Trivia Thread!

Ent · Sep 27, 2022

Perhaps I'm not the only one that feels woefully inadequate when I hear of such things?!

But then, many who can do seemingly 'great' things, are often quite bereft of others.
Einstein, for example, was extremely brilliant in some areas, while completely inept, woefully ignorant, and lacking common sense in others. (so it is said by some.)

(Which is not to say I am not also completely inept, woefully ignorant, and lacking common sense, even though I don't have any ability to engineer parallel universes or write different stories with all 7 lower branches at once.)

There's a Russian village where every resident is a tightrope walker.

There's one Russian community where the normal thing to be able to do is walk a tightrope - Tsovkra-1—a small, secluded village in the southern republic of Dagestan. Everyone who's physically able can do so. The tradition has existed for more than 100 years, and is even taught in school to the village children. Though only 400 people still live in the region, at least 17 tightrope walkers from the area have found fame in circuses due to their impressive aerial abilities.

Squint-eyed Southerner · Sep 27, 2022

The Enting said:
Einstein

"When the mathematicians got hold of my theories, even I couldn't understand them!"

grendel · Sep 27, 2022

Squint-eyed Southerner said:
I thought the fact that John Stuart Mill read all of Plato's Dialogues in Greek by age nine was impressive, until I read that the philosopher and literary theorist Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling was a "precocious child, mastering Latin and Greek by the age of eight." He earned a master's degree in philosophy at age 17.

We ain't even gonna mention Mozart...

Erestor Arcamen · Jan 9, 2023

Ancient Persians believed in a divination method called fāl-gūsh, or hiding somewhere and eavesdropping on people’s conversations and believing what you heard foretold your future

CheriptheRipper · Jan 9, 2023

Erestor Arcamen said:
In the time it took for you to read this sentence, around 50,000 cells in your body died and were replaced by new ones.

Bold of you to assume how fast I read

Deimos · Jan 9, 2023

grendel said:
We ain't even gonna mention Mozart...

Page from Mozart's first Symphony, written when he was 7 years old.
(So boys and girls, what part of the sandbox were you playing in at 7?)

Deimos · Jan 9, 2023

Atmospheric trivia:

If you've ever seen a double rainbow (not an uncommon phenomenon) on the primary one the colors proceed from red to violet with red starting on the outside of the arc ending with violet on the inside of the arc (which makes sense because red light waves are longer than blue/violet light waves.)
But on the secondary bow it is reversed; violet is on the outside of the arc and red is on the inside.

Deimos · Jan 9, 2023

The word "trivia" is plural; singular is "trivium".
Trivium is Latin for a crossroads or street corner [tri via = 3 way/street]
A street corner is where the common folk would pick up gossip or news of everyday events.
(Extra! Extra! Breaking News! Chariot transporting household overturns on the Appian Way! Penates scattered everywhere!)
So what one heard on the trivium was "trivia".

Eljorahir · Jan 9, 2023

Atmospheric Trivia (Part 2):

If you want to remember the order of the colors in a rainbow, just remember the name Roy G. Biv.

Red
Orange
Yellow
Green
Blue
Indigo
Violet

Deimos · Jan 9, 2023

Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I still consider Pluto a planet, thank you very much)
Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest

Eljorahir · Jan 9, 2023

Deimos said:
Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I still consider Pluto a planet, thank you very much)
Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest

T is for Terra?
And, A is for Asteroids?

Deimos · Jan 9, 2023

Eljorahir said:
T is for Terra?
And, A is for Asteroids?

Bingo, squared 😁

To fully appreciate the consistency of this mnemonic you have to see that all the planets names are the Latin names for the Greek gods, which is rather funny considering everything the ancient Romans knew about astronomy they assimilated/borrowed/stole from some other civilization. Even the word "planet" is of Greek origin.
Terra is Latin for earth, as in ground; cf. terra firma which is a synonym for The Earth
Even Luna is Latin
If the planets had Greek names they would have been:
Hermes
Aphrodite
Gaea (moon would be called Selene...name of the element Selenium is derived from it)
Ares (Deimos along with Phobos were henchmen of the god Ares, yet they retain their Greek names even now as the two moons of Mars)
Asteroeidēs (Romans directly took the "aster" (star) part of this word to make a Latin word astrum for star)
Zeus
Chronos
Ouranos
Poseidon
Hades

(and I have no idea what would be a mnemonic for that list 😱)

Ent · Jan 10, 2023

It is said "Tomorrow never comes."
However, note these facts:

Tomorrow as a First Name
- Estimate: there are 253 people named Tomorrow currently alive and born in the United States. Tomorrow is the 15,270th most common for women, and the 23,226th most common overall.
- The average person named Tomorrow is 35.32 years old.
- Fewer than 5 people named Tomorrow were born in the U.S. in 2021.
- The popularity of Tomorrow peaked in 1979, when it was the 3,904th most popular name for baby girls.
- Tomorrow is almost exclusively a female name. The Social Security Administration does not record any males born with the name Tomorrow.

