Don’t you hate those startling realisations, epiphanies if you will, that really fuck with the way you have always perceived and understood the world? Like when you found out for the first time that Aerosmith weren’t actually singing “do the lucky lady” or when you were laughed at for thinking that Credence Clearwater Revival were telling you that “there’s a bathroom on the right“.
I stumbled across this exciting page the other day, that sets out to show that everything you’ve ever known and trusted about the world (thanks to Mikey and Steve in Grade 2) is in fact wrong.
Its bloody terrific!
Of course some of the espoused facts could only be believed by a complete moron but some of them really surprised me. I mean I thought that the fact that men thought about sex every seven seconds was scientific gospel, but no:
Males are driven to reproduce, evolutionarily speaking, but there is no scientific way of measuring to what extent that desire consumes their everyday lives. Thankfully, for world productivity as a whole, seven seconds seems a gross overstatement, as best researchers can tell.
And how about this absolute shocker (apologies in advance…). I bet that you always thought that lightning never struck the same place twice. Haha, in fact:
Lightning favours certain spots, particularly high locations. The Empire State Building is struck about 25 times every year. Ben Franklin grasped the concept long ago and mounted a metal rod atop the roof of his home, then ran a wire to the ground, thereby inventing the lightning rod.
I know, I know, its difficult to deal with all at once. But the coup de grâce for me was this little gem:
It takes seven years to digest gum?
While it may prove a bit more difficult to break down than organic foodstuffs, chewing gum gets no special treatment from the digestive system. Doctors figure this old wives’ tale was invented to prevent kids from swallowing the rubbery substance.
It may also surprise you to know that the Great Wall of China is not the only man-made structure visible from space, humans use more than 10% of their brains (well, some of them anyway) and water drains either way down a sink, depending on the sink’s structure not its location relative to the equator.
Well here’s to hoping that a dynamically shifting world view engenders growth and wisdom and not a one way ticket to Insaneville, Idaho.
