4.19 /// Unbelievable Facts! From Hippos swallowing cars to Time Dilation...

Prepare to have your mind stretched beyond the ordinary as we embark on an extraordinary adventure of discovery, where the weight of the internet's electrons and the astonishing size of a hippo's jaw are just the tip of the iceberg. Get ready to unravel the perplexing probabilities of birthday-sharing among groups,  This episode promises  jaw-dropping trivia that will leave you giddy with curiosity.

Strap on your trivia helmets, as we dive into a world where bullets proof armadillos and the Great Wall of China's length stretches beyond the imagination. No stone is left unturned as I attempt to recount Neil deGrasse Tyson time dilation and the cosmic sprint of photons. From the historical snippets of the first mobile phone call to the power plays of empires long past, you'll find your historical compass spinning in awe. We're not just recounting facts; we're celebrating the remarkable and the bizarre, all delivered with a wink and a nod to the insatiably curious souls out there.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Fascinating Unbelievable Facts and Tangents
• 13:30 Fascinating Facts and Trivia

Transcript

Stephen: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Infinite Prattle. Thank you very much for joining me today. Today I've been away working this week and I've just been. Sometimes when I go away I get a bit in awe of things you know about how things work and the majesty of the world and stuff like that. So I just wanted to go through some facts I'd found out and other things that I've Googled today, literally 30 seconds before recording this. So join me on a magical mystery ride of unbelievable facts.

Stephen: 0:36

You're listening to Infinite Prattle With your host, stephen. Thanks for joining me for unscripted, unedited Everything. Ah, yes, thank you very much for joining me today. Yeah, so, oh God, you've got to frag me through. Oh, what's going on with me today? I actually woke up this morning choking. It was really, really, really nice.

Stephen: 1:05

I don't know what this podcast is about. I'll just tell you because it was quite amusing. I think my wife thought it was funny. In my dream I was dreaming I was with the Foo Fighters in a car. I was riding on the back of a car, to be honest, and it was Taylor Hawkins' car, and he was still alive, bless him. And yeah, I was hanging on for dear life on the back of the car and in the dream I started choking, but I was actually choking real life. So, yeah, yeah, what a weird one. Anyway, hello, how are you, hope you're doing well.

Stephen: 1:35

Yeah, so today, I don't know what relevance that was, anyway, um, yesterday I just wanted to go through some like some things that, um, I'd found on the internet and some stuff I'd heard and it got me thinking about just like looking at random, random facts. So I've not really read these, to be honest, I just thought I'd go through a couple with you and just share the oran, um, you know, I think you know, joined, joined together in the, the awe-inspiring world of factual things that you couldn't actually really believe are real. So, uh, I've got a couple of websites I've used. So one of them is just the dk website. It's kind of advertising a book it was a children's book uh, unbelievable facts. And another one was just a website, um, basically efcouk, so a British website, just basically categorising different random facts. So that's all I'm doing today is I'm going to go through them and I don't know how many I'm going to do. I'm just going to say them and react to them and spread some facts, because this is not normally that Well, I do share stuff, but I feel like this show needed to be more factual. So this is not normally that well, I do share stuff, but I feel like this show needed to be more factual. So this is the factual episode. So that's what I'm doing today facts all the way on today's episode, and we'll see how that goes.

Stephen: 3:00

I'm always messing on my microphone, so I apologise, just having another mess with it. Now there we go. Does that sound better or worse? I don't even know. It always sounds different after I record it as well. It never sounds exactly the same. It always sounds clearer after I record it and it always sounds worse when I'm recording it. It's a little bit weird. I need to look into that anyway. Um, two tangents down, let's get back on track. Ah, just took a slur from pepsi max standard, not a sponsor yet. Uh, keeping them big dreams going, you know anyway. So right. So here.

Stephen: 3:42

The first one is from this DK website and it says all the electricity powering the internet weighs the same as an apricot. I'm guessing that's a standard size apricot. So that's all the electrons powering the internet weighs the same as an apricot. That is pretty bonkers, but I think the problem with that one for me is I can't get my head around that, so it just seems meh. It seems meh to me because I can't really get my head around that one. This one, however a hippo's jaw opens wide enough to fit an entire sports car inside, entire sports car inside. Hmm, I've never seen a hippo. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen one at a zoo, or I've never seen one in the wild. I'm guessing that wouldn't be lengthways, that'd be sideways the width of it. But still, that's pretty impressive, isn't it? They're one of the most dangerous animals as well, aren't they? In Africa, I believe they kill and hurt more people than any other animal which you would presume. It would be something like a lion or a hyena or something like that. If you were to fall from the North Pole to the South Pole through the Earth's core. If that was possible, it would take 19 minutes. That's quite crazy. That shows how big the Earth is really, doesn't it Like? Through the centre point.

