Amazing Facts about Solar Energy

Here are some of the most interesting facts about Solar Energy.  You can read some interesting facts about solar energy and sun related information.

• Solar Energy is very good for environment than the traditional forms of energy
• There are many uses of solar energy like producing electricity and heating water
• Solar energy can be used for heating swimming pools, powering cars and also for calculators.  
• It is possible to cook food with solar energy
• Solar energy is measured in Kilowatt-hours.   
• 1 Kilo watt hour = the amount of energy required to burn a 100 watt light bulb for 10 hours
• According to the US Department of Energy, an average American household used approximately 866-kilowatt hours per month in 1999 costing them $70.68.
• About 30% of the total energy consumption by us is used for heating water 
• A solar system for homes typically contains solar panels on roof top, a charge controller unit, an inverter, wiring and support structure
• It takes about 2 days to install a 1 Kilowatt home solar system and costs around Rs.5,00,000 ( US $10,000) and it can vary greatly
• A 1 KW home solar system contains about 10 solar panels of 100 Watts each  and may need a space of 100 square feet for installation  
• A 1 KW home solar power system generates nearly 1,600 Kilowatt hours per year in a sunny climate ( receiving 5 hours of sun shine per day) and nearly 750 Kilowatt hours in a cloudy climate ( 2.5 hours of sun shine per day) 
• You can prevent nearly 77 Kgs. of coal from burning, 135 Kg of CO2 being released into atmosphere and 105 gallons of water from consumed each month by using a 1 KW home solar system
• Around 40 solar cells are usually combined into a single solar panel and 10 to 12 panels are mounted in an array facing due north for receiving maximum sun shine.
• Solar panels come in various colors
• Solar energy can be collected and stored in batteries, which can provide electricity 24x7 even on cloudy days and at night
• The amount of sun light that falls on earth in one hour is more than what is being used by entire world population in one year.
• In the year 1990, a solar powered air craft flew 4060 Kms. across USA using no fuel.  This was the world record.
• About 2 billion people in the world are without electricity at present.
• The third world countries with abundant quantity of sun light and most population are currently without electricity represent the fastest growing market for solar energy. 

  
        Read more articles about solar energy and solar panels.

Most interesting and unusual facts

Here are the most interesting and unusual facts.

• There are only two words in English language which contain all the vowels in the correct order.  These words are Facetious and Abstemious.
• The word  "Almost" is the longest commonly used word in English with all the letters in alphabetical order.
• Do you know that "Canada" is an Indian word which means ' Big Village'?
• "Forty" is the only number which has its letters in alphabetical order.   
• "One" is the only number with its letters in reverse alphabetical order
• Do you know what is the first song performed in outer space?  It is "Happy Birthday" sung by the Apollo IX astronauts on 8th March, 1969.
• Do you know that the word "one thousand" contains the letter A.  but none of the words from one to nine hundred and ninety nine contains letter A.
• One person in every three people in Israel use mobile phone.
• Do you know that 10% of human dry weight comes from bacteria?
• Do you know that 166,875,000,000 pieces of mail are delivered each year in USA?
• Do you know that 27% of Americans believe that we never landed on the moon
• A 17 year old girl from Miami, Florida started to sneeze on 4th January, 1966 and continued till 8th June, 1966.
• Do you know that the bat is the only mammal that can fly?
• The blue whale's heart beats only 9 times per minute
• A butterfly can look at you through 12,000 eyes
• The cucumber is 96% water
• The lifespan of a dragonfly is 24 hours
• The memory span of a fish is only 3 seconds
• The full moon is 9 times brighter than a half moon
• Do you know that a hippo can open its mouth wide enough to fit a 4 foot tall child inside?
• A jelly fish is 95% water
• The lion's roar can be heard five miles away
• A shark can detect one part of blood in 100 million parts of water
• Do you know that a snail can have about 25,000 teeth?
• A snail can sleep for 3 years
• The snail can travel over a razor blade without cutting itself 
• 10% of total world population is left handed
• Nearly 10,000,000 people have same birthday as you
• The closest star to earth is 25,000,000,000,000 miles away after the sun which is the first closest star to us

Interesting facts about Snow

Do you know that one septillion ( 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) of snow crystals drop from the sky during each winter?  It takes one million little droplets to make one snowflake..  Here are some interesting facts about Snow.

