30 Facts That Took People By Surprise When They First Heard Them, As Shared Online
Article created by: Monika Pašukonytė
Not all facts seem intuitive. Some take people by surprise or feel strange even after knowing them for a while. The reasons for this may vary from limited knowledge of the area, something having very different features from other things of a similar kind, to our senses perceiving something in such a way that it is tempting to the mind to draw some false conclusions, as is the case with various optical illusions, such as one line looking shorter than the other when that isn’t the case. People are sharing these kinds of facts, answering one Redditor’s question: “What’s something that sounds completely illogical but is actually correct?”
More info: Reddit
The double-slit experiment in quantum physics, where you’re firing electrons at a barrier with two slits. Logic suggests you should see two lines on a screen behind the barrier, but instead, you get a pattern like waves interfering with each other, implying each electron goes through both slits simultaneously.
Yet, if you observe which slit they go through, the electrons revert to acting like particles, forming only two lines, as if they ‘know’ they’re being watched. It’s a mind-bending phenomenon that sounds illogical but is scientifically proven.
There is a nerve that connects your brain to your larynx (voice box), but first it goes down your neck, into your chest, and under your aorta before coming back up.
Giraffes also have it despite the length of their necks.
The US Army tried a “Camel Corps” in the Southwest, in the early 19th century, mostly as pack animals or using for mail service, as far West as southern California; when the Civil War interrupted their experiment, they sold the camels off, but some escaped. As a result there were feral camels at one point in the Angeles National Forest.
Both the moon and Sun are about 400 times farther from Earth than the sizes of their respective diameters. This means that the moon will block out, or “eclipse,” anything behind it that has the same ratio. This is the “cosmic coincidence” that makes solar eclipses possible.
If you have 23 people together in a room there is a 50% chance that 2 of them share a birthday (same day and month, not necessarily the same year).
Hmm, did you know that technically speaking, a strawberry isn’t a berry, but a banana is? Sounds weird, but it’s true!
The western end of the Panama Canal is the Atlantic Ocean and the eastern end is the Pacific Ocean.
There are more hydrogen atoms in a single water molecule than there are stars in the entire solar system.
“Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo” is a complete, grammatically correct sentence in the English language.
If you somehow managed to fold one piece of paper 42 times, its thickness will actually be equal to the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
