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Truth is stranger than fiction, they say. This recent Ask Reddit thread is a great example of that.

“What is a true fact so baffling, it should be false?” someone posed a question, sparking a viral thread full of random and hard-to-believe facts.

Did you know that cheetahs don’t roar? And what about the fact that we live many times closer to the last dinosaur than the first and last dinosaur did to each other?

Below we wrapped up some of the most unbelievable and mind-bending facts, so pull your seat closer.

This post may include affiliate links.

#1

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones [Switzerland has accidentally invaded Liechtenstein thrice in the last 50 years](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein%E2%80%93Switzerland_relations).

* On the first time in 1976, Swiss military got lost and ended up in Liechtenstein, so the Liechtensteiners offered them drinks like proper hosts.
* On the second time in 1992, Swiss military forgot that a certain observation post was actually not in Swiss territory but in Liechtenstein territory, so they just said sorry and forgot about it.
* Then again in 2007, the Swiss army got lost and entered Liechtenstein, but eventually realized they weren't in Switzerland anymore, Toto, so they turned back. Liechtenstein didn't even know this happened till the Swiss apologized (again), to which they basically said, no problem, bro.

Takeaways: The Swiss army are bad with directions. The Liechtenstein ~~army~~ people are chill bros.

sendhelpandthensome , St9191 Report

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LK
LK
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The last time Liechtenstein saw military action was in 1866, during the Austro-Prussian War, when they sent 80 troops to guard the Tyrolean border. They returned home with 81 men, having suffered no casualties and gained a new recruit en route.

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#2

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Cheetahs cant roar, but they can meow like house cats.

karatekid606 , Piet Bakker Report

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#3

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Even if 99% of Earth's population thought you were unattractive, 76 million people would still find you attractive

forsoythemilk , cottonbro studio Report

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Loverboy
Loverboy
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Kind of you to assume 1% of people would find me attractive.

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#4

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones One day Mao Zedong saw a sparrow eating grain. Thinking that the sparrows were hurting China's grain supply, he and the Communist Party launched the *Four Pests Campaign*. The Chinese military and population [took out] every sparrow they could find. Embassies didn't allow the Chinese to [take out] sparrows on their property, so the Chinese banged pots and pans outside the embassies 24/7 until the sparrows died of exhaustion. Unfortunately for the Chinese, sparrows mainly eat insects, not grain. The locust population exploded and [***43 million people starved to death.***](https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-four-pests-campaign-objectives-execution-failure-and-consequences.html)

WooIWorthWaIIaby , Susanne Jutzeler, suju-foto Report

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TotallyNOTaFox
TotallyNOTaFox
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

There were 2 countries that declared a war on birds - and both lost it.

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#5

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones The life of Frane Selak, the luckiest unlucky man in the world:

• January 1962- Frane is riding on a train through a freezing canyon when it fell into an icy river. All 17 other passengers died while he escapes with a broken arm and hypothermia.

• 1963- On his first plane trip he was sucked out of the plane’s door and landed in a haystack, unscathed. 19 other people were killed in the crash.

• 1966- He was riding in a bus when it skidded off the road into yet another icy river. 4 passengers drowned while he only received some minor cuts and bruises.

•1970- His car’s engine burst into flames while he was driving but he managed to escape before it exploded.

•1973- In yet another driving incident, his car’s engine was doused with hot oil from a broken fuel pump. This caused flames to shoot through the air vents, singing off all of his hair. He was otherwise unharmed.

•1995- He was hit by a bus but only sustained minor injuries.

•1996- To escape a head-on collision with a United-Nations truck on a mountain curve, he swerved into a guard rail that broke on impact. to save himself, he jumped out of his car’s open door and grabbed onto a tree branch as he watched his car plummet off the cliff.

Suffice to say the guy had a complicated relationship with the Grim Reaper.

Edit: Got his name wrong

Edit 2: Got the first edit wrong, turns out i was right the first time

GenericDefense , Fact Maniac Report

Final score:
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Gaya Knust
Gaya Knust
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's simple: he's secretly a cat and has used up 7 of his 9 lives so far

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#6

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones People were deliberately infected with malaria to cure their syphilis, and the man who developed this treatment - Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the nobel prize for it.

(The extremely high fevers of the malaria infections [unalived] the syphilis bacteria, then the patients were cured of the malaria using quinine.)

zazzlekdazzle , en.wikipedia.org Report

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Enrique
Enrique
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I sincerely think that censoring the word "killed" is going too far. At least the substitution word is imaginative.

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#7

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones It's pretty well known by now, but calculators today have more computing power than Apollo 11. We got to the moon with slide rulers and huge balls.