Stephen: 5:10

In a group of 23 people, there's more than a 50% chance that two of them share a birthday. What, what? So out of 23 people, there's more than a 50% chance that two of them would share a birthday With a group of 57 people, there's a 99.01% probability, and for 70 people, there's a 99.92%. Okay, this is now an unbelievable fact that has now broke my brain 23, 50% chance that two people share a birthday. 57 people, there's a 99 chance. And basically, if there's 70 people, there's near on 100 chance that someone's going to share a birthday. There's like 365 days in a year. So 23 people, nope gone. Brains gone already. Don't understand how that works. Moving on, moving on that's bonkers. That can't be right. How do you know that? Is that just like a mathematical certainty? So weird.

Stephen: 6:21

It is estimated that the typical pencil has enough graphite to draw a line 56km long, or 20 times the length of the Golden Gate Bridge. Now, that's impressive and also kind of like a mute point, because I don't think I've ever got a pencil down more than halfway before I've lost it. So I've, throughout my life, wasted probably like 28 kilometres of potential writing or drawing, which seems pretty wasteful. We are quite wasteful as a species, really aren't we? That is pretty crazy. I'm also thinking about the fact I've wasted all that mileage in a pencil. It says here I'm not reading them all, by the way a calculation suggests that 136 billion sheets of paper would be needed to print out the entire world wide web, and if the printer printouts were stacked up end to end, they would be taller than the earth. Well, there we go, there we go, um, I think that. I think that's quite impressive, really 136 billion sheets of paper. Again, these figures.

Stephen: 7:32

Like you don't realize how much bigger a billion is than a million. I mean, I know you've got an extra zero and stuff, but it's a massive difference, isn't it? It's a whole. What do you call that? You know what I mean? Yeah, it's, it's huge. It's huge because when someone says, oh, like I am a millionaire, you think, oh god, you're rich. But if they have 10 million, they're like, I mean, that's rich, isn't it? 10 million is a lot, but if you say you've got 10 billion, that that's 10,000 million, isn't it? Yeah, 10,000 million. So it's the power of three To the power of three. That's, that's crazy. That's crazy.

Stephen: 8:19

I'm impressing myself now with my own, my own, um, my own math. I've probably got it wrong. Um, six generations back, you have 64 great great grandparents. Hey, so if you go back six generations, you end up with having 64 great great grandparents? Oh, because it's like the parents of the parents, of the parents of the parents. That's quite. That's quite cool. That's quite cool.

Stephen: 8:51

I've never really got family trees and how they work, though that makes me sound really stupid. But I always get confused about, like, what is you know? What's the first cousin, second cousin, and all that sort of stuff. Well, I did my family tree when I, when I was joining the army actually when I was applying for the army um, I did an episode on that a while ago and I think it was an extra speak episode episode when I was still steven speak and uh, yeah, we had to go back on the family tree to trace the family tree because my mum was Irish and my dad's in the army and they wanted very in-depth stuff because of, because of them, family ties. Yeah, I always get confused and who knew who and who's the daughter of who? And don't you always get in families.

Stephen: 9:36

You get that auntie, that's not actually an auntie and it's just a family friend. But everyone calls them auntie. I don't know if that's a thing worldwide, is that a thing in america? But you just call someone auntie and they're actually just a friend. It's a big thing in the uk like you call someone an uncle, they might not actually be your uncle. Yeah, I think it's just an easy way to explain it to a child. Sometimes, rather than saying this is, it's easy to say this is Anne Bessie. Anne Bessie is where I came from. She cooks the Yorkshire puddings for my American listeners. Anne Bessie in the UK is a brand and she does like roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. But yeah, instead of saying this is Bessie a family friend, we just start calling them Anne, bessie or whatever their name is.

Stephen: 10:21

Anyway, back to the factual stuff as long as that was factual, talking a bit about British culture. So okay, so this is another website. This is the EF website. I don't know what EF stands for actually no idea but this one's about 50 unbelievable facts about the world to make you seem cultured. But they're all categories like nature and history and stuff like this. So nature the deepest place on Earth is the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean and it is 36,201 feet deep. That's almost seven miles. So seven miles under the sea. That's crazy, and I think this is a fact that I'm adding in. I believe that we know more about the surface of the moon than we do the ocean, and especially the mariana trench. Um, I don't even know if there's anything deep enough to go to the bottom of there, like, let me know if there is is. Has there been an expedition to the bottom of mariana trench? Have we been able to withstand the pressures of seven miles deep into the sea? I've no idea. That's crazy.

