Random Facts and Useless Knowledge

[FJohnny]

Tie two birds together, although they have four wings, they cannot fly.

Okay. I saw this and thought 'Yeah, I get that'. This guy has it figured out.

I can’t stop looking at women’s boobs.

Then I saw this and realized that I can't stop looking at tits either. I'm with you, dude.

It seems clear someone may not have been referring to actual birds and wings but really women and boobs. If you tie them (women) together you are going to eventually run into trouble with the authorities. If you limit yourself to just looking at their boobs you should be okay.

Good advice from 03cobra. I intend to live by it and suggest you do likewise.

All the best.

 

[BOOGIE MAN]

• Your average thunderstorm spends/releases more energy than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
• Your average hurricane spends/releases more energy than every nuclear bomb ever used on the face of the Earth combined
• A lightning bolt is momentarily hotter than the surface of the surface of the Sun
• Thunder is a sonic boom caused by air particles being superheated (see above)
• The instantaneous velocities found within the updrafts of a strong thunderstorm are faster than the max climb rate of every fighter jet the US has ever produced

Non-weather ones

• The Rape of Nanking - More people died in three days in Nanking than both atomic bombs including all residual deaths combined
• Communism has failed every time it was tried

I'm full of more, will come back after I get power back after Hurricane Michael knocks it out.

 

[Blown 89]

I'm going to dispel a myth I hear a lot. The SR-71 doesn't leak so much fuel that it needs to be refueled after takeoff. It needs to be refueled because it uses a different mixture for takeoff.

 

[derklug]

If you shot at an SR-71 at speed with a 30-06, it would outrun the bullet.
To find the IQ of a commitee, take the highest IQ and divide by the number of members.

 

[James Snover]

The sun is twice the size of the average star. Even so, there are stars out that dwarf it, not even a firecracker next to an h-bomb.

It is too small and too cold to directly fuse hydrogen into helium. So it cheats, using what is called the "proton-proton exchange cycle," and/or the "CNO Cycle," depending on which astrophysicist you are talking to.

99.9% of everything in the solar system is in the core of the sun. The planets, us, everything else? Just the barest bit of leftovers.

How bright is the core of the sun? Pitch black. Everything in there is way above the visible spectrum, it's all in Xray and gamma Ray.

A new photon is created in the sun, how long does it take to get out? If it could go in a straight line it would take over a minute. But it can't go in a straight line. It can take 11-million years for any one photon to get out of the sun. Then, on average, eight minutes or so to get to us.

Iron is the last element created by a star, then it dies. Because making iron takes more energy than it creates, so the star collapses.

Three fates await a dying star, all depending on the size of the star.


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[Malern28us]

A "tittle" is the dot atop a lower case "i" and "j."

 

[James Snover]

I'm going to dispel a myth I hear a lot. The SR-71 doesn't leak so much fuel that it needs to be refueled after takeoff. It needs to be refueled because it uses a different mixture for takeoff.

Not quite the right reason, there. The Blackbird did use two fuels, yes. The JP-7 as its main fuel, and a truly nasty chemical called TEB to light the engines and light the afterburners. It needed that because JP-7 is remarkably resistant to burning.

The refuel on takeoff was for a completely different reason: keep the weight low so if the engines failed the airframe wouldn't suffer as much. The old girl could carry nearly 100,000 pounds of fuel. If you are taking off and lose an engine it is a whole lot easier to stop if you are only carrying 10,000 pounds instead of the whole 100K.

She could take off with full tanks, there were several times it was done.


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[traktrbeam]

Not quite the right reason, there. The Blackbird did use two fuels, yes. The JP-7 as its main fuel, and a truly nasty chemical called TEB to light the engines and light the afterburners. It needed that because JP-7 is remarkably resistant to burning.

The refuel on takeoff was for a completely different reason: keep the weight low so if the engines failed the airframe wouldn't suffer as much. The old girl could carry nearly 100,000 pounds of fuel. If you are taking off and lose an engine it is a whole lot easier to stop if you are only carrying 10,000 pounds instead of the whole 100K.

She could take off with full tanks, there were several times it was done.


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Correct, just finished reading Sled Driver.

 

[James Snover]

Correct, just finished reading Sled Driver.

Sled Driver is great! I can also recommend all of Rich Graham’s books on the Blackbird, and Ben Rich’s book “Skunkworks.” Rich is the man who designed the inlets, the key go the whole thing; and the guy responsible for the old girl being painted black.


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[James Snover]

More Blackbird stuff, just ‘cause y’all went and got me all fired up:

There were a limited number of TEB shots the Blackbird could carry. On the the throttle quadrant there was a mechanical counter that counted down the remaining shots.

You needed the tetra-ethyl-boron for two conditions: starting the engines and engaging the afterburners.

Imagine: you could have lots of fuel onboard, but if you are out of TEB and the engines flame out (which happened!) ... you were SOL and better be looking fir some place to set down because while large, with lots of wing, the Blackbird was heavy, even with empty tanks! She was not a good glider. Even so, on more than one occasion, she was brought in with no engines. The pilots were that good.


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[James Snover]

Another Blackbird story: the early version was the A-12, and it was a single seat plane. Flying the Blackbird was a very involved process, the pilot had a very high workload.

