sentiment and it always makes me afraid that people won't believe me or something.
"I mean, I realize in your comment you said 'likely' and not '100% sure' and there's plenty of room for nuance."
phiore
Values
"I would try to take care of any dealbreakers. If I find out that she has different political values than I do, it's not going to work out in the long run, so I wouldn't bother. Same thing with other factors (religion, financial values, etc.). I would also ask how much cuddling she likes to engage in, as I prefer a lot."
SkullKrusher9000
Essentials
"When I was dating my three essential questions were always kids, sex, and money. If you're not on the same wavelength for any of those three things, just don't even try."
KhaosElement
TRUTH PLEASE!!
"So, how much personal debt do you have?"
"Source: the guy who dated a woman with huge debts and was asked to pay for everything and then some".
"After that, I'd go with, 'Have you ever been diagnosed with borderline, narcissistic, or histrionic personality disorders?"
extracensorypower
The questions are basic.
Just ask for the truth.
Do you have any good Qs to add to the queue? Let us know in the comments below.
As much as we always hop for our dating efforts to be worth it and for every relationship to work out, we all know that some relationships are not destined to work out.
But sometimes relationships end for totally valid reasons, and sometimes the reasons are painful, if not devastating.
Redditor overIorded asked:
"What went wrong with your last partner?"
History Repeating Itself
"He cheated on me. And I was glad because that was finally reason enough to allow myself to leave."
"Now I know somebody who's in the same situation. They're trapped. And she's such a gentle and fun person who's afraid to leave him because 'well, it's always been like this, I'm used to it,' and 'I deserve it.'"
"She wants to leave him, she knows she should leave him, but it's so hard to do it, and I know that feeling."
"I'm thinking I should give her my phone number like when the day comes you've had enough, I'll gladly come to help you move out from that s**thole."
- NmlsFool
Mental Health Struggles
"I'm lost in my own trauma and mental illness and he deserves better than anything I have to offer right now."
- Last-Celery7146
"I’ve been on the receiving end of this, and mildly said, it absolutely ruined me. Her trauma and mental problems were BAD, but I still wanted to be with them. So if you ask me, as long as they can give you the space and support you need, and want to be with you, let them make the decision."
- emilersen
"It's also fair and mature to care very much about someone but realize that you only have the emotional bandwidth to take care of yourself right now."
"I'm sure it was very hard for both of you to come to terms with that decision. I don't think it's that he deserves better, I think it's that your attention needs to be on guiding yourself through this thicket of trauma and mental illness before you can be someone else's partner. You can love each other very much but also acknowledge that you don't have the tools to spare for a relationship right now."
"I'm proud of you for focusing on your own mental health and someday, when you have more emotional stability and energy, I hope you find a wonderful partner."
- SpoonAtKnifeFight
Relationship Styles
"We disagreed on how many women he was allowed to date. I’m very strong on monogamy and have no interest in someone (in a supposedly committed relationship) that isn’t."
- Altrano
At Least There's That
"Her psychotic brother tried to kill me. Thankfully he has a Stormtrooper's aim..."
- Active-Plate7939
"Hate the attempted murder, love the 'Star Wars' reference."
- letmetellyousom
Childfree Living
"He wanted a big family, like, six kids, all-natural. Obviously, he wouldn't be birthing them. This was very important to him while I was pretty ambivalent about kids, and the further into my adulthood I've gotten, the more I've realized I just don't want to be pregnant."
"I broke it off so we could both get the lives we wanted. He was also quite a bit more conservative than me, and at the time closeted pansexual person, and some stuff he believed just didn't line up with what I believed. It hurt, but it was amicable."
"Now he has a wife and kids like he wanted, and I am happily partnered and childfree. It worked out for the best."
- Free-Government5162
Family Ties
"She hated that I had a healthy relationship with my family and was trying to find ways to sabotage it."
- Cobra-Serpentress
"Similar aspect to mine, she hated my sister and mother because she had a bad relationship with her sister and mother. She would get mad at me whenever I brought my family up."
- letmetellyousom
Quality Time
"My last boyfriend dumped me because I got mad that he was coming to Dallas after I hadn't seen him for two months, but didn't want to see me."
"He was going to meet up with some friends of his he hadn't seen in a few months. I told him that was fine with me, but I felt he should make time to see me too since we hadn't seen each other in two months and we were supposed to be a couple."
"He responded to my anger by ghosting me. That was two years ago."
- dallasmysterylover
Distracted with a Punch
"A girl contacted me about him talking to her. I asked him what was going on, and he sucker-punched me in the face."
- Brilliant-Victory128
Projecting Insecurities
"He cheated on me for all six years we were together and then accused me of cheating on him, even though I wasn't allowed to leave the house."
"I'm also pretty sure he slept with my sister-in-law when my brother and I went to pick up dinner."
- Affectionate_Egg1252
Children Come First
"He was and still is no father to his kids, has anger issues, and probably has other mental health issues. I tried for years to help him and help the relationship, but he wasn't having it. After seeing how my oldest suffered under him, I had to leave."
- rintan13
Poor Communication
"I communicated how I felt about many things in the relationship. He never communicated about anything."
- aj_oof0323
"Oh look, it's the last 14 years of my life..."
- empathetic111
"I'm guilty of this, and boy, do I regret not being able to open up about my feelings. It cost me my marriage. But now I'm trying to be more open and share my thoughts and feelings. Just wished I could've done this earlier than later."
Deserving Better
"I started drinking again and became a miserable a**hole due to my own depression and my s**tty job. As such, she didn't get the attention she deserved, and had to put up with my s**tty mood all the time... so she left. I don't blame her."
"So, it was me. I don't know if I trust myself with a relationship again, but aside from the shame of knowing I hurt someone who I loved, and loved me back, but I was too self-absorbed and selfish, I am trying to be a better human to everyone."
"And to my ex: You'll find someone again... someone better."
- cracksintheegg
Big Moves
"He wanted to move to Alaska to be with some girl he was 'friends' with before me."
- dont_be_trash
Alzheimer's Disease
"My ex's early-onset Alzheimers (at the age of 50) and the resulting violence, paranoia, and irrational thinking. I tried to honor my vows, but he was so far out there, I feared for my life."
- No_Transportation258
Different Definitions of Marriage
"She cheated on me after five years total together, the last one of which was while we were engaged. She cheated on me for months, all while I was planning the wedding, working part-time, and going to graduate school so I can support us comfortably in the future."
"I planned on giving her everything I could and sharing the rest of my life with her, and apparently she didn’t care."
- Mountaingoat1001
This conversation just goes to show that relationships can end for all kinds of reasons. Even in relationships where there is still a lot of love and committment, the relationship can still end, just like how the relationship can end suddenly because of a surprising and devastating realization.