INDIAN WEDDING FACTS

Indian wedding is a perfect blend of serious rituals and customs along with other fun filled rituals and frothy moments. Wedding marks the beginning of a new relationship not just between two individuals but also between two families and thus, there are various moments in the wedding ceremonies that help to build new relationships. Every caste and community has its own tradition and culture. India with such diverse cultural background showcases variety of rituals and customs. Here are few very interesting facts about various kinds of Indian Wedding:







Interesting Indian Wedding Facts


In many communities in the Hindu Religion, there is a wedding ritual in which the sisters-in-law hide the shoes of their jija or brother-in-law and return them only in exchange for money. It's a very fun filled and enjoying ritual.


In some communities, there are rituals where the hands of the couple are covered with a sacred cloth to ward off ill omen and evil eye during the pheras.


In Parsee marriage ceremonies, the sisters-in-law take gifts from their brother-in-law during the ritual of Haath Boravanu where the groom puts his hand in water and cannot remove them until he pays money to them, Pag Dhovanu is another such ritual where the groom is threatened with milk on his shoes and chero chorvanu is a ritual in which seven strands of thread tying the couple are removed on payment.


In Gujarati custom the groom's mother-in-law tries to catch his nose on arrival of the baraat, as a reminder of the fact that he is taking away their daughter and is now responsible for her happiness.


Aeki-Beki is also very fun filled rituals among the Gujarati community. A tray or pot of water is mixed with milk and vermillion. A ring and a few coins are thrown into the mixture. The bride and groom are given seven chances to fish out the ring. The winner is considered as having a dominating personality and it is predicted amidst much laughter that he or she will rule the roost!


In Punjabi custom the bride's wear a Chuda, this is a set of red and ivory bangles by her maternal uncle. This custom is considered good omen for the bride as it is said to bring good luck to the bride in her new home.


Punjabi brides wear Kaleeres. These are silver or gold plated ornaments tied to the Chudas. It is said that the bride has as many friends as there are leaves in the Kaleere. One interesting ritual related with the Kaleere is the custom in which a bride shakes her Kaleere over the unmarried girls in her family. It is said that if the Kaleere falls on the head of any of them, she is the next one to be married.


Another ritual which is found in almost every community is when the groom brings home his new bride; the groom's sisters block the entrance to the home and demand money from their brother as a shagun before they let him in. This is a fun filled and amusing ritual.

Scientists Agree...

Scientists Agree...







In going about our everyday lives, all of us use science every day, and we never even know it. Science has much to teach us about the world we live in and how to master it. For instance:



•Blue light travels faster than any other color light.


•Vegans and vegetarians regularly eat flesh from animals that die of natural causes since that meat is technically considered "carrion."

•The inside of an ordinary 40-watt lightbulb can become hotter than the surface of the sun.

•So-called "steam locomotives" are actually fuelled by coal or other combustible materials in a small, controlled nuclear reaction.

•Ink from a computer printer, if ingested, is more toxic than mercury.

•30 is technically the lowest prime number.

•Albinos are actually black--it is the refraction of sunlight that makes them "appear" white or colorless.

•Dogs have eight more senses than human beings.

Gravity Facts

Gravity Facts


Enjoy our range of interesting gravity facts that help explain how gravity relates to both life on Earth and other objects in our solar system. Learn about important concepts such as acceleration, mass, tides and orbits as well as some useful formulas, strange trivia and other fun information relating to the topic of gravity.


•Objects with mass are attracted to each other, this is known as gravity.

•Gravity keeps Earth and the other planets in our solar system in orbit around the Sun. It also keeps the Moon in orbit around Earth.

•Tides are caused by the rotation of the Earth and the gravitational effects of the Moon and Sun.

•Because Mars has a lower gravity than Earth, a person weighing 100kg (220 pounds) on Earth would only weigh 38kg (84 pounds) on Mars.

•It is thought that Isaac Newton’s theories on gravity were inspired by seeing an apple fall from a tree.

•While Newton’s older law of universal gravitation is accurate in most scenarios, modern physics uses Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity to describe gravity.

•Acceleration of objects to due to the gravity on Earth is around 9.8 m/s2. If you ignore air resistance (drag) then the speed of an object falling to Earth increases by around 9.8 metres per second every second.

•The force of gravity 100 kilometres (62 miles) above Earth is just 3% less than at the Earth’s surface.

•The human body can handle increased g-forces as seen in activities such as dragster races, airplane acrobatics and space training. The highest known acceleration voluntarily experienced by a human is 46.2 g by g-force pioneer John Stapp.

•While formula one racing drivers may feel around 5 g’s under heavy braking, they can experience over 100 g’s if a crash causes them to decelerate extremely quickly over a very short distance.

