In this age of computer technology, we can no longer do without modern devices such as computers and telephones. Therefore, the IT sphere is also not deprived of any funny and interesting facts. Here is some of them:
1. The Nero Burning ROM program got its name from the Emperor Nero, who is credited with burning down Rome. So it turns out that if you pronounce the name of the program, you get "Nero burning Rome."
2. The Google search engine was named after the number Google (googol). This word denotes a number consisting of one and one hundred zeros.
10. The most common password in the world is 123456
11. In Iran, the degree of computerization is higher than in Russia.
12. When the first CD was invented, the developers decided that it should be big enough to hold Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which is 72 minutes long.
13. The first computer network in Russia appeared in Novosibirsk in 1990.
14. The @ symbol is officially called "Commercial at". In Russian everyday life, it is called "dog". Remarkably, in many other countries this symbol is also associated with various animals (for example, “monkey” or “Snail”).
15. The first person to use the emoji was Scott Folman, who in 1982, while chatting on the BBC, used the characters ":-)" to represent a smile.
16. Yahoo means - "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle", which translated into Russian means - "Another hierarchical executive predictor."
17. On Windows, you cannot create folders named PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2, CON. With the name CON there is a tale that Bill Gates was called that at school (meaning bespectacled), so he excluded this name. But all this is not true, these are just reserved system names.
18. Facebook is worth about $50 billion, and Microsoft, like Google, is worth about $250 billion.
19. The QWERTY keyboard layout is over 130 years old.
20. Officially, the first Russian domain SU (Soviet Union) was registered in 1990.
21. Microsoft has about 72,000 employees. Approximately ¼ of them are women.
1. Of all the known elements, only two are found in the liquid state under normal conditions - mercury and bromine.
2. The Swedish chemist Carl Scheele holds a kind of record for the number of discovered chemical elements. Thanks to him, mankind learned about the existence of oxygen, fluorine, chlorine, manganese, molybdenum, barium, tungsten. Scheele is followed by his compatriots Jacob Berzelius, Karl Mosander, the English chemist Humphrey Davy and the French chemist Paul Lecoq de Boisbaudran, who discovered 4 elements each. These scientists account for almost 1/4 of all elements known on Earth.
3. The history of chemistry knows a list of false discoveries of chemical elements, containing about 250 names. For example, the discovery of more than 100 rare earth elements was announced, and only 15 turned out to be true.
4. Two elements were first discovered in the solar atmosphere using spectral methods, and then discovered in terrestrial minerals - these are helium and technetium.
5. The abundance of chemical elements on Earth differs significantly from their distribution in the Universe. For example, oxygen and silicon "lead" on Earth, and hydrogen and helium in space.
6. When water is boiled, its molecules move at a speed of 650 meters per second.
7. Plastic bearings are 8-10 times more durable than babbitt ones, 7-8 times cheaper, and they are lubricated not with oil, but with water.
8. Kapron is an excellent substitute for non-ferrous metals. Bearings, bushings, parts for textile machines, presses, metal-cutting machines made of kapron do not need lubrication, do not corrode, they have a very low coefficient of friction, they are silent, much lighter and more durable than metal ones. Moreover, their manufacturing cost is low.
9. Nylon thread is 2.5 times stronger than silk and 10 times more wear-resistant than cotton. A thread 1 mm thick can withstand 75 kilograms - the weight of an adult.
10. To get 100 tons of natural rubber, 100 people must work on plantations for 5 years. 10 tons of synthetic rubber in a chemical plant can produce 5 workers in one day.
11. The production of artificial leather costs 15-20 times cheaper than natural leather, and the labor costs for its production are almost 100 times less.
12. Chemists have created a new fiber - vinol. It also absorbs water well, like cotton. The surgeon will gladly use the vinol thread - a few hours after the operation, it completely dissolves in the patient's body. Vinol will give durable tires to cars and aircraft. And for fishermen - durable fishing tackle and ropes. Vinol is not afraid of moisture and does not rot.
