› added 7 years ago

84

TIL the mathematician Paul Erdős regularly used amphetamines to increase his mathematical output. His friend bet him he couldn't stop using them for a month - Erdős won the bet but claimed that it had caused mathematics to be set back by a month.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

J7lV TIL that in Star Trek the voice of the Breen alien race was inspired by Lou Reed’s album Metal Machine Music, which the postproduction sound staff were instructed to listen to when creating the electronic cackle that served as the Breen’s voices.
Pd8Z TIL that the FBI uses “scores” of disguised, low-flying surveillance planes in most major cities
ANKgw TIL that Boston Corbett, the man who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth, had castrated himself with a pair of scissors years earlier
R7oQ1 TIL in 1941, Time Magazine planned to select the Disney character Dumbo as its Person of the Year, even designing a formal portrait for him and the title of "Mammal of the Year". This was until the Pearl Harbor attacks happened, forcing them to instead give the award to President Franklin Roosevelt.
6KgQ TIL that the mother of a teenager murdered in a 2005 racist axe attack forgave his killers: “Unforgiveness makes you a victim and why should I be a victim?… Hate killed my son, so why should I be a victim too?”