•Some roller coasters have been known to include g-forces of around 4 to 6 g.

•The higher something is, the greater its gravitational potential energy. Back in the Middle Ages, weapons called trebuchets were used to take advantage of this principle, using mechanical advantage and the gravitational potential energy of a counterweight to hurl rocks and other projectiles at or over walls. In modern times we use the gravitational potential of water to create hydroelectricity.

Olympics Fun Facts

Olympics Fun Facts



•The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus). In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.


•Host Greece won the most medals (47) at the first Olympic Summer Games in 1896.


•The first Winter Olympic Games were held in Chamonix, France in 1924.


•Norway has won the most medals (263) at the Winter Games.


•The United States has won more medals (2,189) at the Summer Games than any other country.


•The five Olympic rings represent the five major regions of the world – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceana, and every national flag in the world includes one of the five colors, which are (from left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red.


•Up until 1994 the Olympics were held every four years. Since then, the Winter and Summer games have alternated every two years.


•The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.


•No country in the Southern Hemisphere has ever hosted a Winter Games.


•Three continents – Africa, South America, and Antarctica – have never hosted an Olympics.


•A record 202 countries participated in the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens.


•Only four athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games: Eddie Eagan (United States), Jacob Tullin Thams (Norway), Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany), and Clara Hughes (Canada).


•Speed skater Bonnie Blair has won six medals at the Olympic Winter Games. That's more than any other American athlete.


•Nobody has won more medals at the Winter Games than cross-country skier Bjorn Dählie of Norway, who has 12.


•Larrisa Latynina, a gymnast from the former Soviet Union, finished her Summer Olympic Games career with 18 total medals—the most in history.


•The United States Olympic Committee established the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 to recognize outstanding American Olympic athletes, however, a plan to build a hall has been suspended due to lack of funding.


•The Summer Olympic sports are archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe / kayak, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, swimming, show jumping, and running), mountain biking, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, track and field, triathlon (swimming, biking, running), volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.


•The Winter Olympic sports are alpine skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting), bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hocky, luge, Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing), skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.


Olympics Fun Facts



•The early Olympic Games were celebrated as a religious festival from 776 B.C. until 393 A.D., when the games were banned for being a pagan festival (the Olympics celebrated the Greek god Zeus). In 1894, a French educator Baron Pierre de Coubertin, proposed a revival of the ancient tradition, and thus the modern-day Olympic Summer Games were born.


•Host Greece won the most medals (47) at the first Olympic Summer Games in 1896.


•The first Winter Olympic Games were held in Chamonix, France in 1924.


•Norway has won the most medals (263) at the Winter Games.


•The United States has won more medals (2,189) at the Summer Games than any other country.


•The five Olympic rings represent the five major regions of the world – Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceana, and every national flag in the world includes one of the five colors, which are (from left to right) blue, yellow, black, green, and red.


•Up until 1994 the Olympics were held every four years. Since then, the Winter and Summer games have alternated every two years.


•The first Olympics covered by U.S. television was the 1960 Summer Games in Rome by CBS.


•No country in the Southern Hemisphere has ever hosted a Winter Games.


•Three continents – Africa, South America, and Antarctica – have never hosted an Olympics.


•A record 202 countries participated in the 2004 Olympic Summer Games in Athens.


•Only four athletes have ever won medals at both the Winter and Summer Olympic Games: Eddie Eagan (United States), Jacob Tullin Thams (Norway), Christa Luding-Rothenburger (East Germany), and Clara Hughes (Canada).


•Speed skater Bonnie Blair has won six medals at the Olympic Winter Games. That's more than any other American athlete.


•Nobody has won more medals at the Winter Games than cross-country skier Bjorn Dählie of Norway, who has 12.


•Larrisa Latynina, a gymnast from the former Soviet Union, finished her Summer Olympic Games career with 18 total medals—the most in history.


•The United States Olympic Committee established the U.S. Olympic Hall of Fame in 1983 to recognize outstanding American Olympic athletes, however, a plan to build a hall has been suspended due to lack of funding.


•The Summer Olympic sports are archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, boxing, canoe / kayak, cycling, diving, equestrian, fencing, field hockey, gymnastics, handball, judo, modern pentathlon (shooting, fencing, swimming, show jumping, and running), mountain biking, rowing, sailing, shooting, soccer, swimming, synchronized swimming, table tennis, taekwondo, tennis, track and field, triathlon (swimming, biking, running), volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling.


•The Winter Olympic sports are alpine skiing, biathlon (cross-country skiing and target shooting), bobsled, cross-country skiing, curling, figure skating, freestyle skiing, ice hocky, luge, Nordic combined (ski jumping and cross-country skiing), skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding, and speed skating.