Stephen: 11:28

A pineapple takes two years to grow. See, there's some organisation there because you take for granted, don't you, that things are seasonal or you can just grow them any time you want. You know you get a plant and plants grow pretty quickly, but the fruits are a little bit different. So the fact that a pineapple takes two years to grow and yet they're always on the shelves is is, it's quite impressive, it's quite. That impresses me.

Stephen: 11:54

I can't grow anything for shit. I'd love my own like vegetable garden and stuff, like, but I think I'd be terrible at it. I genuinely think I would. It's all that understanding of like. When do you plant stuff? You know how do you harvest, how do you know what the plants need? I know there's all the things. If the leaves and stuff are different colours and it depends if they need nitrites or nitrates or whatever. It is yeah, but I is. Um, yeah, I think I'd be bad, I suppose, if that was my sole job, if I was like off grid, didn't have a main job, I could literally put all my time into it. Can I? Um?

Stephen: 12:24

Acacia trees in africa communicate with each other what they emit, gases to alert other trees to produce toxin, tannin, which protects them from hungry animals? Oh, so it must be. If one starts getting eaten, they produce a chemical gas and when the other tree sends it, they start producing a toxin so all the other trees don't die. That's that's. Do you think of trees and plants as like not communicating and being some sort of like? I know they reproduce and stuff like that, but you don't really think of them that way. I know those were sort of years ago to see if plants could feel and they would get people to brush past something, and then I don't know how they were triggering it, whether it was some sort of I'm guessing it must have been some sort of chemical response from the plants to see if they actually could feel someone brushing past them. And it turned out that they could. I think that's where the whole thing of going and talking to your plants and caressing them and stuff came from. That made them healthier. Yeah, that's crazy.

Stephen: 13:30

Armadillos are bulletproof and it says in brackets this is not an invitation to test the fact, so don't go shooting armadillos, but apparently they're bulletproof I'm not sure what caliber up to. Surely they wouldn't be able to stand a .50 BMG. I'm sure that would be a small caliber. But that's pretty cool though that they're bulletproof To a degree. I would assume. I wouldn't think they'd be taking a big round, would they? I don't know, maybe they would a big round, you know, would they? I don't know, maybe they would. Maybe there's bulletproofing, definitely, maybe they can handle an RPG. I doubt it. Don't try it

Stephen: 14:10

Now. This is quite a cool fact. In fact, this is quite an amazing fact. It says here it would take you approximately 18 months to walk the entire length of the Great Wall of China. It's over 5,000 miles long. See, when someone says something's 5,000 miles long, you go oh, that's quite long, don't you? But when you put it in perspective, it would take you 18 months to walk all the way along. I mean, is that 18 months of constant walking, or is that 18 months of 8 hours a day? I don't know, but still, even if it was 6 months of constant walking. That's some length. That's quite cool. I don't even know why the Great Wall of China was built actually. Does anyone know? Let me know if you know. I feel like isn't that one of them mysteries that they don't fully know why it was built? Someone asked for it to be built and that was it. I don't know, maybe I'm making that up my brain, maybe there is a reason for it. It's really obvious and I just have forgotten it or never knew

Stephen: 15:06

it. History we'll move on to history, one of the other categories art and culture, people and countries. No way, really. We definitely have to do that one because that sounds like it's gonna be a fun, fun one. So we'll do a couple of these other ones. I love facts about things like this and I think they're more

Stephen: 15:25

ridiculous. I mean, I heard on um that there's a black physicist in america. I can't think it was. Is it neil, something grassy to grassy, tyson's grassy, neil degrassi? I can't think should his. Is it Neil, something Degrassi, degrassi, tyson Degrassi, neil Degrassi? I can't think should have probably googled his name, um, and he does little YouTube videos and shorts and stuff, and basically one of the facts I watched the other day was that it was all about the concept of time going faster. You know, if you approach the speed of light, you as the person going towards the speed of light, time slows down, rel, but everyone on the ground, it's normal time technically. When you come back, your clock will be slower, um, and they were saying

Stephen: 16:03

that. He was saying that basically, like when light leaves the sun. So there might have been, there might have been a, um, a photon which has like no mass. So when a photon is born out of a star, it might take I don't know, like eight million years for the light to get to us, um, but as soon as that light bounces off something and like comes into existence, it doesn't remember the journey, because I'm probably explaining this wrong, but basically they have no, because they're so small and they travel at the speed of light, they have no time doesn't move for them. So, relative from their position, that 8 million year journey didn't happen. So they literally are born and instantly arrive to be received by our eyes. Now, stuff like that hurts my head and it's amazing, and people that can explain it like him a lot better than me. Yeah, they're marvels as well. The national flag with most colours in it is Belize 1981 with 12. So I'm guessing Belize doesn't have the same flag anymore. I don't

