› added 4 years ago

847

TIL that two cars crashing head-on at 50 mph is not comparable to one car hitting a wall at 100 mph. "Although the two-car crash doubles the speed, the energy [of] the crash is transferred to twice the mass resulting in a crash that looks like just one car hitting a wall at 50 mph."

Read more wired.com

via reddit.com

nWKNY TIL of Ruth Belville, the Greenwich Time Lady. Her family helped to keep London running on time by traveling to the Greenwich observatory every day and then charging businesses and individuals a subscription to synchronize their watch and clocks to GMT. The service lasted from 1836 to 1940.
xVkek TIL that Rick Riordan conceived the idea for the Percy Jackson series as bedtime stories about ancient Greek heroes for his son Haley. Haley had been diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia, inspiring Riordan to make the titular protagonist ADHD and dyslexic.
v4yr TIL After recording the song “When I Look at the World”, The Edge couldn’t remember how to play it. Thus U2 does not play the song live.
wLna7 TIL That at the height of Van Halen’s success with Diamond David Lee Roth, Roth had his penis insured with Loyd’s of London. Since others in the group were getting vital body parts insured, he insisted that ‘Little Elvis’ ought to be insured as well because he too would be used heavily on tour.
XErME TIL The Aral Sea, formerly the fourth largest lake in the world, has been drying up since the 1960's due to poor water management practices, so much so that the eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert, full of ghostly relics of rusting ships and decaying docks.