Mathematics and fun for children

•Mathematics is important in many different types of jobs, including engineering, business, science, medicine and more.







•It is believed that Ancient Egyptians used complex mathematics such as algebra, arithmetic and geometry as far back as 3000 BC.






•It wasn’t until the 16th century that most mathematical symbols were invented. Before this time math equations were written in words, making it very time consuming.






•What comes after a million, billion and trillion? Why a quadrillion, quintillion, sextillion, septillion, octillion and nonillion of course.






•Cutting a cake into 8 pieces is possible with just 3 slices, can you work out how?






•An icosagon is a shape with 20 sides.






•A three dimensional parallelogram is called a parallelepiped.






•Trigonometry is the study of the relationship between the angles of triangles and their sides.






•The smallest ten prime numbers are: 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29.






•The name of the popular search engine ‘Google’ came from a misspelling of the word ‘googol’, which is a very, very large number (the number one followed by one hundred zeros to be exact).






•A ‘googolplex’ is the number 1 followed by a googol zeros, this number is so big that it can’t be written because there isn’t enough room in the universe to fit it in! It would also take a length of time far greater than the age of the universe just to write the numbers.






•The number Pi (the ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle) can’t be expressed as a fraction, this means it is an irrational number. When written as a decimal it never repeats and never ends.






•Here is Pi written to 50 decimal places: 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510






•If two quantities have a ratio of approximately 1.618, they are said to be in the golden ratio. This ratio has been used throughout history to design aesthetically pleasing art works such as the Parthenon. It also appears in paintings, music, the design of books, and even in nature.

Edwin Hubble

Edwin Hubble Facts





American astronomer Edwin Hubble is famous for demonstrating the existence of other galaxies, as well as his influential work on astrophysics and his subsequent namesake, the Hubble Space Telescope.






Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who lived from November the 20th 1889 to September the 28th 1953.






•Hubble made a huge impact on astronomy, and science in general, by demonstrating that other galaxies besides our own Milky Way existed. It was the previous belief of many that space was limited to the Milky Way galaxy, Hubble’s discoveries which were announced in 1925 changed our view of the universe.






•In his early years Hubble was a skilled athlete as well as a bright student, competing and achieving highly in track and field.






•At the University of Chicago, Hubble’s studies focused on mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy. He became a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University soon after and also became a member of the Kappa Sigma Fraternity.






•Hubble discovered that the level of redshift in light coming from a galaxy increased in proportion to the distance as that galaxy moved further away from Earth. This is known as Hubble’s law and it helped prove that the universe is expanding. It even led Albert Einstein to admit that ignoring this idea and subsequently “fudging” his equations to avoid it was “the biggest blunder of his life”.






•The well known Hubble Space Telescope is named after Edwin Hubble. It has provided valuable research data and images since it was carried into orbit in 1990, leading to many breakthroughs in the field of astrophysics. Hubble has also been honored with an asteroid and moon crater being named after him.

Interesting & Fun Facts About Great Britain

Interesting & Fun Facts About Great Britain







•The official name of Great Britain is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.


•England, Scotland, and Wales, together make up Great Britain.


•It is the largest island in the European continent and the ninth largest in the world.


•The capital and the largest city of Britain is London, while the capitals of the three countries forming Britain are London, Edinburgh, and Cardiff, of England, Scotland, and Wales, respectively.


•Christianity is the major religion practiced in Great Britain with over 5 million believers across the entire island, divided into 4.5 million in England and Wales, and 750,000 in Scotland.


•The official language of Britain is English.


•The currency used in Great Britain is pound sterling.


•Ben Navis, at 1,344 m (4,409 ft), is the highest point in Great Britain in Scotland, while the lowest point is the Fenlands which is 4 m below sea level.


•Interestingly, with a population of 60 million people, Great Britain is the third most populous island in the world, after Java and Honshû.


•Though the island has been named ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’, it includes only England, Wales, Scotland, and many other small outlying islands, namely, Isle of Wight, Anglesey, the Isles of Scilly, the Hebrides, and the island groups of Orkney and Shetland. However, it does not include Northern Ireland.


•The word British is used to refer the people belonging to the entire Great Britain, Britain for short. However, they are referred to as Welsh, Scottish, and English in their respective nations.


•The longest river is The Severn, measuring 322 km long, that rises in central Wales and flows through Shrewsbury, Worcester, and Gloucester in England into the Bristol Channel.


•The official name for the British flag is Union Jack, while the English flag is called the Flag of St. George, the Scottish is called the Flag of St. Andrew, and the Welsh flag is called the Flag of St. David.