Stephen: 17:22

know. The first handheld mobile phone was the first handheld mobile phone call was made on April 3rd 1973 in New York City. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to ever step on the moon, actually peed himself while walking on the surface, apparently. Well, that's embarrassing, isn't it? The American Revolution 1765 to 1783, came before the French Revolution 1789 to 1799. I don't know why. Is that an amazing fact? Is it because everyone thinks the French Revolution was the first revolution and because everyone thinks America's too young? It would be after? I don't know. The Anglo-Zanzibar War in 1896 was the shortest war ever, lasting 38 minutes. 38 minutes, that's almost like declaring war, go for a cup of tea and then coming back saying yeah, let's, let's just call it a draw. I wonder why. I wonder why that was. Was it or was it like 38 minutes of absolute devastation and they give up? I have no idea. I have no

Stephen: 18:33

idea. There's no context, these you see. So, uh, the printing press, which revolutionized the sharing of information, was invented by guttenberg around the year 1440. See, I wouldn't have thought printing press would go by that far. So that's, that's quite. That's quite cool. The largest contiguous continue to. I can't speak today, I can't speak most days. Actually, the largest contiguous land empire in history is the Mongol Empire, 13th and 14th century. Yeah, everyone thinks it's the Roman Empire, don't they? Or even some people think it's the British Empire. But yeah, the Mongol Empire was

Stephen: 19:10

huge. Yeah, and I don't know if it's true, but there's a thing, isn't't there saying that if you trace your ancestry back, you can find, like, mongol heritage, because Genghis Khan was such a well, a dirty bastard. Basically he was sleeping with everyone and he had multiple wives and he had like so many children that they say that basically that means that everyone's got a little bit of his DNA. I don't actually know if that's true. I don't. I don't think it's true. Um, but having said that, that whole grandparent thing before, like you go back six generations, you got 64 grandparents or great-grandparents. That's uh. So you don't have to go back that far before you start sharing

Stephen: 19:53

things. Hmm, art and culture. The name sandwich comes from an 18th century aristocrat, the Earl of Sandwich, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. I knew that I'm British. Yes, he was British. I'm sure he

Stephen: 20:08

was. 9,310 tweets are sent every second. That's quite a lot, isn't it? Are they allowed to be called tweets now? I guess on this page maybe have become a thing. Before um x was, it was a thing, I don't know. Do the people still call it? I don't know if I call it, I just I don't know. It's a post, isn't it? Never really thought about

Stephen: 20:32

it? Uh, salv Amundi by Leonardo da Vinci is the most expensive painting in the world, valued at $450.3 million. Wow, like, is that ever going to be sold? And how do you put that figure on it? Like, how is that the most expensive? Why is that? I don't even know what that picture is that? How, how would you? How, how is that the most expensive? Why is that? I don't even know what that picture is. That's how uncultured I

Stephen: 20:59

am. Most visited country on the planet is france, with 90 million tourists a year. Avengers endgame is the top grossing film of all time, making 2.7 billion. That's quite a lot of money. Okay, before we go, here's a couple from the no way really list. Okay, when you Google, when you do a Google query, 1000 computers are used to find the answer in 0.2 seconds. That's pretty cool. There are almost 5 billion internet users in the world. That's pretty much the entire population of the world, isn't it? We actually produce enough food to feed everyone on the

Stephen: 21:38

planet. The problem is distribution. I knew that one. It's a sad, sad issue, that is. Isn't it really? We throw a lot of it away and it could be going into people's bellies. A tiger's roar can be heard up to two miles away. That's quite disconcerting, though, isn't it? If you were camping in the forest and you heard a tiger roar, it could be literally down the road, or two miles

Stephen: 22:01

away. Owls don't have eyeballs. What Piss off? What Owls don't have eyeballs? What Well? I'm going to leave you with that one, because I'm going to have to go Google it myself. That's ridiculous. Owls don't have

Stephen: 22:20

eyeballs. And on that bombshell I'm going to say thank you very much for listening. And you know, let me know what you think about any of these facts. Also, the problem with fake news as well nowadays. Like were all these correct? I'm wondering. You know, things get updated all the time, don't they? So were all these correct or have things changed? Yeah, thank you very much for listening. Please like, share, comment, subscribe, tell your friends if you've enjoyed today, share it with them, share it on your social medias, like any exposure I can get, is so brilliant for me, and I'm still doing this for the love of the talking down this microphone to you. But you know I always like a few more downloads. Be nice, let's reach more people, let's terrorize more people. Yes, that's the plan, steve. Anyway, thank you very much for listening and I'll speak to you all soon. Take care, much listening and I'll speak to you all soon, take care. Thanks for listening to Infinite Prattle with your host, stephen. Follow me on social networks at Infinite Prattle and don't forget to subscribe. Thanks very much.