Astonishing Facts....

[anonymous-user]

Considering there are a few trillion galaxies at the very least, all the grains of sand in the universe probably don't add up to all the stars.

[davhill]

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

[Halmyre]

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

But he did suffer from seasickness. Or is that going to set off a QI style klaxon?

[mrtwisty]

Thesprucegoose said:

Considering there are a few trillion galaxies at the very least, all the grains of sand in the universe probably don't add up to all the stars.

Read that back to yourself. Slowly.

[CanAm]

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

Which is why naval officers do not have to stand to toast the monarch at the dining table onboard ship.

[RizzoTheRat]

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

Napoleon on the other hand was about 5'7", average height for a Frenchman of the era, the who short thing appears to be foreign (presumably British) historians trying to belittle him.


Of topic but did you also visit HMS Warrior? Built 100 years later and it's fascinating look at the two back to back.

[Nik da Greek]

RizzoTheRat said:

Napoleon on the other hand was about 5'7", average height for a Frenchman of the era, the who short thing appears to be foreign (presumably British) historians trying to belittle him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDR_QhDC4EY

[Moonhawk]

Shakermaker said:

If every star in the universe was represented by one green pea, there would be enough peas that they would overflow if they were poured into the London Olympic Stadium

And then some.

If my calculations are correct - If you take an average pea to have a diameter of 10mm - and you had the same number of peas as there are stars (estimated) in the universe - the peas would have a combined volume equal to a sphere 1000km across (ignoring wasted space due to spherical close packing).

That’s larger than the dwarf planet Ceres.

[tertius]

Halmyre said:

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

But he did suffer from seasickness. Or is that going to set off a QI style klaxon?

He did, though as for most people it was a temporary thing on returning to sea that he got over after a few days/weeks at sea.

And a related astonishing “fact” that I can’t easily substantiate though recall reading: Admiral Collingwood (who was Nelson’s deputy at Trafalgar, and successor following Nelson’s death) did not set foot on land again after the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) - he was continuously at sea until his death in 1810.

[loughran]

mrtwisty said:

Thesprucegoose said:

Considering there are a few trillion galaxies at the very least, all the grains of sand in the universe probably don't add up to all the stars.

Read that back to yourself. Slowly.

I did. A couple of times. It's genius. I'm going to use it when I need to blind people with science.

[GroundEffect]

Shakermaker said:

If every star in the universe was represented by one green pea, there would be enough peas that they would overflow if they were poured into the London Olympic Stadium

Not even close.

The craziness of really big numbers.

7,500,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand on earth
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars in the universe

Or, a MILLION times as many stars in the universe as grains of sand in the world...

[DocJock]

Nobody can possibly put an accurate number to either of those.

[glazbagun]

DocJock said:

Nobody can possibly put an accurate number to either of those.

You think they just conveniently counted to a nice round number?

[RizzoTheRat]

DocJock said:

Nobody can possibly put an accurate number to either of those.

I used to work with a guy who had a degree in astrophysics, he reckoned it was one of the only subjects where you could give an answer that was 10^5 out and still be considered close enough

[Ayahuasca]

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

If you go to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich you can see the coat that Nelson wore at Trafalgar. It is indeed very small.


On the other hand, Henry VIII was a giant. You can see his armour at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Yes I know the armour is bigger than the man, but he was still very big.

[davhill]

Ayahuasca said:

If you go to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich you can see the coat that Nelson wore at Trafalgar. It is indeed very small.


On the other hand, Henry VIII was a giant. You can see his armour at the Royal Armouries in Leeds. Yes I know the armour is bigger than the man, but he was still very big.

Interesting info, thanks. I know that Captain Collingwood, who had the Royal Sovereign at Trafalgar, was 6ft plus. Perhaps he died young of chronic concussion.

Also, Brunel was a shortage, 5ft 1in IIRC

[Russian Troll Bot]

tertius said:

Halmyre said:

davhill said:

I visited H.M.S. Victory and being 6 feet tall, I clonked my head on
a number of beams below decks (should've worn a wooly hat).

This led me to find out a not too astonishing fact. Lord Nelson was 5ft 4in tall.
He probably didn't have to live on aspirin.

But he did suffer from seasickness. Or is that going to set off a QI style klaxon?

He did, though as for most people it was a temporary thing on returning to sea that he got over after a few days/weeks at sea.

And a related astonishing “fact” that I can’t easily substantiate though recall reading: Admiral Collingwood (who was Nelson’s deputy at Trafalgar, and successor following Nelson’s death) did not set foot on land again after the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) - he was continuously at sea until his death in 1810.

Another Napoleonic fact - a significant proportion of the British Army did not wear red jackets. Depending on role or rank it could have also been blue, green, yellow etc.


For another random fact, adult cats virtually never meow at eachother, it's something they develop specifically to communicate with humans. Since it's a similar frequency to a baby's cry, we're hardwired to respond to it.

[blinkythefish]

Russian Troll Bot said:

Another Napoleonic fact - a significant proportion of the British Army did not wear red jackets. Depending on role or rank it could have also been blue, green, yellow etc.


For another random fact, adult cats virtually never meow at eachother, it's something they develop specifically to communicate with humans. Since it's a similar frequency to a baby's cry, we're hardwired to respond to it.

That's changed the way I look at next doors tom cat when it's meowing outside our bedroom window looking for a date for the night.....

[mickk]

Cats can't taste sweetness.

[Dr Jekyll]

tertius said:

He did, though as for most people it was a temporary thing on returning to sea that he got over after a few days/weeks at sea.

And a related astonishing “fact” that I can’t easily substantiate though recall reading: Admiral Collingwood (who was Nelson’s deputy at Trafalgar, and successor following Nelson’s death) did not set foot on land again after the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) - he was continuously at sea until his death in 1810.

Another good Trafalgar fact was that the one of the French ships captured by the Royal Navy at Trafalgar was finally sunk in 1949.