SO: If you happen to know any of these "Tomorrows", and they show up at your door, Tomorrow has indeed come.
And I would guess they show up at supermarkets, Doctor offices, schools, meetings, relatives houses, .....
So maybe Tomorrow does really come - more often than we know.

Eljorahir · Jan 10, 2023

Ent said:
It is said "Tomorrow never comes."
However, note these facts:

Tomorrow as a First Name
- Estimate: there are 253 people named Tomorrow currently alive and born in the United States. Tomorrow is the 15,270th most common for women, and the 23,226th most common overall.
- The average person named Tomorrow is 35.32 years old.
- Fewer than 5 people named Tomorrow were born in the U.S. in 2021.
- The popularity of Tomorrow peaked in 1979, when it was the 3,904th most popular name for baby girls.
- Tomorrow is almost exclusively a female name. The Social Security Administration does not record any males born with the name Tomorrow.

SO: If you happen to know any of these "Tomorrows", and they show up at your door, Tomorrow has indeed come.
And I would guess they show up at supermarkets, Doctor offices, schools, meetings, relatives houses, .....
So maybe Tomorrow does really come - more often than we know.

And, Tomorrow was the name of the pitcher on the baseball team in an infamous Abbott and Costello routine.

"Tell me the pitcher's name."
"Tomorrow."
"You don't wanna tell me the name?"
"I'm tellin' ya the name!"
"Then go ahead!"
"Tomorrow!"
""What time?"
"What time what?"
"What time tomorrow ya gonna tell me who's pitching?"
"Now listen! Who's not pitching. Who is on first!" ... ... ... ... ...

Ent · Jan 10, 2023

Eljorahir said:
the name of the pitcher

thanks for the memory..!

Olorgando · Jan 10, 2023

Deimos said:
Mnemonic for remembering the order of the planets (and I still consider Pluto a planet, thank you very much)
Mother Very Thoughtfully Made A Jelly Sandwich Under No Protest

Yes, Pluto's degradation in 2006 was controversial even among the professional astronomers.
What they do agree on is that the total mass of the objects in the Asteroid Belt is far too small to have been able to form a single planet, especially in the relative proximity of Jupiter.

The mnemonic for the (formerly) nine Planets in German runs as follows:

Mein Vater Erklärte Mir Jeden Sonntag Unsere Neun Planeten (E being for "Erde", and it would also fit nicely for Earth ... 😁 )

Squint-eyed Southerner · Jan 10, 2023

Erestor Arcamen · Jan 10, 2023

In 1943 a group of German sailors on a U-Boat placed a weather station on the Canadian coast (Labrador) so the Germans could more accurately predict the weather for military operations (since weather in the Northern hemisphere generally moves west-to-east). The weather station was marked with fake signs indicating that it was a Canadian military facility and for unauthorized personnel to keep out.

The weather station was eventually discovered by the Canadians In 1977.

https://www.adventurecanada.com/new...ation that,the treacherous shores of Labrador.

Eljorahir · Jan 10, 2023

Erestor Arcamen said:
In 1943 a group of German sailors on a U-Boat placed a weather station on the Canadian coast (Labrador) so the Germans could more accurately predict the weather for military operations (since weather in the Northern hemisphere generally moves west-to-east). The weather station was marked with fake signs indicating that it was a Canadian military facility and for unauthorized personnel to keep out.

The weather station was eventually discovered by the Canadians In 1977.

https://www.adventurecanada.com/newfoundland-and-labrador/top-of-the-world-the-secret-nazi-weather-station#:~:text=But the weather station that,the treacherous shores of Labrador.

Interesting article. However, I must admit, I was hoping the story would include a dutiful German sailor still manning the station in 1977 not knowing the war was over.

Erestor Arcamen · Jan 10, 2023

Eljorahir said:
Interesting article. However, I must admit, I was hoping the story would include a dutiful German sailor still manning the station in 1977 not knowing the war was over.

That’s happened with a few Japanese soldiers

60 years after the war ends, two soldiers emerge from the jungle

Mystery surrounds Japanese men, both in their 80s, who say they have been in hiding since second world war.

www.theguardian.com

Onoda: The man who hid in the jungle for 30 years

A new film tells the strange story of Japan's controversial WW2 hero. Its themes of nationalism and fake news still resonate, writes James Balmont.

www.bbc.com

Trivia Thread!

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