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TIL: Microsoft tried a 4-day workweek in Japan as part of a "Work Life Choice Challenge" by shutting down offices every Friday. Productivity, measured by sales per employee, increased by almost 40% compared to the same period the previous year.

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via reddit.com

JYepB TIL 193km of the Suez Canal was dug partly by hand starting in 1859. Over the span of 10 years, around 1 million took part in the digging and it cost the lives of over 100 thousand Egyptian forced laborers.
rRaBw TIL that Ramanujan's lost notebook, discovered 56 years after his death, contained the mock theta functions that have been found to be useful for calculating the entropy of black holes. The unordered sheets contained over six hundred mathematical formulas listed consecutively without proofs.
Ov76 TIL that scientists have developed a Laser of a very specific wavelength that is able to refrigerate by causing the object hit to release a photon which carries away more energy in the form of light than it absorbs.
0d4Zj TIL: Princess Diana is estimated to have been subjected to 70 g's during the crash that killed her and died from a torn pulmonary artery resulting from the extreme deceleration from 65 to 0 mph
d4lj TIL The Guinness Book of Records was originally published by Guinness Breweries as a reference for settling bar arguments.