What new fact broke your brain today?

So, I knew about how our eyes saccade and how that means we actually don't see what's going on when we move our eyes, our brains just interprets it incredibly accurately, but I didn't know that our brains made up colors

This is long, but its good brain-berkeleyery.

I now know what "Remember the Maine!" means, and it's awesome history.

I learned after this rainstorm today that my van, my house, and my theater ALL have roof leaks.

It wasn't long ago that I learned about the Magenta thing.  As a theater tech guy, most theatrical LED instruments are RGB, but some are CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow).  The CMY is sometimes preferred as they have to have a more discrete frequency bandwidth and are often better able to reproduce more accurate colors.  I of course asked the question "why do they have to  be more discrete?"  The answer was "because Magenta doesn't exist so the diodes have to simultaneously produce red and violet to make it."

Mind blown.

Here is another one I learned not too long ago.  How we think our solar system works:

How it actually works is more like this:

just the fact that if you're a security guard at a Samsung store then you and your fellow guards must be the guardians of the galaxy.

Shouldn't all this go in to the TIL thread?  

In reply to dean1484 :

TIL there is a TIL thread

Mr_Asa said:

In reply to dean1484 :

TIL there is a TIL thread

Doesn't that belong in the TIL thread?

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

It wasn't long ago that I learned about the Magenta thing.  As a theater tech guy, most theatrical LED instruments are RGB, but some are CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow).  The CMY is sometimes preferred as they have to have a more discrete frequency bandwidth and are often better able to reproduce more accurate colors.  I of course asked the question "why do they have to  be more discrete?"  The answer was "because Magenta doesn't exist so the diodes have to simultaneously produce red and violet to make it."

Mind blown.

Here is another one I learned not too long ago.  How we think our solar system works:

How it actually works is more like this:

 A friend of mine who believes in a flat earth ( really he does) told me that neither model is correct, the earth is flat, the sun is only about 1000 miles away and he knows this because he calculated it with trigonometry, space travel is by Disney animation, and by the way, I am really gullible since I also think Neil Armstrong walked on the moon with Buzz Aldrin.     He's a good guy otherwise so I just chalk it up to "Oh well". 

  Personally I think the sun as a comet towing a bunch of orbiting rocks and gas balls in its gravitational field is the right one.

TIL how what makes my head hurt .....

TIL that the speed of sound is variable.  In retrospect this makes perfect sense based on air density, temp, humidity, etc.  It really Berkleyed me up as well as the couple buddies I pinged about it.  Hilarious for a bunch of engineers to get bested by the obvious.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

It wasn't long ago that I learned about the Magenta thing.  As a theater tech guy, most theatrical LED instruments are RGB, but some are CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow).  The CMY is sometimes preferred as they have to have a more discrete frequency bandwidth and are often better able to reproduce more accurate colors.  I of course asked the question "why do they have to  be more discrete?"  The answer was "because Magenta doesn't exist so the diodes have to simultaneously produce red and violet to make it."

Mind blown.

Here is another one I learned not too long ago.  How we think our solar system works:

How it actually works is more like this:

The earth is orbiting the sun at 67,000 mph and our solar system is orbiting the galaxy at 515,000 mph so that graphic should show a 1:7.7 ratio rather than its ~1:1 ratio.  Additionally, if we consider cosmic expansion to be a velocity (better thought of as a given distance continuously being redefined as a larger distance over time), then all of the other movements are pretty trivial....pretty much just show everything shooting away from each other.  

People born the year I graduated from high school are 30 years old this year.  

An obvious one- the number of people older than you will never increase. 

In reply to Mndsm :

I'm having trouble spitballing if it will decrease at an accelerating rate, but I figure it's probably a somewhat variable rate

Heres one from a text thread with my cousin when I showed him that locomotive for sale:

Locomotive power is measured by the tractive effort, which is highest at lowest speed so the torque is essentially the tractive effort. However if you want to measure the locomotive torque you can apply this formula: Torque = HP x 5252.11 / RPM.

New brain wrinkle

Learned the color in my Philosophy of Mind course in college. Trying to remember which book it was in.

The F0-F1 tornado that hit the family farm put 35 trees on the ground. 

Actually 34, the 35th tree is a 100' tall water oak that is leaned into the top of a 200 year old live oak. 

I'm not sure how we are going to untangle them. Probably going to require a bucket truck and a crane to keep from destroying the live oak. 

Today we limbed all the pine and stacked the trunks so the pulp truck can pick them up this week. 

P3PPY said:

In reply to Mndsm :

I'm having trouble spitballing if it will decrease at an accelerating rate, but I figure it's probably a somewhat variable rate

 

Heres one from a text thread with my cousin when I showed him that locomotive for sale:

Locomotive power is measured by the tractive effort, which is highest at lowest speed so the torque is essentially the tractive effort. However if you want to measure the locomotive torque you can apply this formula: Torque = HP x 5252.11 / RPM.

New brain wrinkle

that equation only works with torque in ft-lb, power in hp, and rotation speed in revs/min.  The 5252 is a figment of the units.

RX Reven' said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

It wasn't long ago that I learned about the Magenta thing.  As a theater tech guy, most theatrical LED instruments are RGB, but some are CMY (cyan, magenta, yellow).  The CMY is sometimes preferred as they have to have a more discrete frequency bandwidth and are often better able to reproduce more accurate colors.  I of course asked the question "why do they have to  be more discrete?"  The answer was "because Magenta doesn't exist so the diodes have to simultaneously produce red and violet to make it."

Mind blown.

Here is another one I learned not too long ago.  How we think our solar system works:

How it actually works is more like this:

The earth is orbiting the sun at 67,000 mph and our solar system is orbiting the galaxy at 515,000 mph so that graphic should show a 1:7.7 ratio rather than its ~1:1 ratio.  Additionally, if we consider cosmic expansion to be a velocity (better thought of as a given distance continuously being redefined as a larger distance over time), then all of the other movements are pretty trivial....pretty much just show everything shooting away from each other.  

Don't forget to add the movement of the Milky Way through space.   We are going to "hit" another galaxy is a few billion years.

RevRico said:

This isn't unique to Jupiter.  There is a solar system barycenter, and all planets orbit around it.

One way they can estimate which distant stars have planets around them is by watching for the 'wobble' of the star as it rotates around its system barycenter.

Mndsm said:

An obvious one- the number of people older than you will never increase. 

The oldest picture of you is the youngest picture of you.  The youngest picture of you is the oldest picture of you. 

The border between Idaho and Montana is also the continental divide. 

ProDarwin said:

Mndsm said:

An obvious one- the number of people older than you will never increase. 

The oldest picture of you is the youngest picture of you.  The youngest picture of you is the oldest picture of you. 

But what about a picture of a pitcher? Or a pitcher holding a pitcher of pictures?

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

The border between Idaho and Montana is also the continental divide. 

Only part of it- someone was drunk when making the divide at one point.  If it really was, there would be a huge bulge going into Montana, making northern Idaho a lot bigger.  Missoula would be in Idaho.