Facts that make you go Hmmm

[El Presidente]

Facts that make you go Hmmm 

 

This one blew me away and I had to double check. However it appears correct. 

If you took all the gold that has been mined in the world, it would fit into 4 1/2 Olympic Swimming Pools. 

[Dlowil]

Wild fact indeed. Explains why a wedding ring costs as much as a lightly used bass boat. 

[sbsbsb1]

This really does blow me away. All the gold that has existed throughout time, and is currently on the fingers, wrists, necks, structures, jewelry stores, museums, national stockpiles/reserves, jewelry boxes, vaults, etc...ALL OF THAT is less than 5 swimming pools? It does seem impossible. Wow!

[chasy]

I’m skeptical. 

[El Presidente]

1 hour ago, chasy said:

I’m skeptical. 

Research away 

[zacca]

Ok I have 5 that I think are good ones:

Some wacky facts dealing with the moon:

1) The bishop of the diocese of Orlando is also the bishop of the moon. Canon law states that the bishop of a port that launches a voyage of discovery is the de facto bishop of newly discovered territories until those lands receive their own bishop. So the religious leader of Disney World is also responsible for the moon.

2) The moon is 1/400th the size of the sun but also 1/400th the distance from earth which results in the moon and the sun being the same size in the sky, a coincidence not shared by any other known planet-moon combination.

3) Picasso was born the year of Wyatt Earp's shootout at the OK Corral and died the year Pink Floyd released Dark Side of the Moon. (OK, it doesn’t really have to do with the moon, but still pretty cool.)

And speaking of historical timelines, these final two can be mind blowing: 

4) Prior to the Cubs winning the World Series in 2016, the last time they won the Ottoman Empire was still around, and would be for another 10 years.

5) Cleopatra lived closer to the creation of Pizza Hut than the creation of the Great Pyramids.

[poorman]

This has always blown my mind on how ginormous the Pacific Ocean is. 
 

It’s so big it could fit the entire planet of Mars. 
 

From Grok:

The Pacific Ocean has a surface area of approximately 165 million km² (about 63.8 million square miles).

Mars has a total surface area of roughly 144–145 million km².

This means the Pacific Ocean’s surface is larger than the entire surface of Mars (by an area roughly the size of a small country or more, depending on exact figures used). If you could somehow flatten Mars and place it on the Pacific, it would be completely covered with room to spare.

Other Comparisons

•  Width: The Pacific is wider (up to ~19,800 km / 12,300 miles at its broadest) than Mars’ diameter (~6,792 km).

•  Volume: Mars is a solid rocky planet with far greater volume than the water in the Pacific (Earth’s total ocean volume is ~1.3–1.335 billion km³). So Mars wouldn’t literally “fit inside” the water like a submerged object.

[Chibearsv]

Is Reno, NV west of Los Angeles, CA?

[Li Bai]

Gengis Khan's campaigns killed 40 million people, roughly 10% of the World's population at the time.

Today, 1 in 200 men would be descended from him according to a 2003 genetic study.

[poorman]

8 hours ago, Li Bai said:

Today, 1 in 200 men would be descended from him according to a 2003 genetic study.

Check out Charlemagne. The statistics will astound you. Makes Khan look like an amateur. 

[tbelle7]

Alaska is simultaneously the northernmost, westernmost, and easternmost state in the United States.

[Li Bai]

7 hours ago, poorman said:

Check out Charlemagne. The statistics will astound you. Makes Khan look like an amateur. 

This is wild... One of those things to help us remember we're all brothers🤯

[joeypots]

The closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri. It's about 4.25 light years away. If we had a spaceship that traveled at a million miles an hour it would take something like 2,850 years to travel to it. That's 2850 back as well. For perspective,

The Voyager 1 probe would take roughly 70,000+ years to reach Proxima Centauri if aimed that way.
The Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across.
The nearest large galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy, is about 2.5 million light-years away.
The observable universe is roughly 93 billion light-years across.

The size of the universe never ceases to astound me.

[westg]

On 5/11/2026 at 12:06 PM, El Presidente said:

Facts that make you go Hmmm 

 

This one blew me away and I had to double check. However it appears correct. 

If you took all the gold that has been mined in the world, it would fit into 4 1/2 Olympic Swimming Pools. 

Initially did you think it would be more or less? I would have thought more. 

[Johnny Extra]

All the platinum in the world would fit into an average sized living room, or only up to the ankles of one Olympic pool. (A jeweler once told me this.)

[Johnny Extra]

7 hours ago, joeypots said:

The closest star to our sun is Proxima Centauri. It's about 4.25 light years away. If we had a spaceship that traveled at a million miles an hour it would take something like 2,850 years to travel to it. That's 2850 back as well. For perspective,

The Voyager 1 probe would take roughly 70,000+ years to reach Proxima Centauri if aimed that way.
The Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years across.
The nearest large galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy, is about 2.5 million light-years away.
The observable universe is roughly 93 billion light-years across.

The size of the universe never ceases to astound me.

Me too. My favorite is; there are far more stars than grains of sand on the earth.

[El Presidente]

8 hours ago, westg said:

Initially did you think it would be more or less? I would have thought more. 

Far more, given all the gold mining today let alone through time. 

[Ford2112]

Diamonds aren't rare. De Beers is a scam. Probably common knowledge.

[RedLantern]

Space facts have the odd effect of making me kind of dizzy or nauseous. 

[ha_banos]

The chances of success, according to Heritage, do not reach 100 percent until the initial crew has 98 settlers, or 49 breeding pairs. “We can then conclude that, under the parameters used for those simulations, a minimum crew of 98 settlers is needed for a 6,300-year multi-generational space journey towards Proxima Centauri b,” say Marin and Beluffi. 😬

And I wonder how many would be needed if they account for LGBTIQCAPGNGFNBA+?!

[ha_banos]

And if all the gold in the world were evenly distributed everyone would have almost 1 ounce.

 

[chasy]

21 hours ago, Ford2112 said:

Diamonds aren't rare. De Beers is a scam. Probably common knowledge.

I wish  that I was more aware of this back in 2020...

[SirVantes]

21 hours ago, Johnny Extra said:

Me too. My favorite is; there are far more stars than grains of sand on the earth.

There are more cells in one human body than there are stars in the Milky Way. There are more living cells on Earth than there are stars in the observable universe.

[BrightonCorgi]

My dad was a renowned Geologist. 

He mentioned there is a gold reserve in the ocean, that is not so deep, but if anyone of any country tried to mine it, they would be blown out of the water. There's so much gold that world markets would shatter. 

[chasy]

I grew up in South Florida. During the 90s and 2000s. There was a treasure hunter named Mel Fisher who spent his career diving off the coast of Florida in search of the sunken Spanish ships. He eventually uncovered the Atocha and Santa Maria. He recovered 40 tons of gold and silver...