• Do you know that snow forms when water vapor in the atmosphere freezes into ice crystals?
• Snow is a form of precipitation,  the other forms of precipitation are rain, hail and sleet.
• Snow storms are nothing but heavy snow falls.
• Normally the snow flakes are less than one-half inch across.  But the biggest snow flake ever recorded in the world is a giant snow flake which was found at Fort Keogh, Montana on January, 28, 1887.   It was 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick.
•  Do you know that a single snowstorm can drop more than 39 million tons of snow whose energy is equivalent to 120 atomic bombs?  
• The greatest amount of snow fall within 24 hours in US occurred in Silver Lake - Colorado in 1921.  76 inches of snow has fallen within 24 hours. 
• The largest piece of ice to fall on earth was an ice block of 6 meters across that fell in Scotland on 13th August, 1849. 
• Permanent snow and ice cover about 12% of earth land surface. 
• 80% of the world's fresh water is locked up as ice or snow.

Amazing leviating stone of Shivapur

This is something which is unbelievable!   A stone weighing  70 Kg.  which can float in air.   We know it is extremely difficult to lift a stone of 70 Kg weight even with our both hands.   But it can be easily thrown into air with just forefingers of a few people!!!!!!

Can you believe it or not?   Yes it is true

Shivapur is a small village in Maharashtra state in India near Pune city.  This place is famous for its leviating stone.   The actual story behind this leviating stone is like this.  Qumar ali who is famous for his miraculous power on his death bed requested others to keep a circular stone near his tomb.  He said, " If  11 men place their right index fingers under the stone and call my name together, the stone will be lifted higher than their heads".     Otherwise neither a single person or more than 11 people can not lift the stone even 2 feet.

 Qamar Ali was born in a middle class Muslim  family.  When he was six years old,  he became a disciple of a Sufi Pir ( Great Teacher) who spent his time meditating and fasting.   Qamar Ali died in his late teens and on the death bed, he requested other people to place a circular stone on his tomb ( weighing 70 Kg).  According to the legend, Qamar ali said "If 11 people placed their index fingers below the stone and call my name together, I will cause to rise the stone in the air above their heads".  

Even though Qamar Ali was a Muslim,  the 11 people need not be Muslims.  They can be from any religion.  But females cannot lift the stone.  Only males are allowed to lift the stone.   Any one can try to attempt to lift the stone,  but it never gets lifted unless 11 people put their index fingers and utter Qamar Ali's name.

As soon as 11 men placed their index fingers of their right hands below the stone, count upto three and then utter "Qamar Ali Darvesh!",  the stone would float in the air like a living thing.   The stone would fall on the ground several seconds later with a thud sound.

 The participants in this activity are selected randomly.   This is being done frequently in Shivapura for many decades.   Researchers are unable to explain the mystery behind the leviating stone of Shivapura.  If the number of men is more than 11, then it is impossible to lift the stone into air.

Amazing leviating stone of Shivapur

This is something which is unbelievable!   A stone weighing  70 Kg.  which can float in air.   We know it is extremely difficult to lift a stone of 70 Kg weight even with our both hands.   But it can be easily thrown into air with just forefingers of a few people!!!!!!

Can you believe it or not?   Yes it is true

Shivapur is a small village in Maharashtra state in India near Pune city.  This place is famous for its leviating stone.   The actual story behind this leviating stone is like this.  Qumar ali who is famous for his miraculous power on his death bed requested others to keep a circular stone near his tomb.  He said, " If  11 men place their right index fingers under the stone and call my name together, the stone will be lifted higher than their heads".     Otherwise neither a single person or more than 11 people can not lift the stone even 2 feet.

Interesting Optical Illusions

I hope everyone knows what is an illusion.  An illusion is a kind of distortion of the senses, which reveals how the brain normally organizes and interprets sensory stimulation.   An optical illusion is always characterized by visually perceived images that are deceptive or misleading.  Here are some optical illusions which you may like.  See them and enjoy..

Spinning Dancer Illusion

This is another interesting illusion where you can see the dancer move both clock wise and anti clockwise.  This illusion is erroneously used as brain test to determine whether right or left hemisphere is dominant. 

If you either close the left or right image, and observe the other two images, you can see both of them rotating in same direction.

Otherwise let the rotating lady on right or left guide you.  If you look at the rotating lady on left, you will see all the three pictures are rotating left.  If you look at the rotating lady on right, you will observe that all the three ladies are rotating right.