One day over California an A-12 pilot realizes he will be flying over Kelly Johnson’s ranch. So he figures he’ll buzz Johnson’s house in a low, slow flyby. Johnson loved to see his planes fly.

But when things go wrong in the Blackbird they happen fast: as the pilot began his descent, still doing Mach 3, both engines flamed out. And he had a lot of fuel, so he was heavy with no power, but lots of speed and altitude.

He starts going through the restart checklist. He loses track somewhat that he is still supersonic and descending, fast.

He gets the engines started, goes into full afterburner just as he is going over Johnson’s home, and he is still above Mach 1 and of course now accelerating very, very fast, and Johnson’s ranch home gets “boomed,” big time, and all his windows get shattered. And yes, he was home, at the time!

And thus it was that the father of the fastest airplane ever complained about noise from a low flying supersonic aircraft.

You cant make this kind of thing up.


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[VegasMichael]

I have eight couches, nine radios and four vacuums.

 

[EatonEggbeater]

Then, on average, eight minutes or so to get to us.

Light from the sun gets to us so quickly because it's downhill all the way.

 

[svtfocus2cobra]

The sun is twice the size of the average star. Even so, there are stars out that dwarf it, not even a firecracker next to an h-bomb.

It is too small and too cold to directly fuse hydrogen into helium. So it cheats, using what is called the "proton-proton exchange cycle," and/or the "CNO Cycle," depending on which astrophysicist you are talking to.

99.9% of everything in the solar system is in the core of the sun. The planets, us, everything else? Just the barest bit of leftovers.

How bright is the core of the sun? Pitch black. Everything in there is way above the visible spectrum, it's all in Xray and gamma Ray.

A new photon is created in the sun, how long does it take to get out? If it could go in a straight line it would take over a minute. But it can't go in a straight line. It can take 11-million years for any one photon to get out of the sun. Then, on average, eight minutes or so to get to us.

Iron is the last element created by a star, then it dies. Because making iron takes more energy than it creates, so the star collapses.

Three fates await a dying star, all depending on the size of the star.


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I just watched a video talking about photons in the Sun. I thought it said it took 114,000 years to reach the surface in the same fashion you described? Because they said the photons of light we are seeing on Earth now are older than human history or something like that.

 

[Buckwheat 1]

If your hand is larger than your face you have cancer


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[96 cobra]

In top fuel, the downward thrust made by the exhaust gases escaping the angled headers alone, generates 800 pounds of downforce.

16 spark plugs per engine. The twin MSD magnetos produce 88 amps. You need just 12 more to power some MIG welders.

569 number of times the engine's crankshaft turns during the entire quarter mile.

 

[James Snover]

I just watched a video talking about photons in the Sun. I thought it said it took 114,000 years to reach the surface in the same fashion you described? Because they said the photons of light we are seeing on Earth now are older than human history or something like that.

On average. Some take take longer. Some less. The range I have heard is 1,100 years to 11 million years. The thing is a photon in the core can only travel about a 3/8ths of an inch before it encounters another particle, and is absorbed by the particle. When the photon is re-emitted, it can be emitted in any direction, and that can be back in to the core, as well as out from it. Some phsyicists call it the "random walk," some call it the "drunkard's walk." So yes, on average what we see from the sun, today, is the result of something that happened long, long, ago.

 

[James Snover]

In top fuel, the downward thrust made by the exhaust gases escaping the angled headers alone, generates 800 pounds of downforce.

16 spark plugs per engine. The twin MSD magnetos produce 88 amps. You need just 12 more to power some MIG welders.

569 number of times the engine's crankshaft turns during the entire quarter mile.

In comparison to gasoline, nitro-methane is a low heat-content fuel, with a very low air to fuel ratio, and slow burning. These defects actually turn out to be the keys to the power it makes. Because the heat content is low, and the air-to fuel ratio is so low, by the time you add enough fuel to meet stoichiometry, you have a lot more fuel in the cylinder. So even though it has a lot less power than gas, there's a hell of a lot more of it. The slow burn also helps the engine make power, as the combustion event initiated in the cylinder is still going on by the time the exhaust valve opens. The result of that is: the piston gets pushed all the way through the power stroke. The rest of the burn happens in the header tube, one of the reasons for the awesome flame display of a nitro-methane burning engine.

The drawback is: if the fuel/air charge does not ignite on any given cycle, and the cylinder is then given another air/fuel charge on top of the previous one, the engine will encounter hydraulic lock, as the volume of liquid fuel in the cylinder now exceeds the capacity of the combustion chamber with the piston at or near TDC.

Nitromethane engines also routinely burn out the electrodes of the spark plugs very early in the run, and diesel the rest of the way down the track as the incoming air/fuel charge splashes against the super-hot exhaust valve. Long as the magnetos and plugs get you the first sixty feet, you good for the rest as long as you can keep the volume of fuel to the cylinders.

 

[RDJ]

contrary to popular belief neither bart simpson nor the teenage mutant turtles coined the word cowabunga

 

[FJohnny]

It has been my experience today that if you can work three or more of these gems above into a single conversation the person you are talking to will simultaneously think you are a genius and a pompous blowhole.