13. Until the middle of the 17th century, Venice threatened the death penalty for those who divulged the secret of making mirrors. The production of mirrors was the monopoly of the Venetian state.
14. The creator of the theory of the chemical structure of organic compounds, Alexander Mikhailovich Butlerov, an outstanding theorist and brilliant experimenter, beekeepers know as the founder of Russian rational beekeeping. Butlerov's passion for beekeeping was not just a curiosity. For the book “Bee, her life. Rules of intelligent beekeeping ”Butlerov received an award from the Free Economic Society. In the spring of 1882 in Moscow, at the All-Russian Exhibition, the great chemist arranged an exemplary apiary, where he himself acted as a consultant-guide.
15. The mathematicians of ancient Babylon for 2 thousand years BC. e. there was a multiplication table, a symbol for zero, negative numbers, tables for calculating areas and volumes, squares and cubes, they knew how to solve equations of the fourth degree in much the same way as they are used now. They knew the so-called Pythagorean theory.
16. The world's first textbook of arithmetic problems was compiled by the Armenian scientist, mathematician of the VI century, David the Invincible. A copy of this problem book is kept in the Yerevan matenadaran (repository of ancient manuscripts).
17. For the first time, the mathematical signs "plus" and "minus" are found in the textbook of arithmetic by Johann Widmann, which was published in 1489 in Leipzig. Until then, these signs were denoted by the initial letters of the words "plus" and "minus".
18. For the first time, the French mathematician of the 16th century, Francois Viet, proposed denoting decimal fractions with a comma. Before him, the representation of fractions was very complex. So, for example, the fraction 0.3469 was written like this: 3(1)4(2)6(3)9(4).
19. The famous theorem about the sides of a right triangle was given in the cuneiform texts of Babylon, which appeared 1200 years before the birth of Pythagoras.
20. The outstanding French mathematician Alexi Clairaut at the age of ten already knew higher mathematics, at the age of twelve he made his first scientific discovery, and at the age of eighteen he became an adjunct of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
21. The famous Italian mathematician Bonaventura Cavalieri suffered from padagra. During bouts of illness, he intensively studied mathematics. And the pain went away.
22. As early as eight centuries BC, golden lions were installed on the sides of the throne of Emperor Theophilus. When the emperor sat down on the throne, the lions got up, roared and lay down again. Ancient mechanics, apparently, knew how to make good automata.
23. A cavity was found in the Roman Colosseum, in which there was once a huge elevator for raising gladiators and wild animals from the dungeons to the arena. The elevator was driven by a gate that employed 60 people.
24. George Westinghouse patented a new invention every six weeks on average for 48 years.
25. The oldest description of a water pump was found in the work of the Greek writer Philo of Byzantium, who lived more than 2 thousand years ago. But he also described not the first, but a significantly improved double-acting pump.
26. In order to discover the secrets of the electromagnet, Faraday carried a model of an electromagnet in his pocket for nine years and in every free minute gave it different positions, thinking with concentration on the solution of the problem.
27. Mu - a unit of distance in India, means the limit of audibility of the lowing of a cow.
28. Sound can sometimes be seen. In England, a man standing on a hill suddenly saw a long, narrow shadow rushing towards him across the valley. When she ran up to him, the man felt a strong push and heard the sound of a strong explosion. As it turned out, a gunpowder depot had exploded a few miles away, and the blast had compressed the air to such a density that it cast a shadow.
29. For the first time, a rocket for human flight in 1500 decided to use the Chinese mandarin Wang Hu. His flying machine was made in the form of a seat, which had to be carried by two large dragons with the help of 47 firework rockets. This attempt ended in failure - the inventor died.
30. The origin of the term "rocket" dates back to the 19th century. It comes from the Italian word "rock-ketta", which means spindle, tube.
31. A man, having learned to fly, surpassed a bird in flight speed in 1912, in flight altitude in 1916 and in flight range only in 1924.
32. During the time that a passenger on a modern high-speed passenger plane lights a cigarette, he will fly 6 kilometers in the air, and during a three-course dinner - 800 kilometers.
