# Tell us an interesting random fact you stumbled across (Part 1) **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 13, 2020, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674 "2020-04-13T03:19:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 210
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2022, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4189 "2022-04-07T17:16:52Z")
Seoul is one syllable in English but two syllables in Korean. ---
**Author:** ![Mark\_Finn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/34f0e0/32.png) [@Mark\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mark_Finn)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2022, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4190 "2022-04-07T19:24:57Z")
So we get rid of Seoul, Roma, and Praha - that leaves Leeds, Perth, and Minsk st the top. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4191 "2022-04-07T19:52:29Z")
> [@Mark\_Finn](#): > > So we get rid of Seoul, Roma, and Praha - that leaves Leeds, Perth, and Minsk st the top How about Wien? ---
**Author:** ![Wallaby](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/dc4da7/32.png) [@Wallaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wallaby)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4192 "2022-04-08T07:47:38Z")
Well, now that we’ve been educated this last month or so - how about Kiev? ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4193 "2022-04-08T16:28:03Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > The winner seems to be Xenon-124. [One article says](https://news.uchicago.edu/story/scientists-measure-half-life-element-thats-longer-age-universe), Hydrogen (H-1) is still in the running at a theoretical 1.67 x 10^34 year half-life ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4194 "2022-04-08T18:01:53Z")
We’re fish. There’s a photo, too. [https://twitter.com/toorsdenote/status/1512300702848061440](https://twitter.com/toorsdenote/status/1512300702848061440) ---
**Author:** ![Pleonast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pleonast/32/1183_2.png) [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4195 "2022-04-08T18:32:48Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > We’re fish. Yep! Isn’t science fun? But to be cladistically correct, there needs to be an outgroup. That is, something that’s not a fish, like a monarch butterfly. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4196 "2022-04-08T21:52:17Z")
Interesting read. Who’da thunk? > **[How I Love Lucy Helped to Launch Star Trek and The Twilight Zone](https://www.cbr.com/i-love-lucy-helped-launch-star-trek-the-twilight-zone/)** > > The stars of I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, had an unexpected hand in bringing The Twilight Zone and the original Star Trek to audiences. > It’s highly likely neither _The Twilight Zone_ nor _Star Trek_ would have been existed without Desilu’s intervention and financial backing. Ball and Arnaz’s ability to understand what audiences were looking for is undoubtedly what made the duo’s acting careers so successful, and this innate understanding also helped them drop a life-line to a pair of previously rejected projects that went on to become two of the most well-known franchises of all time. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2022, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4197 "2022-04-08T23:06:53Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Hydrogen (H-1) is still in the running at a theoretical 1.67 x 10^34 year half-life I thought the experimentally established limits on proton stability had ruled out the theory that predicted they might be unstable. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4198 "2022-04-09T07:25:04Z")
> [@Pleonast](#): > > Yep! Isn’t science fun? But to be cladistically correct, there needs to be an outgroup. That is, something that’s not a fish, like a monarch butterfly. Sharks. Sharks aren’t fish; humans are. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4199 "2022-04-09T12:20:26Z")
Are sharks vertebrates? They seem a lot closer to fish than to lampreys. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4200 "2022-04-09T13:45:26Z")
They are, although lampreys are also vertebrates. Basically, vertebrates are divided into two groups: jawless fish (like the lampreys) and jawed fish; jawed fish are divided into cartilaginous fish (like sharks) and bony fish (like ray-finned fish and mammals). ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4201 "2022-04-09T13:56:53Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Sharks aren’t fish > [@Alessan](#): > > cartilaginous fish (like sharks) …I think you need to define your term ‘fish’. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4202 "2022-04-09T14:07:47Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > …I think you need to define your term ‘fish’. I can’t define it, because there’s no such thing as a fish. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4203 "2022-04-09T14:24:49Z")
Tell that to Abe Vigoda. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4204 "2022-04-09T17:38:32Z")
As recorded in _Moby Dick_, there was a serious debate in the 19th century over whether whales were or were not fundamentally the same sort of creature as a cod or herring. After all they swim in the sea, are streamlined, etc. In the end it boiled down to a semantic debate over what you mean by the word “fish”. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2022, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4205 "2022-04-09T18:37:03Z")
