Monday, November 13, 2006

Littlest Known Facts


Sometimes, even the littlest things in the universe are important. Where would we be without thimbles and screws, transistors and teeth, staples and car keys? We would not be in a good place, that's for sure. Even these Very Little Known Facts about the littlest things imaginable.



  • FASTER THAN A MASERATI: A photon is a single atom of light. It travels through space at three times the speed of sound, but it is so small that it is completely invisible!

  • The smallest person in the world is only eight years old.

  • A single computer chip holds more information than the Library of Congress.

  • The preposition is the smallest form of speech in English. In French, it's the conjunction.

  • BIGGER THAN A BREADBOX: A singularity is defined by Physics as the spot where all the matter in the entire cosmos is compressed so much that it would all fit inside a classic VW Beetle. (Remember that the trunk of the VW is in the front of the car, not the back.)

  • Japanese Banzai trees never grow more than six inches tall, even if you fertilize them!

  • Ink is actually made up of hundreds of tiny pigment molecules that bind to paper and quickly dry. If one were to stack all the ink molecules in a Stephen King book on top of each other, the resulting tower would be 6 times taller than the book itself!

  • SMALLER PLEASE: Bacteria are the smallest forms of life on Earth. But watch out--viruses are even smaller.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Apparently there are some stars that are so dense, that a cubic millimeter of their matter could weigh as much as a cargo ship...A MILLION CARGO SHIPS!!!

Jon Black and Britt Bergman said...

Dear anonymous,

Thanks for your comment! Actually, there is only one star that is that dense. It is called Alpha Centauri, but because of its weight (weight=mass/time) it is popularly known as the Dog Star. Thanks again for your comment!