33. The tenth book of Vitruvius (1st century BC) describes a "taxi". After each certain segment of the journey, the mechanism connected with the axis of the carriage dropped a pebble into the bronze bowl. The distance traveled was determined by the number of pebbles. It has been established that such crews were actually used in practice.
34. On many roads of ancient Greece and Rome, traces of “rails” have been preserved in the form of grooves along which wheels rolled. Even the "arrows" were preserved, on which oncoming vehicles could pass each other.
35. In an ordinary wrist watch, there are parts, the weight of a thousand pieces of which is 1 gram.
36. Nylon watch made in England. Their springs, axles, gears are not afraid of dampness and shaking. In terms of accuracy, the new watches are not inferior to ordinary, metal ones.
37. A huge bonus of 10 thousand pounds sterling was received in 1761 from the English government by the mechanic Harrison for bringing the accuracy of the chronometer to 30 seconds per day. Now ordinary watches have such accuracy - mass production of watch factories.
38. The invention of blotting paper dates back to the middle of the last century. The history of this "invention" is curious. In one of the paper mills in England, a worker forgot to add glue to the paper pulp. For this oversight, the owner kicked him out. But it soon turned out that unglued paper has the property of absorbing moisture. The enterprising owner took advantage of this and transferred the entire production of the factory to the manufacture of blotters, which found a great sale. Paper replaced the finely sifted sand that had been used until then, with which the ink was sprinkled.
39. In order to compare two different methods of calculation, the "smart" computer machine calculated the number "pi" with an accuracy of one hundred thousandth of a decimal place. It took the car 8 hours to do this. If a person wanted to do this work, he would have to spend 30 years on it.
40. The very first recording in the world was made in 1888 by the inventor Emil Berliner. The first record is kept in the Washington National Museum. Records then had two holes in the center, and were played from the middle to the edge. The recording occupied only one side of the disc. The name was written on the back. At the beginning of the 20th century, at the time of a strong passion for the gramophone, chocolate records were sold. They sounded good, but they were, of course, very fragile.
41. The temperature of the flame of an ordinary primus reaches 2000 degrees.
42. More than 150 years ago, match heads were made from a mixture of Bertolet salt with sugar and glue. These matches were lit by dipping them in a vial of sulfuric acid.
43. In those fractions of a second when you strike a match on the box, the temperature of the match head rises to 200 degrees C.
44. The now accepted centigrade scale of the thermometer is usually associated with the name Celsius. However, the scale of the first Celsius thermometer (1747) was arranged in such a way that zero division corresponded to the boiling point of water, and a hundredth to its freezing point. Thus, the weather bureau would have to report, say, a thaw at 100 ° C and a warming from 90 ° to 70 ° C. In 1744, after the death of Celsius, the Swedish scientist Strömer “flipped” the scale. An inverted scale, that is the one we are accustomed to turned out to be more convenient, and new thermometers quickly replaced the original ones.The famous chemist Berzelius erroneously called the new scale the Celsius scale, and this incorrect name was established behind it.
45. Metal "flint", which is used in lighters, does not contain silicon. It consists of 70 percent cerium metal and 30 percent ordinary iron. Cerium gives sparks, which light a wick soaked in gasoline.
46. At the end of a needle in a sewing machine, pressure develops up to 5000 atmospheres.
47. In the ruins of a palace in Peru, a “telephone” was found, whose age is determined at 1000 years. It consisted of two gourd flasks connected by a tightly stretched twine.
48. In Beijing, in the Temple of Heaven, there is a wall built in 1530. It is remarkable in that when someone speaks quietly into the wall, then at the opposite end of it, the other person clearly hears his speech. This wall is 6 meters high and about 200 meters long.
1. Apple is the world's largest in terms of revenue generated, but in terms of phone production, it is the world's second largest IT company.
2. The median annual income of employees at Apple headquarters in San Francisco is $125,000.
4. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak once sold his stake for $800. If he wanted to do it today, the amount would be 35 billion dollars!
5. Everything you say in Siri, an interactive system that allows you to control your phone with your voice, is sent to Apple, analyzed and stored there.
