› added 1 year ago

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TIL Schrodinger constructed his famous "cat experiment" to show that misinterpretations of quantum theory can lead to absurd results that do NOT match the real world - today many popularizers of science have embraced the absurdity of Schrodinger's Cat and claim that this is how the real world works

MejR0 TIL that Lady Margaret Beaufort, who was married to Edmund Tudor at age 12, gave birth to the future Henry VII at just age 13. A political pawn during the Wars of the Roses, her first marriage took place when she was no older than 3.
ggvb TIL that “AIDS orphan tourism” in Africa is a thing, where volunteers temporarily care for children who have lost their parents to the virus, and has left children with attachment disorders and encouraged orphanages to purposefully keep them in poor conditions to attract more volunteers.
j0RX TIL that Ypsilanti, Michigan is home to the ‘Brick Dick’, a water tower officially recognized as 'the most phallic building in the world.’
8eyx4 TIL that “court jesters” were often used to give bad news to the monarch that no one else would dare deliver. When the French fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Sluys, Phillip VI’s jester told him that the English sailors “don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French”
rZyw TIL the dodo bird’s flightlessness and lack of a fear response was actually an evolutionary advantage before humans arrived, allowing them to conserve energy on an island with no predators.