Why did NASA spend millions developing a pen that would work in space when a pencil is just as good?
They didn’t. The “million-dollar space pen” story is an urban legend that just refuses to die. Pencils aren’t “just as good” in zero-G; in fact, they’re absolutely terrible….
Is it true that the earth is round?
In 1989 I saw a slightly different proof that our earth is round 🙂 There are many ways to prove that our earth is round. But in 1989…
If you take a gallon of water from the deepest ocean and bring it up to the surface in a sealed container, will the pressure break the container as it is risen up into the surface?
At the depth of the typical ocean floor — about 3km — water is compressed to 98.2% of its sea-level volume. The Mariana Trench is just over 11km…
If I have a circular disc of radius 300,000 km and made it rotate with 1 rad/s, wouldn’t a particle on the edge of that circular disc exceed the speed of light?
No. This is a very common thought-experiment – called the Ehrenfest paradox – and like most paradoxes – it isn’t a paradox at all. The problem is that you’re imagining…
What is the scariest theory known to man?
When we die and subsequently stop breathing, our brain and nerve cells die within a few minutes due to the lack of oxygen. Once a person dies though,…
Why can’t we dig deeper than 12.2 km into the Earth?
12.2 km is not a theoretical limit, it is the depth of the 1970 Russian Kola Superdeep hole project which was abandoned at that point (after 20 years)…
Is it true that Jupiter is so large that it does not orbit around the sun?
Yes! Jupiter, The biggest planet in our solar system. It is so massive that 1300 earths could fit inside of this planet. Jupiter is 2.5 times more massive…
Is Venus technically more habitable than Mars?
Venus is a hell world which has utterly annihilated everything we’ve ever sent there in minutes. The surface temperature can reach more than 800F (462C). The atmospheric pressure…
What is the scariest real picture of the ocean or anything in it?
1. Sitting on the edge of an underwater cliff 2. A fisherman holding a deep sea Wolf Eel 3. A whale graveyard lies silently as Anna Von Boetticher…
If a black hole the size of an atom appeared in the same room as me, what would happen?
You’d be torn apart. A black hole the size of even the smallest atom (around 0.03 nanometre radius) would have a mass of 2×10162×1016 kg. At a distance of, say,…