6. Apple's cash flow is higher than that of the entire US treasury.
7. iPhone sales are higher than sales of all devices and software manufactured by Microsoft Corporation.
8. Until the Siri app was purchased by Apple in 2010, it was intended for use on Android and Blackberry phones.
9. The first Apple-1 computer, made by Steve Jobs in his garage, was sold at auction in 2014 for $905,000.
10. In 2015, Apple was worth more than Switzerland, Nigeria, and Sweden.
11. There are 5 porn web pages per “regular” webpage
12. In Windows, you can't create a folder called "Con", Bill Gates used to be called this word as a child
14. The @ sign is about 500 years old
15. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is colorblind, unable to distinguish between shades of red and green. This is one of the reasons why Facebook is designed in blue - Zuckerberg can see all the options for blue.
16. The world's first computer weighed 30 tons and consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes.
17. Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates have all been dropped from college
18. In 1997, Yahoo turned down an offer to acquire Google for just $1 million. Today, Google is worth $250 billion.
19. The name of the blue bird from the Twitter logo is Larry Bird.
20. 123456 is the most commonly cracked password
21. When the CD was first invented, the developers were trying to determine the volume for it and decided that the disc should be large enough to hold Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. And this is about 72 minutes
22. At the beginning of the 21st century, the Eskimos got acquainted with the Internet, and this term needed to be translated into their language. The experts chose the word 'ikiaqqivik' - "journey through the layers". Previously, this word was used to describe the actions of a shaman who, in order to find an answer to any question, "traveled" through time and space.
23. The first Fido computer network in Russia appeared in 1990 in Novosibirsk
25. The name of the Yahoo search engine means Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, which translates from English as “another hierarchical executive predictor
26. The first real electronic mail (e-mail) was sent in 1971 by Bolt, Beranek and Newman programmer Ray Tomlinson.
27. Windows cannot create a folder named PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1, COM2 and CON
28. The Unicode character table has a hammer and sickle symbol - U+262D (☭)
29. In 1996, one of the main sensations in Japan was the appearance of Tomagotchi, a simple video game with three buttons, the purpose of which is to educate and care for an electronic pet. The name translated from Japanese sounded like "loving egg", and the author of the idea was 31-year-old Japanese woman Aki Maita, who sold her concept of an electronic animal to Japan's largest toy manufacturer Bandai Corporation. The release of the tomagotchi took place on November 23, 1996, sales of new items in Asia and the United States brought the company more than $ 240 million.
30. The first computer virus to spread outside the author's machine was called the Elk Cloner. It was written in 1982 by Rich Skrenta and focused on Apple computers.
31. The Morris worm that brought down thousands of ARPAnet computers in 1988 was not destructive. Such consequences were caused by a mistake in a single character made by the author, as a result of which the worm became uncontrollable.
32. In 2004, Microsoft and SCO Group promised to pay $250,000 each to anyone who helps the authorities arrest the author of the Mydoom computer worm. In January, this worm hit the whole world with its speed of distribution, and its main goal was to carry out DoS attacks on the computers of the above-mentioned companies. Despite the fact that various versions of Mydoom came out until February 2005, the author was never found.
33. The QWERTY keyboard layout, which is now 130 years old, was designed to be the most uncomfortable possible. The fact is that typewriters quickly broke down if the typist typed too fast, and the creators tried to develop a layout for typing with one hand. The previously used DVORAK is 70% more efficient than QWERTY.
34. The first large-scale anti-hacking operation conducted by the US Secret Service was Operation Sundevil. In May 1990, it swept through 13 American cities, dozens of raids seized 42 computers, 23,000 FDDs, and countless printouts.
35. The data transfer rate record belongs to scientists from the German Fronhover University and Japanese engineers from Fujitsu, who teamed up with the goal of breaking the old record of 1.28 Terabits per second. On March 25, 2006, using fiber optics, lasers and a system of ultra-short flashes of light, they doubled that figure, equivalent to transferring 60 DVDs per second.
