Fun Facts From Charlie

Honeybees die when they sting. In fact, honeybees are the only type of bee that dies when it stings, and only one type of honeybee even stings — the worker bees, which are all female. The worker bees sting, not to defend themselves, rather, they do it to defend the hive. When the bee stings, it also releases venom, the scent of which serves as a signal to the hive that there is a threat.

The most common and visible type of honeybees are the workers. Each hive has tens of thousands of worker bees, followed by several hundred drones (all male) that attend the hive’s single queen. The purpose of the workers is to go out and collect pollen for the hive (which is turned into honey) and also to protect the hive.

Back to why the bee dies. The bee’s stinger is barbed, like a fishhook, and when the stinger enters the victim, the bee cannot pull it back out. This way, the venom-pumping stinger attaches itself to the threat and allows the hive to locate it as it moves around. The downside is that when the bee pulls away, its innards remain attached to the stinger. Effectively, its entire lower abdomen is ripped out in an act of self-amputation: digestive organs, muscles, glands, and the likes all are attached to the stinger, and the bee dies an horrific and violent death. The hive, however, is protected, and you run far, far away from the hive  due to the pain inflicted by the stinger and the venom.

Here is a link to a paper by Rachel C. Vreeman and Aaron E. Carroll that gives the science behind seven common medical myths. You can read the paper, but I have listed the myths here. Just to be clear, none of these are actually true, though many people believe them.

The seven myths are:

1. People should drink at least eight glasses of water a day;
2. We only use ten percent of our brains;
3. Hair and fingernails continue to grow after death;
4. Shaving hair causes it to grow back faster, darker, or coarser;
5. Reading in dim light ruins your eyesight;
6. Eating turkey makes people drowsy;
7. Mobile phones create considerable electromagnetic interference in hospitals.

One fun fact pulled out of the paper is related to how much water we need to drink. The amount is considerably less than eight glasses, but the most important part is that the water we need is mostly contained in the food we eat. What this really means is that all the Nalgene, CamelBak, and various other hydration bottles all around the office are largely unnecessary — especially because we sit all day in a climate-controlled environment.

"Eppur si muove."
— Galileo Galilei

Even though the famous utterance is likely apocryphal, we have, nonetheless, known for hundreds of years that the Earth revolves around the Sun. And while Earth’s orbit does completely encompass the  Sun, technically, the point around which the Earth revolves is not the Sun. Rather, it is the center of mass of the Solar System — called the barycenter.

Barycenter of the Solar System

All the objects in the Solar System have mass and, therefore, generate a gravitational effect on all the other objects in the Solar System. This means giant Jupiter and tiny Mercury (and even non-planet Pluto) all pull on the Sun, and each other. The combined effects of all the gravitational effects means that the center of mass of the Solar System is not the center of the Sun.

The barycenter is sometimes close to the center of the Sun, and, oftentimes, it is within the Sun. Depending on the position of the planets, however, it is frequently not actually located within the Sun. At these times, the Earth, in a manner of speaking, does not revolve around the Sun.

You can store vodka in the freezer but you cannot do the same with beer, as it will explode. Why is that? The answer lies in the relative alcohol content of liquor versus beer. Vodka is about 40 percent alcohol (80 proof) and beer is four to eight percent alcohol (and 90+ percent water). Alcohol (ethanol) has a melting / freezing point of -173°F, while water has a freezing point of 32°F.

Most home freezers are kept between -5°F and 0°F, which will freeze the water in beer, but is not cold enough to freeze the water in vodka, which has much more alcohol dissolved in it. To make it worse. water expands when it is a solid, compared to when it is a liquid – resulting in the exploding beer in your freezer.

Bonus fact: The boiling point of ethanol is 173°F is lower than water (212°F) but is still high enough that your liquor will not boil away except when cooking it. Sometimes, however, having a freezing point well below water and a boiling point well above water can be useful. For example, automotive radiator fluid has a boiling point around 300°F and a freezing point well below 0°F. This allows a driver to use the same fluid in both the winter and the summer.

Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him …

Both soliloquy  and monologue mean “single speech.” The first is from Greek and the latter from Latin. However, there is a functional difference between the two forms of speech: A soliloquy is delivered when the speaker is alone on stage, while a monologue is delivered by one speaker in the presence of others. In other words, a soliloquy communicates only to the audience, while a monologue communicates to other characters within the story itself.

Why can I hear you through a wall but cannot see you through a wall? Why does my radio work indoors, even though the view of the transmitter is blocked? Simply, both light and sound are waves; why does light get blocked by a wall, but sound does not?

The answer has to do with the wavelength of the wave relative to the medium through which the wave is traveling. An analogy is that a person running through a rainstorm will get from point A to point B. However, a small insect will get knocked down by the rain.

In this analogy, the rain is the wall, the person is the sound wave and the insect is the light wave. Sound and radio waves have very long wavelengths compared to the size of the atoms that make up the wall. On the other hand, light has a wavelength that is about the same size as the atoms that make up the wall, and are, therefore, blocked by the wall.

This explanation also works for why high-frequency (5 GHz) WiFi waves are blocked by walls to a greater degree than lower-frequency (2.4 GHz) WiFi waves. In addition, this explanation completely ignores the chemical structure of the medium. For example, not all walls block light — a glass wall will allow light to pass. Similarly, radio waves cannot pass easily through a lead barrier. These differences are caused by the electron structure of the medium interacting differently with different types of waves.

Have you ever wondered what is on the back (technically, the reverse) of a US dollar bill? The a salient feature of the reverse side of the bill is the Great Seal of the United States, which pictures an eagle on the obverse and an unfinished pyramid on the reverse.

Reverse of the US One Dollar Bill

The obverse of the Great Seal is the Coat of Arms of the United and features an eagle with thirteen arrows in its left talon and an olive branch in its right talon. It clutches a banner reading, E Pluribus Unum, meaning, “From One, Many”.

The reverse of the Great Seal is an unfinished, thirteen-layer pyramid, symbolizing the unfinished nature of our nation, with the eye of Providence watching over the United States. The base of the pyramid reads, MDCCLXXVI, or 1776. Two mottos also appear on the reverse of the Great Seal. First, the words Annuit coeptis, which means, “[He has] approved of our undertakings,” and, second, Novus ordo seclorum, meaning, “a new order for the ages.”

If you go to the Sears Willis Tower, can you see Michigan? We can use geometry to answer the question.

We can use the Pythagorean Theorem to find the length of the side of a right triangle: . In this case the right triangle has sides of d and r and a hypotenuse of . Therefore, the Pythagorean formula is , where r is the radius of the Earth, s is the height of the Sears Tower, and d is the distance one is able to see.

Using FOIL to expand gives:

Since is on both sides, we can eliminate it.

.

The radius of the Earth is r=3,963 miles and the height of the Sears Tower in miles is s=0.275379 miles. Consequently, d=46.72 miles. The distance across Lake Michigan is just over 50 miles, so NO, we cannot see all the way to Michigan.

Note: This example assumes that one can only see in a straight line-of-sight. A mirror would allow you to see much farther. In fact, the sky, clouds, and sunlight can form a mirror, a meteorological phenomenon called refraction, and it is sometimes possible to see across Lake Michigan.

Externalities are a type of market failure that are loosely defined as an action for which the full cost or benefit of that action is not reflected in the market price. The implication of which is that since the person doing the bad thing is not paying the full cost to society of their bad actions, there is too much of this bad action.

African elephants in front of Mount Kilimanjaro.

Conversely, since a person only receives the private benefits of their good actions, rather than the full societal value, there is an under-provision of good acts, and society misses out on the optimal level of a socially good action. In order to arrive at the socially optimal level, one needs to figure out a scheme to internalize the external costs or benefits. Most solutions to externalities center around regulation, taxation, or other forms of government intervention. A very smart man, however, by the name of Ronald Coase came up with a scheme that, with two small assumptions, changed how everyone thought about externalities and the case for government intervention. Oh, and it also won him the Nobel Prize. Continue reading →