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TIL that famous philosopher Bertrand Russell contemplated suicide as a teenager but chose against it because he wanted to learn more about mathematics.

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pyA4 TIL: Shell launched the biggest vessel ever put to sea in 2013. The Prelude FLNG platform is longer than Sears Tower is tall, costs ~$12 billion, will weigh 600,000 tonnes (5 times as much as an aircraft carrier) and withstand category 5 cyclones.
e0jdg TIL why the term "Paradigm shift" came to be. Initially coined by Thomas Kuhn as "Paradigm change" Kuhn realized there were certain discoveries(revolutions) that so fundamentally changed the way we saw the world.
4XZgN TIL the first African American senator assumed office in 1897 was Blanche Bruce
bpr9 TIL Brother Theodore was imprisioned in Dachau until he signed over his family’s fortune. He went to Switzerland but was kicked out for chess hustling. Einstein helped him escape to the US and he became a janitor in Stanford where he beat 30 professors simultaneously. Then he became an actor.
loEl5 TIL that the "tires" on the Apollo lunar rovers were made of a woven mesh of zinc-coated piano wire with titanium treads to keep them from sinking into the lunar soil. The tracks they left are only 1/2" deep.