36. Officially, the first Russian domain.SU (Soviet Union) was registered in 1990 by the DEMOS company, and a year later the provider provided access to everyone for 20 rubles.
37. The first computer bug was found by Grace Murray Hopper working with Mark II computers. During the failure, the woman checked the relay and found a moth flying in there, which caused the problem. This was the first time that the word bug was used to refer to various problems in software or hardware.
Technology can also be a source of pride. The biggest and very first cars, the fastest and most "bouncy" vehicles. And of course, historical events - you always want to know who and when was the very first.
(Total 11 photos)
The world's first all-electric limousine, based on the Nissan Leaf, bought the Embassy Suites luxury hotel in Nashville (Tennessee, USA). Now the car, while retaining its entire electric motor, can accommodate up to 8 people, while the standard Leaf accommodates no more than 5 people. The Leaf limousine was built by Imperia Limo Land, a tuning studio based in Springild, Missouri.
A new world speed record for toilets has been set in Sydney. Controlled by Jolene Van Vugt, a toilet bowl with a built-in motor was able to reach an average speed of up to 75 kilometers per hour. Jolene is a professional motocross rider and the first woman in the world to complete a back flip on a motocross bike.
The motorcycle high jump world record was set on December 31, 2008. Robbie Maddison (27 years old) - freestyle motocross star got into the Guinness Book of Records thanks to the "flight" on a copy of the Paris Arc de Triomphe, which is located in Las Vegas. The motorcyclist not only jumped to a height of 36 and a half meters, but was also able to jump back.
The first accident happened in August 1896 in London. Arthur Edsell hit a pedestrian, Englishwoman Bridget Driscoll, who was 44 years old, and this collision resulted in the death of an Englishwoman. Before that, there were several other accidents, but they were all minor. After the incident, the court ruled that the hit-and-run was an accident and no charges were brought against Mr. Edsell.
Chinese engineers have created and launched a passenger train capable of speeds up to 486 km/h. Chinese passengers will now be able to appreciate the high speed of the train on the Beijing-Shanghai route. The Express reaches its maximum speed in 22 minutes. And now the travel time has been reduced from 10 hours to 4 hours.
The world's largest passenger ship is the Charm of the Seas cruise ship based in the Bahamas. The ship was built in 2009 in the Finnish city of Turku. The length of the liner is 360 m, width - 60 m, height - 72 m, displacement - more than 225 tons. The crew of the vessel is 2100 people, the maximum number of passengers is 6400 people. Real trees grow on the "Charm of the Seas", various attractions, fountains, carousels are installed, and even an ice rink is flooded.
The first underwater circumnavigation of the world took place in 1960. It was carried out by the American nuclear submarine USS Triton.
The largest number of passengers transported in one flight was made in 1991 during the military operation "Solomon" to export Ethiopian Jews to Israel. So, on May 24, 1991, the El Al Boeing-747 transported 1,122 people to Israel in one flight. During this flight, 2 more babies were born in the air.
The very first subway in the world was opened on January 10, 1863 in London. The length of the tracks is over 400 km. The number of lines - 11, stations - 270. Every day, 3 million people use the services of the London Underground. The locals call the subway simply the Underground or the Pipe - because of the shape of most of the tunnels.
The British multi-purpose military helicopter Westland Lynx (Westland Lynx) first took to the air in 1971, and in 1986, with a modified engine (power increased to 40%) and special rotor blades, the speed for helicopters was set (400.87 km / h). The usual production helicopter "Westland Links", of course, cannot repeat such a record, developing a speed of "only" 260 km / h. The Westland Links helicopter is still in service in various countries, and is used by the police in Qatar.
Where and when was a non-GPS navigation system available in cars?
The first commercially available navigation system for automobiles was introduced in the US in 1985 under the name Etak and worked without GPS. When starting to work with the system, the user entered the current location and made a calibration run. Further, the movement of the car was determined by magnetic sensors mounted on wheels and compass readings, and the location was displayed on a vector map in a monochrome screen. Card data was stored on special cassettes, which had to be changed periodically due to their limited volume. For example, the Los Angeles map was supplied on four cassettes, but the system for reinstalling them was thought out enough so that the driver could do this without stopping the car.
