useless facts

[Platapus]

William Shanks (1812-1882) worked for years by hand to find the first 707 digits of pi. Unfortunately, he made a mistake after the 527th place and, consequently, the following digits were all wrong.

[Jimbuna]

A Poison Garden in England is filled with venomous plants.

The Alnwick Garden is a garden complex by Alnwick Castle in Northumberland, England. These historic gardens were revived at some point, and a Poison Garden was added in 2005.

[Platapus]

A twofer



In 2002, a Japanese scientist found 1.24 trillion digits of pi using a powerful computer called the Hitachi SR 8000, breaking all previous records.


There is no practical application for this




Thirty-nine decimal places of pi suffice for computing the circumference of a circle girding the known universe with an error no greater than the radius of a hydrogen atom.

[Jimbuna]

Peas are the oldest vegetables.

[Platapus]

Racehorse jockey, Frank Hayes holds an unfortunate but unique record.


He is the only known jockey who won a race while dead on 4 June 1923.


Hayes died in the latter part of the race and his body remained in the saddle when his horse Sweet Kiss crossed the finish line, winning by a head, making him the first, and so far only, jockey known to have won a race after death.


It was his first and last race.

[Jimbuna]

The winning lottery combination was once foretold in a fortune cookie.

This resulted in over a hundred winners for the 2005 lottery. All of these winners took home around $100,000-$500,000 depending on their original bet.

[Platapus]

and finally, in recognition of "pi day"


Piphilology is the practice of memorizing large numbers of digits of pi


The word comes from the Latin root meaning Ain't got no life.

[Jimbuna]

A meteor with the force of 10 atomic bombs crashed on Earth and no one noticed.

On December 18, 2018, a meteor hit our atmosphere but was failed to be detected by NASA at the time. The reason for this is because it took place in the Bering Sea which was a closed area.

[Platapus]

Typewriters favor left handed typists


On average a typist will use his or her left hand for 56% of the letters



This is because most of the most common letters in the English language are on the left side of the keyboard. The right side of the keyboard only contains i and n as the most common letters.

[Jimbuna]

Strawberries are the only known fruit to grow their seeds externally.

[Platapus]

The basketball was invented three years (1894) after the development of the game of Basketball in 1891.

[Sean C]

Each apparent "seed" on the outside of a strawberry is actually one of the ovaries of the flower, with a seed inside it.

[Platapus]

tongue twisters in sign language are called finger fumblers.

[Jimbuna]

Scientists can’t explain what causes four-leafed clovers.

[Platapus]

April 11, 1954, was recorded as the most boring day in the world.

Statistics show that no significant occurrences took place in the world. This was calculated by a computer search program. This program could calculate the number of important events that occur all over the world simultaneously.