The 'Did You Know' Thread!

[Pakhan]

For some reason I feel like this should probably be followed with a DAMHIK.

no worries, ask away.

[erkishhorde]

It is not a structural engineer's job to design a building to stand through any earthquake. It's their job to make sure it stands long enough for you to get out.  (Unless, of course, you pay them to design it to stand through any quake but that's not cheap.)

The most common law suit a structural engineer faces is floors that are too bouncy. 

In a large earthquake you're more likely to be killed by non-structural elements breaking and falling (bookshelves, light fixtures) than structural failures (building falling down).

Concrete doesn't dry, it cures. Curing is a chemical reaction that requires water so that's why it seems like it's drying. Also, concrete never totally finishes curing. It is always getting stronger.

Concrete explodes under extreme loads. 

[VisceralReaction]

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              I am suspect of this one...in 58 years , I have only met one other person whose birthday is the same as mine..... June 28.

My daughter's bday is the 28th of june, her cousin (my sister's kid) is born a year earlier on the 28th of june.
My wife and I were born on the 30th of December

[Grampa]

Jimmy Hoffa is still curing

[Speeddog]

Jimmy Hoffa is still curing

Ya mean like a ham?

[Monsterlover]

Sort of like that ^^

But not quite

[NeufUnSix]

Recycling actually costs a lot more than taking trash to a landfill. And has no proven environmental benefits over the latter.

All of the US's garbage for the next 1000 years could be contained in a single landfill, if someone was willing to build one about 12 miles square (need to check that sizing, can't remember the exact number).

A climate crisis was forseen in the mid-20th century. Scientists and environmentalists were claiming man-made emissions were having an effect on the earth's temperature. Only thing was, they claimed it was COOLING the earth, not warming it. This theory was tossed out in the 1970s when a warming trend began, after a cooling trend from the late 30s to the 70s, the peak of industrial development during and after the Second World War.

Combusting gases in an engine cylinder produces a nearly invisible flame front. Contrary to what the animations would lead you to believe, it doesn't burn orange.

The average human being emits 1kg of carbon dioxide per day, about 4% of the gas content of exhaled breath. This means that humans alone account for over 2 billion tons of CO2 annually, not counting animal and plant sources.

Metal in an internal combustion motor is not static. It flexes by many degrees in high-load areas such as the valvetrain, the conrods and the crankshaft. If you were to watch these areas under a strobe light at high rpm you would see visible shifting.

The main advantage of desmo valves in the current Grand Prix bikes is not power, or valve control - it's fuel economy. No one is quite sure why.

Venturi port intake systems have recently been announced as a cheap and effective way of boosting engine efficiency and fuel economy. This is nothing new - venturi ports (narrowing of the port to accelerate fuel mix flow) has been a tuning trick on certain racing engines for many decades. For example, Ducati singles were particularly receptive to venturi port shaping.

Antilock brakes have been around on bikes for a lot longer than you think. The 1920s Rudge Four single cylinder had a mechanical antilock system - with linked brakes. It also had a four valve head (hence the name), bleeding edge tech for the 1920s.

Titanium needs to be welded in an inert argon gas environment. If it isn't, it will absorb hydrogen and oxygen from the ambient air and becomes brittle. BSA learned this the hard way on its ill-fated Titanium motocross bike - when in-the-field repairs needed to be done, traditional welding methods were used and the frames subsequently cracked. The whole ill-thought-out boondoggle cost the company millions. The cost per frame was 4500$ in the 1960s, about 400 000$ PER BARE FRAME in todays dollars.

[DoubleEagle]

My daughter's bday is the 28th of june, her cousin (my sister's kid) is born a year earlier on the 28th of june.
My wife and I were born on the 30th of December

That's very cool for sure and very coincidental I might add. My mother was born on her Mother's birthday.

[DoubleEagle]

Fire only burns in an environment with at least 18 % Oxygen                                                                                                                                                               
The Greatest picture ever is on you tube                                                                                                                                                                                             
Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple fame and Blackmore's Night used a 278 watt Marshall Major Head in "Purlpe",his trademark Fender Strat was purchased from one of Jimi Hendrick's Roadies after Ritchie saw Jimi play for the 1st time                                                                                                                                                               Most Beatles song riffs were rearranged from Black American R+B Artists                                                                                                                                             
The angle of the Dangle, is equal to the beat of the meat , if the mass of the ass is constant

[TJR178]

A GE Evolution Series locomotive weighs about 420k pounds.

It runs on a V-12 4400 hp engine that is built to last 20 years under full throttle ("notch 8" in railroad terms).  Don't you wish our cars were built to that spec?

75 mph is roughly it's top speed (We got to 55 mph on a the test track yesterday).

The fuel tank holds just under 5k gallons of diesel, which is about  a $25k fill-up at the pump.  Suddenly a $50 fill-up doesn't sound so bad.

It'll cost you close to $2M out the door with a good list of options.  You Aussies are getting a model that pushes $3M for your Rio Tinto line.

[Monsterlover]

Did you know one of Monsterlover's eyes contains two different colors?

[trenner]

Bookkeeper is the word in the english language with the most pairs of letters next to each other.  Can you name another with as many adjacent pairs (3)?

Scuba divers who routinely dive to depths much greater than about 130 feet do some really funky things to their breathing gases, to be able to survive and function.  This includes breathing trimix (helium, oxygen, and nitrogen) and heliox (helium and oxygen).  A side effect of breathing helium is that you lose body heat more rapidly than if you were breathing normal air.  That, and the funny sounding voice.  To combat the change in voice, deep dive communication devices shift the pitch of the voice to be lower, so that it's more understandable.

US Naval Commander Henry Honychurch Gorringe, the captain of the USS Gettysburg, had a name that rhymes with orange.

[BWClark]

Not fact-checked, but I've heard it somewhere.

The sun is 400 times larger than the moon. It is also 400 times more distant. Making the sun and moon appear almost exactly the same size in the sky...

[somegirl]

Bookkeeper is the word in the english language with the most pairs of letters next to each other.  Can you name another with as many adjacent pairs (3)?

Bookkeeping

[Speeddog]

Bookkeeping

Cheater.