Why are silent films usually shown at an accelerated pace?
With the advent of sound cinema, the standard for the speed of filming and playing films was established - 24 frames per second. However, in the era of silent films, there was no single standard, and tapes were recorded on camera at a speed of 12 to 26 frames. This is why most silent films play at an accelerated pace when played back on modern hardware.
Where was salt and natural gas extracted from wells several hundred meters deep in the 2nd century?
Most of the salt in ancient China was extracted from sea water. However, in areas remote from the sea, already in the 2nd century, the Chinese came up with the technology of drilling wells to a depth of several hundred meters to underground pools with saline. Bundles of bamboo stalks with an iron drill attached to the end were used as a drill, and the solution was lifted through pipes from the same bamboo using a system of leather valves. The natural gas that came across was extracted through the same pipes, which was then burned to evaporate water from the solution. Later, they learned how to deliver gas through bamboo pipes to dwellings to heat them.
What causes the color change of the ancient Roman vessel depending on the light source?
The Lycurgus Cup is exhibited in the British Museum, an ancient Roman vessel made of glass with a figured pattern dating back to the 4th century. It is able to change color depending on the lighting: if it shines from behind, the vessel becomes red, if from the front - green. This effect is due to the presence of gold and silver nanoparticles in the glass, and it is not clear to scientists how exactly the ancient craftsmen were able to obtain such a product. Perhaps in one of the workshops there was an accidental “contamination” of glass with gold and silver dust, and the glaziers, most likely, did not control the technological process and did not understand the reasons for the change of colors.
Why is the mouse cursor arrow tilted instead of pointing vertically up?
The inventor of the computer mouse, Douglas Engelbart, depicted the screen cursor as an arrow pointing vertically upwards in explanatory drawings. This selection option seemed the most logical, but when it came to implementing a cursor in the Xerox operating system GUI, it turned out that due to the low resolution of monitors, it was impossible to draw a good-looking little upward arrow from pixels. The engineers decided to tilt the cursor so that one face is vertical and the other is at a 45° angle to it. In this form, the cursor entered all other operating systems, even after the advent of higher resolution monitors.
How did you dub films in different languages before the advent of dubbing technology?
When the first sound films appeared, dubbing technology had not yet been invented. Therefore, when shooting films intended for international distribution, Hollywood actors had to play the same scenes several times - in English, Spanish, French and German. Since far from all the actors knew foreign languages, they simply memorized the phrases of the dialogues before the next take.
Which insects operate on principles similar to those of the TCP/IP protocol?
Scientists at Stanford University have found similarities between the principles of food gathering from red reaper ants and the TCP / IP protocol algorithms that underlie the organization of the Internet. Information between two points of the network is sent in the form of small packets, and when they arrive at the second point, an acknowledgment of receipt is sent to the first point. If acknowledgments arrive quickly, the number of packets sent from the first point increases, and vice versa. A similar principle is observed in ants: the more food pickers return from any region, the more new workers leave the anthill there. Ants have also found other parallels with TCP / IP algorithms, such as "slow start" and "timeout".
Whose heads were bitten off by geeks in the 19th century?
The meaning of the word "geek" as an enthusiast of new technologies or a person who is strongly passionate about some kind of hobby has appeared recently. Historically, geek shows in the United States were called participants in traveling circuses, the performance of which consisted in biting off and swallowing the heads of live chickens.
What came first - telephone or fax?
The fax came before the telephone. The prototype of the fax machine was invented as early as 1843, and in 1865 the Italian Giovanni Caselli's device began to be commercially used on lines in France and between Moscow and St. Petersburg. In this apparatus, called a pantelegraph, the image for transmission had to be applied with a special insulating varnish on lead foil. However, this technology was not successful and gave way to other methods of communication. The mass development of facsimile communication became possible in the 20th century due to the emergence of more accessible channels - first telegraph, and then telephone and radio.
How many horsepower can one horse develop power?
