› added 2 years ago

170

TIL The slightest touch of room-temperature air molecules would immediately destroy Bose Einstein condensates, which are less than a millionth of a degree above zero. Their heat capacity is so low that they would not even be able to cool a grain of sand

Read more arstechnica.com

via reddit.com

X0D48 TIL that a non-custodial parent kidnapped his two sons from Italy and choose to escape Europe on the Titanic. When the ship sank, the young boys were saved but the father drowned. The now famous boys appeared in Newspapers in Italy and their mothers saw them and reunited.
E1dA7 TIL that Doritos were invented at Disneyland. A food salesman noticed Disney was throwing away their stale tortillas and told them to fry them instead. He loved the resulting chips so much he got Frito-Lay to distribute them nationally.
PYPbZ TIL about Erwin Rommel's funeral. When the famous general and war hero was implicated in an assassination plot against Hitler, the Nazis let him commit suicide, in return for his family's safety. Rommel agreed, but demanded an apolitical funeral. The Nazis festooned his coffin was swastikas anyway.
rW0x TIL Paul Revere never actually said “The British are coming!”. The operation was meant to be conducted as discreet as possible and colonial Americans at the time still considered themselves British.
rAA4 TIL there was an astronomically unlucky astronomer: His first expedition to India to study the Transit of Venus was thwarted by clouds and war; his second 8 years later by the only cloudy day in months. Upon returning he found that he was legally dead, his wife remarried, and his estate was pilfered