› added 4 years ago

80

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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pbwN TIL Yurii is the Slavic form of the name George
gM6P7 TIL that due to the centrifugal force resulting from the rotation of the Earth, we weigh roughly 0.5% less at the equator than at the poles.
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Wvjd TIL for centuries before refrigeration, Russians dropped live frogs into their milk to keep it from spoiling. Secretions from their skin inhibited the growth of bacteria.
e0JLD TIL that during the 1970s the Communist government of North Korea kidnapped foreign women to provide potential wifes for the American defectors, to prevent them from marrying ethnically Korean women and having mixed children