When James Watt marketed his steam engine, he needed to visualize its advantage over traditional energy sources. He calculated how much, on average, per minute an ordinary horse lifts by driving a water pump, and designated this unit of power as horsepower. Then the power of steam engines, expressed in horsepower, immediately began to mean how many times the machine is more efficient than a horse. By the way, according to the calculations of scientists, for a short time a horse can work with a maximum load equal to almost 15 horsepower.
Which city still uses the pneumatic mail system today?
Since the middle of the 19th century, pneumatic mail has become widespread in many large cities in Europe and America. Post office stations were connected by underground pipes, in which capsules with letters were moved by means of compressed or rarefied air. Gradually, with the development of new technologies, pneumatic mail systems were closed. The last of these operated in Prague before the 2002 flood, although they are currently rebuilding it.
Where and when did a giant wave of molasses hit the city streets?
On January 15, 1919, a giant tank of molasses, a syrupy liquid, a waste product of sugar production, exploded at one of the distilleries in Boston. A wave of molasses swept through the streets of the city, flooded many buildings and claimed the lives of 21 people. One of the reasons for the disaster was the expectation of the imminent introduction of Prohibition and the desire to produce as much alcohol as possible before that moment.
Which industries use the substance responsible for the smell of faeces?
The organic compound skatole is responsible for the characteristic smell of feces. However, in small doses, skatole has a pleasant floral scent. It is used for the production of perfumes and cigarettes, in the food industry.
Why is the name "Silicon Valley" essentially wrong?
Although the term "Silicon Valley" for a high-tech region in California has already become established, in fact it is incorrect - it would be more correct to say "Silicon Valley". The fact is that in the English name Silicon Valley, the word "silicon" means exactly silicon, which serves as a material for the manufacture of semiconductors. And the word “silicone” refers to organosilicon compounds, it was this consonance that caused the translation error. Due to the widespread use of silicones for artificial breast augmentation, the term Silicone Valley jokingly refers to the San Fernando Valley in California, where most of the American porn studios are located.
What do workers do with chopsticks when they are hired by Asian chip makers?
In the assembly shops of microchip factories, well-coordinated workers are valued. Many Asian manufacturers, when hiring staff, conduct a test for coordination of movements: you need to quickly collect small beads with chopsticks.
How the Central Bank of Russia destroys old money?
The average life of Russian banknotes is 2.5 years. During the Soviet era, old money was processed with steam, recycled into paper pulp for new uses. But this method was too expensive and environmentally dirty, so it was decided to develop another method. It can be assumed that it is best to simply burn dilapidated money, but burning was also abandoned for many reasons. As a result, the Central Bank chose the technology of cutting banknotes into small pieces with subsequent burial in landfills. The cutting operation is performed automatically when a special machine detects a bad bill during the sorting process.
Why can't the American SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft be fully refueled on the ground?
The American reconnaissance aircraft SR-71 Blackbird has gaps in its skin at normal temperatures. In flight, the skin heats up due to air friction, and the gaps disappear, and the fuel cools the skin. But in a normal state on the ground, the aircraft loses, albeit in small quantities, fuel through these slots. For this reason (and also to reduce takeoff speed by saving mass), only a small amount of fuel is initially refueled into the aircraft, and refueling occurs already in the air.
Why do stripes in a tube of colored toothpaste stay even and do not mix?
Many of us use several strips of toothpaste (for example, red, white, and blue). However, why do the stripes stay even and the colors don't mix? For this, a special tube is used, patented in the USA in the late 1950s. The neck of such a tube is an elongated tube that ends at the filling level of the white base of the paste. Closer to the neck in this tube there are small holes through which colored fillers enter.
What is the difference between kosher phones and regular phones?
Cell phone manufacturers are sensitive to the needs of adherents of different religions. For ultra-Orthodox Jews, phones have been developed where access to erotic services is blocked, you cannot write SMS and access the Internet. A call on Saturday - a sacred day when you can not work - is possible only at a super-expensive rate. And for Muslims, there are phones that show the direction to Mecca, which helps to pray in the correct position.
