› added 4 years ago

93

TIL that Enrico Fermi estimated the energy released by first atom bomb (Trinity test at Manhattan Project) by dropping small pieces of paper before, during, and after the passage of the blast wave and measuring their displacement. His estimate of 10 kilotons was pretty close to actual value of 21.

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oRVm7 TIL an Australian drugs-related jury trial costing over A$ 1 million with 105 witnesses was aborted when it was discovered that four or five of the twelve jurors had been playing Sudoku instead of listening to the evidence for most of the trial.
XEJ5E TIL that the morning singing of birds is called the "dawn chorus". It is mostly male birds that sing in the morning and it is theorized that they do so to show fitness, the air and low ambient noise allows for clearer signal, and it's too dark to really do anything else.
Geo1 TIL:In 2005 Bryan Cranston, Peter Dinklage, Howie Mandell, Meatloaf, & Stephen Collins all appeared in an episode of Celebrity Poker together.
KYmlw TIL Michael Keaton blocked Michelle Pfeiffer from being cast as Vicki Vale, his romantic lead, in Batman (1989) because they had previously been in a relationship & at the time he was trying to get back with his ex-wife. Pfeiffer went on to replace a pregnant Annette Bening as Catwoman in the sequel
eWEJ TIL Steve Jobs “eliminated all corporate philanthropy programs” at Apple when he became CEO and declined to join Bill Gates’ “Giving Pledge”