That’s always the problem when science borrows ordinary terms (or when ordinary usage borrow scientific terms) - there will be a divergence in definitions. ---
**Author:** ![lobotomyboy63](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobotomyboy63/32/2900_2.png) [@lobotomyboy63](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lobotomyboy63)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2022, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4206 "2022-04-12T02:04:36Z")
When Mrs. L and I bought our engagement/wedding rings, we opted for the “insurance” or whatever they call it. Many years later, one of the small diamonds on her ring was lost…well hey, wait, we have the insurance! So we took it in but wait—the fine print says you have to have them inspected every six months…wtf? So we were out a couple hundred bucks? Since then, we’ve been on the lookout for replacement rings. She found something at TJ Maxx for her ring, so we went back. I was stunned because I thought she’d fuss over whether her ring matched mine but…no. Not at all. One weird accident here is that I was curious about tungsten bands but I knew that they couldn’t be resized so you need to get the right size the first time. I saw a ring in the TJ Maxx display, tried it on…thought it was great. Yep, Tungsten Carbide…black with a blue line through it. A couple of random facts about tungsten 1. Tungsten Carbide hardness is a 9. Diamond is a 10. So it shouldn’t scratch etc. 2. Tungsten Carbide melts at over 5K Fahrenheit degrees…lava tops out at about 2200F. Kiss my ass! 3. Crooks will sometimes drill holes in gold bars and insert tungsten because the densities are similar. 4. Tungsten=W because it was also called “wolfram.” 5. The ring only cost $18. Feast your eyes on [these babies](https://www.google.com/search?q=tungsten+band&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS798US798&source=lnms&tbm=shop&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj8x-GDs433AhUdomoFHT3aA7UQ_AUoAXoECAIQAw&biw=1366&bih=657&dpr=1). More way cool info here: > **[The History of Tungsten, the Strongest Natural Metal on Earth](https://www.visualcapitalist.com/history-of-tungsten-worlds-strongest-metal/)** > > Though we now know tungsten as the strongest naturally-occurring metal, it wasn't discovered until late in the 18th century. Here's the history of tungsten. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2022, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4207 "2022-04-12T06:53:34Z")
> [@lobotomyboy63](#): > > great. Yep, Tungsten Carbide…black with a blue line through it. > > A couple of random facts about tungsten > > 1. Tungsten Carbide hardness is a 9. Diamond is a 10. So it shouldn’t scratch etc. > 2. Tungsten Carbide melts at over 5K Fahrenheit degrees…lava tops out at about 2200F. Kiss my ass! > 3. Crooks will sometimes drill holes in gold bars and insert tungsten because the densities are similar. > 4. Tungsten=W because it was also called “wolfram.” My wife and I got matching tungsten rings for our anniversary, black with silvery edges and etching. My wife’s ring says “I love you” in cursive; mine says “I know”. ---
**Author:** ![Treppenwitz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treppenwitz/32/3445_2.png) [@Treppenwitz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Treppenwitz)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2022, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674/4208 "2022-04-12T16:42:35Z")
I have known for a long time that Ian Fleming took the name James Bond from the author of the field guide Birds Of The West Indies (Fleming being a keen birder). However, today I found out that in the movie Die Another Day, we see James Bond (agent) examining the cover of Birds Of The West Indies by James Bond (ornithologist). It happens at ~2.57 of this video (the author’s name is scratched out, but the cover is easily recognizable). I think I managed to set this up to play at about the right point: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/TzsHWe5eg80/maxresdefault.jpg "Die Another Day - Havana Scene | Cuba (HD)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzsHWe5eg80) Cover of the book: [https://biblio.co.uk/book/birds-west-indies-collins-field-guide/d/495322604?aid=frg&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi4Pg5\_iO9wIVyJ7tCh138Q16EAQYAiABEgI0HvD\_BwE](https://biblio.co.uk/book/birds-west-indies-collins-field-guide/d/495322604?aid=frg&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIi4Pg5_iO9wIVyJ7tCh138Q16EAQYAiABEgI0HvD_BwE) Fun fact: Fleming and Bond did meet: > **[James Bond (ornithologist) | Fictional namesake](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bond_(ornithologist)#Fictional_namesake)** > > Ian Fleming, who was a keen bird watcher living in Jamaica, was familiar with Bond's book, and chose the name of its author for the hero of Casino Royale in 1953, apparently because he wanted a name that sounded "as ordinary as possible". Fleming wrote to the real Bond's wife, "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed, and so a second James Bond was born." He did not contact the real James Bond about using his name in the books, a Ja... j [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=209) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-an-interesting-random-fact-you-stumbled-across-part-1/851674.md?page=211)