The more I learn, the more I realize that I know nothing.
This Year I Learnt (#TYIL)
Another year draws to a close. And as has become a tradition, made a list of random factoids learnt during the year. Mostly encountered while trawling the interwebs, others via TV, movies & books and some through various Quizzing platforms/leagues.
- Creatcoeus Period in the Geological Time Scale comes from Creta, Latin for Chalk (the softest stone) (The Guardian).
- Erdos-Bacon Number: sum of one's Erdős numbe, which measures the "collaborative distance" in authoring academic papers between that person and Hungarian mathematician Paul Erdős, and one's Bacon number, which represents the number of links, through roles in films, by which the person is separated from American actor Kevin Bacon. (Wikipedia) Why the need for such a number combining disparate fields is a mystery though!
- Graham Number: measures a stock’s fundamental value as {22.5*(Earnings Per Share)*(Book Value Per Share)}^(1/2). Any stock trading below the Graham number is considered undervalued. (Investopedia) A good rule of thumb for investors but need to consider in many more factors.
- Harshad Number: A number which is divisible by the sum of its digits e.g. 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,12,18,20,21 and so on. (Wikipedia)
- Lindy Effect: the idea that the older something is, the longer it is likely to be around (Wealest). A decent measure for judging works of arts, books, popularity of movies etc.
- Cantillion Effect: the change in relative prices resulting from a change in money supply (SWFI)
- Weismann Score: Performance Metric for lossless compression applications. Fun part - its a fiction metric developed by a Stanford University professor for the show Silicon Valley (from which I learnt about it) (Wikipedia)
- Allen Curve: represents the exponential drop in frequency of communication between engineers as the physical distance between them increases. (Wikipedia) Wonder how this holds with increased WFH!
- Virtual Water Content: volume of freshwater used to produce the product, measured at the place where the product was actually produced. (Water Calculator)
- Argentina and Uruguay’s first sporting encounter was a game of cricket (not football), in 1868 predating the Ashes by 9 years! (Cricinfo)
- Geomythology: study of etiological oral traditions created by pre-scientific cultures to explain—in poetic metaphor and mythological imagery—geological phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, floods, fossils, and other natural features of the landscape (BBC) at times the entire subject of geology seems a myth and not a science!
- Stendhal Syndrome: visitors to Florence suffer psychological breakdowns after being overwhelmed by the city's abundance of great art! (BBC) I guess another of first world problems.
- Stephen Wilhite invented the gif in 1987. The first gif was a flying airplane. (The Guardian)
- Palm Oil is known as Red Gold. (The Conversation).
- Jennifer Joseph: model for the Columbia Pictures logo. A real person whose image is familiar across the world but name is not (Link)
- Enigmatology: the study of puzzles; Will Shortz is the only known person to hold a college degree in this subject (Wikipedia)
- There are more Indians than Qatari citizens living in Qatar! Qatar’s demographics are quite interesting (Wikipedia)
- Hofstadter’s Law: It takes always longer than you expect. Named from Dr. Richard Hofstater who also lends his name to Leonard’s character in The Big Bang Theory. (Techtarget)
- Overshoot Day: the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. In 2022, it fell on July 28th. (Overshoot Day)
- MCC (Marylebourne Cricket Club) were the custodians of the rules of Tennis in the 19th century! (Britannica) Wondering if there is "spirit of tennis" also?
- The world’s loneliest tree – an isolated spruce on an island in New Zealand (The Guardian)
- The Ghan: longest passenger train in regular service, runs from Darwin to Adelaide, in Australia (Link)
- Operation London Bridge: The funeral plan for Queen Elizabeth II, with the phrase “London Bridge is Down” announcing her passing. The plan was first prepared in 1960s with constant updates as the years went by (Wikipedia)
- Nora Polley: 1st Indian woman to participate in the Summer Olympics (Tennis, 1924) (Link)
- One Piece by Ilan Manouach: the longest single volume book (21,450 pages) and also physically impossible to read and hence is sold as a sculpture rather than a book! (The Guardian)
- Streisand Effect: the attempt to suppress something only brings more attention or notoriety to it (Webster)
- Stone House, the meaning of Zimbabwe in the local Shona language. (BBC)
- The Smiley Company owns the trademark for the smiley image, which was created by Harvey Ball. And it is currently a $ 500 Million business. (The Guardian)
- Meme was coined by Richard Dawkins in his book “The Selfish Gene” by shortening the Greek word mimeme. (BBC)
- The Great Emu War: In 1932, over a 6-week period, Australia waged a war against the emus and lost. The emu population survived the battle against Australian artillery and continued with its crop destructive ways! (Wikipedia)
- And the Chinese fought a battle against Sparrows (1958-62), seemingly won and realized that not having sparrows was more harmful to the crops (due to increased insect population) and ended up importing 250,000 sparrows from Soviet Union! (Wikipedia)
- The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and The Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” were recorded on the same piano (Link)
- Enheduanna: the world’s first known named author, who lived around 5,000 years ago (BBC)
- Bihar was the first state formed in India, in 1912! Maps changed later with first Odisha and later Jharkhand being carved out of it though (Wikipedia)
- The “Iron Law of Megaprojects” - Over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again. (Link)
- Khaki colour originated in the British Indian Army. The word Khaki originated from Urdu and means soil-coloured. (Link)
- Dora the Explorer is a 7 year old girl and 5 feet 2 inches tall! I know it’s a fictional character but still that's one tall kid! (Comicbook)
This was 2022. Hoping to build on in 2023.
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