SayNoToStim , Mikhail Nilov Report

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#8

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Oxford University Predates the Aztec empire by over 200 years.

And, for fun one of my favorites:

Woolly Mammoths were still around at the time the Great Pyramids in Giza were built.

oldenbka , Samuel M Report

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Loverboy
Loverboy
Community Member
1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Cleopatra lived closer to the moon landing and creation of the iPhone than the construction of the Pyramids of Giza.

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#9

I just read a post on /r/technicallythetruth.

We’ve all kicked a pregnant woman before.

LurkersGoneLurk Report

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#10

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones If every single person on the entire planet took part in a rock paper scissors contest. Where everyone paired up and played, losers were knocked out and winners stayed on etc

You would only have to win 33 times in a row to beat all 7.53 billion people on the planet

Afasso , Thirdman Report

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Enrique
Enrique
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Each play reduces the number of players in half, so it's easy to understand why it wouldn't last much. 1) 7.530.000.000 2) 3.765.000.000 3) 1.882.500.000 4) 941.250.000 5) 470.625.000 6) 235.312.500 7) 117.656.250 8) 58.828.125 9) 29.414.062 10) 14.707.031 11) 7.353.515 And so on :)

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#11

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones From 1613 and 1620 a Samurai travelled to Rome by way of Mexico. During this time, Shakespeare was still alive, Virginia had been founded for around a decade, Gallileo was accused of heresy, and Pocahantes arrived in England. He met the Pope he was made a Roman citizen. His name was Hasekura Tsunenaga, and was the last japanese person to officially visit Europe until around 1860.

thecinnaman123 , Claude Déruet Claude Deruet Report

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Loverboy
Loverboy
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

For a brief period of time, Snoop Dogg existed at the same time as Picasso

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#12

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones We live many times closer to the last dinosaur than the first and last dinosaur did to each other.

Laikathespaceface , Marcus Lange Report

Final score:
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Pansexual Child of Hades
Pansexual Child of Hades
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

last dinosaur? hey, BP, summon feathered dinosaur. we need to figure out if this is true or not. I thought dinosaurs evolved, grew feathers, etc etc. FEATHERED DINOSAUR, I SUMMON THEE FOR A PEACEFUL MEETING/ DISCUSSION.

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#13

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Giant squids have a donut shaped brain so their esophagus can run through the middle. If they try to swallow too large a bite of food they can get brain damage.

VerminSupreme__ , Jonathan Diemel Report

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Shyla Bouche
Shyla Bouche
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When Zara comes back from her exams, we HAVE to tease her about this!

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#14

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones In the last 3,000 years, there were only 268 years in which there was no war in the world

Kanuchoo , Santiago Sauceda González Report

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Two_rolling_black_eyes
Two_rolling_black_eyes
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That's wars we have modern records for. That number should be way lower. For instance, the records of Ptolemjc Egypt's wars were lost when columns were destroyed to scrub someone from history and when the library of Alexandria burned. They could have been fighting 200 Taureg precursors in the Sahara for six months and there's no records.

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#15

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones if sound could travel through space, the roar of the sun would be deafening even though it's 93M miles away.

EDIT: because space is a vacuum. sound can't travel though a vacuum.

EDIT AGAIN: obviously lots of other things in the universe would change, and yes, presumably other stars and planets would make noise too. we'd probably all die screaming as the earth itself imploded from the pressure of traveling so fast though a universe that WASN'T a vacuum.

LAST EDIT: YES, JESUS CHRIST RICK AND MORTY, AS HUNDREDS OF YOU HAVE POINTED OUT.

cubs_070816 , Jonathan Gross Report

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Sassawrasse
Sassawrasse
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The last edit perfectly describes Rick and Morty fans.

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#16

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones The record for most children born to one mother is 69, to the wife of Feodor Vassilyev (b. 1707–c.1782), a peasant from Shuya, Russia. In 27 labors, she gave birth to 16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets and four sets of quadruplets.

Edit: wife name is Valentina Vassilyeva.

manoa99 , twitter.com Report

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Pedantic Panda
Pedantic Panda
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Had to edit to include the name of the woman who the fact was actually about!? Patriarchy is strong with this one.

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#17

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones The longest time between two twins being born is 87 days.

Psycondriact , Kübra Kuzu Report

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LK
LK
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

It's 90 days, according to Guinness World Records. Molly and Benjamin West were born in 1996. Molly was born prematurely at 6 months, but the doctors were able to halt the delivery of Benjamin. He was delivered fully term, 3 months later.