•Did you know that the world-famous pop music band ‘The Beatles’ that changed the music scene across the globe are from England?


•Britain is the only country in the world that does not have the country’s name on its postage stamps.


•Surprisingly, there are more chickens than humans in England.


•Of all the mammal species found in Great Britain, rodents constitute 40% which include squirrels, mice, voles, rats, and the European beaver. Others comprise of rabbits, hares, hedgehogs, shrews, moles, and several bats species.


•The deer is the largest land-based wild animal found in Great Britain. The largest species is the red deer, followed by roe deer and fallow deer.

A few interesting facts about Australia.

1. Australia is now the most obese country in the world, just pipping the US at the post with a 26% obesity rate to their 25%. Despite Australia being a sport loving nation there’s obviously a whole lot of armchair sport loving going on, with beer, soft drink or greasy takeaway in hand!






2. Just over 25% of Australians were born in another country, making it the developed country with the highest proportion of migrant settlers in the world, aside from Luxembourg with a third of their population born elsewhere. Australia’s capital cities are where the highest proportions of new arrivals can be found and to say the country’s culinary landscape has benefited enormously from immigration is an understatement.






3. One of Australia’s former Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke, holds a Guinness World Record… not for some kind of political feat, but beer sculling! Fortunately it was well before his term as prime minister (1983-1991), occurring in 1963 during his university days at Oxford where he skulled 2.5 pints of beer in 11 seconds. To this day Bob Hawke is remembered fondly for his beer skulling antics, which he still wheels out in public now and then at cricket matches. Oh, Australia!






4. The Australian state of Victoria gets a public holiday, i.e. government sanctioned day off work, in honour of a horse race. The Melbourne Cup is known as ‘the race that stops the nation’ and that it does, with workplaces all across the country wheeling out a television and popping champagne to barrack on the horses. There’s usually a sweepstake where everyone pays a dollar or two and draws a horse name out of the hat, with the spoils going to the place-getters.






5. Many visitors to Australia are surprised to discover kangaroo meat is actually eaten. While nowhere near as mainstream as chicken or beef, it nevertheless pops up on some restaurant menus and is sold in many butcher shops. The meat is touted as a much leaner and healthier alternative to beef or lamb, with a 1-2% fat content.






Read more






A taste of the Middle East in Sydney’s Lakemba


Natalie: An Australian filling in the missing links to her own story in Vietnam


How Irish am I? An Australian on her Irish roots

10 Interesting facts about India:

10 Interesting facts about India:



The famous board game, called Chess, was invented in India.


In India's 100,000 years of history, it has never invaded any other country.


India is the 7th largest country in the world, the largest democracy and one of the oldest civilizations.


India was one of the richest countries in the world before the British invasion in 17th century.


The value of "pi" used in mathematics was first calculated by the Indian mathematician Budhayana in 6th century.


India is one of the largest exporter of computer software products. It exports software to over 90 countries.


India is home to the world's largest pilgrimage destination called the Vishnu Temple. The temple is located in the city of Tirupati. About an average of 30,000 people visit this temple donating about $6 million US dollars, everyday.


India originated Yoga about 5,000 years ago.


India has the most number of mosques. It has 300,000 mosques which is much more than the Muslim world.


Christians and Jews have been living in India since 52 A.D. and 200 B.C. respectively. Read more...

More interestinf Facts.

Cliche is something that has been repeatdly used to the point of losing original meaning. The word "cliche" comes from the days of moveable type, where each letter had to be set by hand into a framework before printing. Commonly-used phrases were kept, pre-set in clamps so they could be regularly used without having to reset all the letters individually each time. The clamp that keeps letters together to form these oft-used sentences or phrases is called a cliche. Some of the popular cliche's include:







Good things come to those who wait.






Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love with girl. Boy loses girl. Boy gets girl back. The End.






A penny saved is a penny earned.






There's plenty more fish in the sea.






You can't teach an old dog new tricks.

Johnny Campbell was the first to cheer the football team in 1898 in Princeton. Cheerleading is almost 100 years old when most of the cheerleaders were men. Now 98% of cheerleaders are females. The estimates tell that around the world there are more than 4 million cheerleaders. Cheerleaders are generally in the age group of 5 to 13 years. Most of the cheerleaders are gymnasts and 12% are dancers. In US 80% schools have cheerleading squads. The Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders is the most famous squad. Football is most popular sport for cheerleading. Cheerleading is no doubt a dangerous sport as it involves injuries like broken bones, busted lips and serious injuries. Though cheerleading is to rouse the interest of match watchers, cheerleading in itself is a competitive sport. The competitive cheerleader must be a high level gymnast as she is to perform without any safeguards.