 

Pacman Illusion  ( Rotating Dots optical illusion)

This is one of the fantastic illusions which is called as Pac Man Illusion.  In the Pac Man Optical Illusion, if you follow the rotating pink dot with your eyes, the dots will remain in only one color, pink.      But if you stare at the black  '+'  sign in the center, the moving dot will appear to be green in color.  

 

Please concentrate on the black '+' sign in the center, and you will see that the moving dot will appear to be green in color.   Keep on staring on the sign and after a short period, all the pink dots will slowly disappear and you will see only one green dot moving in the circle.

 

Same color Illusion

 This illusion is also known as Adelson's checker shadow illusion which shows something difficult to believe.  The square marked  B looks lighter than square marked A.  This is due to the shadow being cast on it.  But actually the color on both squares A and B  is exactly the same shade of grey.  If you cannot believe it, you can cut / print the squares to verify that both are exactly the same shade.  Look at the picture below.

If you can not believe that squares A  and  B are of same shade,  please see the video below which proves it.

50 Amazing Facts about Food

Here are some of the funniest and amazing facts about food.  Read them and enjoy.

1. 100 pounds of rain water is required to produce a single pound of food from earth.  
2. 11.9 pounds of cereal are consumed by average American / Canadian per year
3. Do you know that we get only one pound of coffee from one coffee tree?
4. The fear vegetables is called as Lachanophobia
5. Do you know that the French fries came from Belgium, but they are most popular in USA
6. The number one selling snack in USA is the Potato chips
7. Do you know that Russian children are given a birthday pie instead of birth day cake?
8. There are 500 different types of bananas.  So if you start eating one type of banana each day, it would take one and half year to eat every kind of banana
9. Banana is normally treated as a tree,  but it is not a tree but a herb. That means it does not have a woody trunk like a tree.  The stalk contains leaf sheaths that overlap each other and grow from underground stem called rhizome.
10. The banana plant can grow as high as 20 feet tall.
11. The Americans eat approximately 100 acres of pizza every day which means 350 slices per second.  Nearly 3 billion pizzas are sold in USA each year.
12. Tomatoes were originally treated to be poisonous.
13. During your life time,  you will eat around 60,000 pounds of food.  This is equal to weight of 6 elephants.
14. Strawberries have more Vitamin C than Oranges.
15. Coca Cola was the first soft drink to be consumed in outer space
16. Do you know that grapes explode when you put them in microwave?
17. The average chocolate bar has 8 insects' legs in it.
18. An average French citizen eats 500 snails per year
19. Watermelons can cost upto $100 in Japan!
20. An egg will float in water in which sugar is added 
21. The amount of wine that was destroyed in the 1906 San Franscisco earthquake was 15 million gallons.
22. There are more than 10,000 varieties of tomatoes.
23.  Carrot was purple in color in earlier days, it was not orange color
24. Do you know that smokers eat more sugar than non smokers?
25. Food gets into your stomach even if you are standing on your head.
26. Do you know that a pound of potato chips cost around 200 times more than a pound of potatoes?
27. One interesting fact about coconuts - Coconuts kill more people in this world than sharks do;  Nearly 150 people are killed by coconuts each year.
28. In ancient China,  people used to commit suicide by eating a pound of salt.
29. Do you know that dry swallowing one teaspoon of sugar will cure hic-ups?
30. A recent study at Harward shows that eating chocolate will help you to live longer
31. Do you know that Carrots have zero fat content?
32. All the coffee in this world is grown within 1000 miles of the equator.
33. Do you know that chocolates can kill dogs?  It directly affects their heart and nervous system
34. Goat's milk is widely used in the world than cow's milk
35. Butter milk does not contain any butter
36. Rice is the main food for half of the world population
37. Each pine apple plant produces only one pine apple per year!
38. Apples are a part of rose family
39. Pearls melt in vinegar
40. The onions have no flavour but only smell
41. The largest food item on a menu is a roast camel
42. A cluster of bananas is called a 'Hand'.  And a single banana is called as 'Finger'
43. When Cranberries are ripe, they bounce like a rubber ball
44. Americans consume 16 billion jelly beans at Easter.  if all these jelly beans were lined end to end, they would circle the globe three times
45. Apples are 25% air
46. The apples are  more efficient than caffeine in keeping people awake in mornings
47. Do you know that food can be tasted only if it is mixed with saliva?
48.  Peanuts are one of the ingredients of dynamite.
49. The biggest mushroom is in Oregon which is more than 2400 years old, and covers 3.4 square miles of area and it is still growing!!
50.  The Japanese liquor, Mam, uses venomous snakes as one of its main ingredients