Science fast facts

Music was sent down a telephone line for the first time in 1876, the year the phone was invented.

Sound travels through water 3 times faster than through air.

A square piece of dry paper cannot be folded in half more than 7 times.

Air becomes liquid at about minus 190 degrees Celsius.

Liquid air looks like water with a bluish tint.

A scientific satellite needs only 250 watts of power, the equivalent used by two hour light bulbs, to operate.

The thin line of cloud that forms behind an aircraft at high altitudes is called a contrail.

Radio waves travel so much faster than sound waves that a broadcast voice can be heard sooner 18,000 km away than in the back of the room in which it originated.

A US ton is equivalent to 900 kg (2000 pounds). A British ton is 1008 kg (2240 pounds), called a gross ton.

Industrial hemp contains less than 1% of THC, the psychoactive component of marijuana.

Since space is essentially empty it cannot carry sound. Therefor there is no sound in space, at least not the sort of sound that we are used to.

The Space Shuttle always rolls over after launch to alleviate structural loading, allowing the shuttle to carry more mass into orbit.

The word “biology” was coined in 1805 by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck.

Most of the air is about 78% nitrogen gas. Only 21% consists of oxygen. The remaining 1% consists of carbon dioxide, argon, neon, helium, krypton, hydrogen, xenon and ozone.

Argon is used to fill the space in most light bulbs. Neon is used in fluorescent signs. Fluorescent lights are filled with mercury gas.

Hydrogen gas is the least dense substance in the world.

Water expands by about 9% as it freezes.

The surface of hot water freezes faster than cold water but the rest of the water will remain liquid longer than in a cold sample.

The smallest transistor is 50-nanometres wide – roughly 1/2000 the width of a human hair.

A compass does not point to the geographical North or South Pole, but to the magnetic poles.

The double-helix structure of DNA was discovered in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick. The length of a single human DNA molecule, when extended, is 1.7 metres (5 ft 5 in).

In a desert, a mirage is caused when air near the ground is hotter than air higher up. As light from the sun passes from cooler to warmer air, it speeds up and is refracted upward, creating the image of water.

The typical bolt of lightning heats the atmosphere to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

An electric oven uses one kilowatt-hour of electricity in about 20 minutes, but one kilowatt-hour will power a TV for 3 hours, run a 100-watt bulb for 12 hours, and keep an electric clock ticking for 3 months.

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