› added 5 years ago

71

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.

Read more wikipedia.org

via reddit.com

6l1W TIL Dr. Gay Hitler, son of George Washington Hitler, was a local dentist in Circleville, Ohio, and served the community from 1922 through 1946. Many roads in the area still contain the word ‘Hitler’ through this family.
R5Rvl TIL Jimi Hendrix was inspired to record "All Along The Watchtower" after hearing The Alan Bown play it live one night. But due to delays and their record company not thinking it would be a hit single The Alan Bown released their version after Hendrix. It became one of Hendrix's biggest hits.
6KEm TIL that America’s Got Talent top prize of one million dollars is paid out over 40 years!
XE4kP TIL that Idaho is the only State in America named through a hoax. In 1860, George M. Willing, presented the name Idaho, claiming it derived from the phrase "Gem of the mountains." When in fact it means nothing.
R5val TIL on July 19, 1985, in his sixth professional bout, a young Mike Tyson faced Larry Sims in Poughkeepsie, New York. Out of Tyson's 58 professional fights, this is the only one never captured on video. It is theorized that the scheduled film crew failed to arrive on time, missing the entire match.