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#18

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones A morbidly obese person can survive with absolute starvation without any sickness or feeling ill (under close control). There have been studies since 60's, there is a patient in 1973 who went under a 382 day starvation diet for therapuetic purposes under close control with only vitamin and mineral supplements and water intake without protein, carbohydrate or fat intake (no food at all). Dropped from 207 kg to 88kg and maintained it. After a follow up check-up 5 years later, the patient was 96 kilograms, stabilized. Prolonged fasting had no ill effects. If anybody is curious about the article, the pubmed ID is: PMC2495396.

Edit: fixed autocorrect

Dartosismyname , Towfiqu barbhuiya Report

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Ines Olabarria-Smith
Ines Olabarria-Smith
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Under close control. I guess that’s the key. Don’t try this at home.

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#19

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones An eyewitness to Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater told his story on national television.

EDIT: Based on suggestions below, I’m proposing a new version of this factoid which makes it sound even crazier (but still factually true)...

An eyewitness to Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theater appeared as a contestant on a nationally televised game show with Lucille Ball

bufadad , Moses Parker Rice Report

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Gaya Knust
Gaya Knust
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Not only that, but you can watch the episode on YouTube. It's called What's My Line. (I love 1950s and 60s television). The witness was of course a very young boy when he saw the assassination.

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#20

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones A 500 lb. cigarette-smoking, beer-drinking brown bear named Wojtek was enlisted and served in the Polish army during WWII. "Private Wojtek" helped the Polish win the brutal Battle of Monte Cassino, and was even promoted to corporal. Following the war, he retired in Scotland.

CaptainWisconsin , en.wikipedia.org Report

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TotallyNOTaFox
TotallyNOTaFox
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He carried ammunition and got an official rank because pets weren't allowed on british ships

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#21

If you took every civilian-owned firearm in the US and laid them side-by-side, you would have a giant belt of guns long enough to go completely around the moon.

After going completely around the moon, you would still have enough guns left over to equip every soldier in the world with two guns.

generica_ccount Report

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Shyla Bouche
Shyla Bouche
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why would we want to encircle the moon with guns? I say encircle the moon with mousie toys and sofas to bat them under.

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#22

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Stalin, Hitler, and Freud all lived in Vienna at the same time.

Edit: And as others have pointed out (including a source further down), Tito and Trotsky were also there.

Tsquare43 , Philipp Deus Report

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#23

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Only four people have been to the Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean. One of those people is James Cameron, the director of Titanic.

agnomengnome , MARK THIESSEN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Report

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#24

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Giraffes eat bones.

anon , Francesco Ungaro Report

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#25

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones When Mt Everest was first measured it was exactly 29,000 feet. It was reported as 29,002 because exactly 29,000 was not believable.

1pointtwentyone , shankar s. Report

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Loverboy
Loverboy
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hm, adding onto the number in order to make it seem better, reminds me of something...

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#26

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones The phrase "plastic surgery" has nothing to do with the material. Plastic surgery as a field predates the development of plastics by 70 years. The two terms simply share a Greek word root meaning "sculpted" or "reshaped".

mwoody450 , Anna Shvets Report

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Seven Soda
Seven Soda
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Hmmmm, I've always wondered about that (but never googled it).

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#27

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones Ireland was a net exporter of food during the great potato famine.

270343 , William Murphy Report

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#28

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones If you earned $1 every second, it would take 2,921 years to have more money than Bill Gates.

grwrnotashowrthought , Greg Rubenstein Report

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Loverboy
Loverboy
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If you made $50,000 a day, 365 days a year, from the time they were building pyramids in Ancient Egypt to now, you would only have about 70% of Elon Musk's wealth. Edit: 40%, thank you RafCo. His net worth is constantly changing though, that figure will change eventually

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#29

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones There were more planes destroyed in World War II than there are (currently intact) planes on Earth today

Dickcheese_McDoogles , Jack Report

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TotallyNOTaFox
TotallyNOTaFox
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1 year ago (edited) DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They were easier to produce and maintain back than, nowadays they are full of electronic systems, carry jet engines and cost a few millions. The numbers of operated planes during World War 2 looks comically ridiculous compared to current times. Edit: I forgot effectiveness - a modern plane can do much more in comparison and doesn't have to soley rely on numbers, the expected casualities are also way lower nowadays. (A wing of 12 planes had an average loss rate of 3-4 planes in the pacific)

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#30

People Are Sharing Facts That Sound Fake But Are Totally True, Here Are 30 Of The Most Baffling Ones To scale, the distance between a nucleus and orbiting electron is 16 times longer than the distance between the Sun and Pluto.

LonelyPauper , Pietro Zuco Report

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Toothless Feline
Toothless Feline
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1 year ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Missing a critical piece of information which, in being absent, robs this of meaning: "scale" relative to what?

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