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Page 77 - Technology Facts

There's an unresolved physics debate about what causes 'The Shower Curtain Effect': when your shower curtain gets sucked into the shower when the water is on.

There's an unresolved physics debate about what causes 'The Shower Curtain Effect': when your shower curtain gets sucked into the shower when the water is on.

We don’t have a definitive answer for why this happens, but here are some of the top theories:

1) Buoyancy Effect
This is the idea that the hot temperature of the shower results in air particles rising up, making the air pressure on the inside of the shower lower than on the outside, which pushes the curtain in. This doesn’t account for why the Shower Curtain Effect has been observed during cold showers.

2) Bernoulli Effect
This is based on the principle behind airplane flight, that fluid acceleration results in lower air pressure. The force of the water causes the air in the shower to accelerate, reducing air pressure and causing outside air to push against the curtain.

3) Coandă effect
This is probably the answer that the scientifically-illiterate staff at OMG Facts understand the least. We'll have to defer to Cecil Adams’ explanation in the Straight Dope.

4) Horizontal Vortex Theory
Using expensive computer software to simulate a shower, David Schmidt from the Scientific American found that the spray of water created a vortex that behaved like the center of a cyclone rotating perpendicular to the shower curtain, pulling it in. David Schmidt received an Ig Nobel Prize for this research.

5) It’s also possible that the Buoyancy Effect created from the hot water could contribute to the pull created by the vortex or the Coandă effect.

Paris Hilton has size 11 feet!

Just to clarify, that’s a size 11 US women’s shoe size. Shoe-sizing systems vary internationally, and in the US, women’s sizes are equal to men’s sizes plus 1½ (so Paris would wear men’s size 9½) We at OMGFacts don’t want to hate on big feet (Bill wears a men’s size 12-13 shoe after all), so we’re gonna let Paris take care of that deprecation herself with an excerpt from her book:

“I desperately hate one thing about my body: I have size 11 feet. I can’t believe people care what shoe size I wear! I mean, I’m not a guy so it doesn’t mean anything! Yeah, it sucks. But really, I don’t even care anymore. It sucks because in stores I see all these supercute shoes like Guccis, YSLs, and Manolos. And when they’re brought out in my size, they look like clown shoes on me! I can’t wear flats because my feet are too long. At least high heels shrink how long my feet look. But forget about ever seeing me in ballet slippers or tennis shoes: I’d look like I was wearing canoes!"

On the bright side, at least we know for sure that ONE part of her body will always be authentic?

A Swiss man flew over the Grand Canyon using a jetpack!

Yves “Jetman” Rossy was launched by helicopter from more than a mile and a half above the natural wonder. He proceeded to skim the western rim of the canyon for 8 minutes at speeds of up to 186 miles per hour! Rossy had little time to practice the stunt, as he did not approach the Federal Aviation for permission until the day on which the stunt was scheduled! Getting approval for such a stunt was complicated by the fact that his jetpack is technically a “foreign” aircraft and that the park is a national park with its own special flight restrictions. Fortunately, he was able to get approval and his amazing flight was only delayed by a single day.

Watch “Jetman” take flight below:

(source)

Some awesome lists!

6 Things You Never Knew About the Titanic

15 Things You Should Know About World War II

On April 1, 2005, NASA joked that it had found “water on Mars”.

The NASA website has a regular feature called the “Astronomy Picture of the Day”. Every day, NASA displays an amazing photograph of an astronomical phenomenon. You can see them for yourself here.

The exception to this is on every April 1st. On April Fools' Day, you get some comedic gems like the aforementioned “water on Mars”. Other April Fools' gags include 2002 when they revealed the “expiration date” for the moon’s “green cheese” and 2001 when they announced that the American astronauts had defeated the Russians in a game of “space quidditch”.

Sadly, the tradition ended this year when NASA decided to show an artist’s depiction of a real event, a rainstorm on Saturn’s moon Titan. Still, it was fun while it lasted, and at least they made the effort to maintain an April Fools' Day prank tradition, unlike some other websites that don't even try...

You can still call 9-1-1 on a cell phone that doesn’t work.

While there is obviously a good reason for this, 9-1-1 calls from cell phones, especially deactivated ones, are a huge pain for emergency dispatchers. The 9-1-1 system was developed with land-line phones in mind. A call from a land-line is easily traceable, so call centers can identify addresses and respond to emergencies quickly and easily.

Calls from cell phones are much more complex. The call centers can only trace the call to the cell phone tower that routed your call to them. At best, they can pin down a location within 300 meters of the source of the call, not much help if you’re calling from an apartment complex. Your call also might go to the wrong call center, and you will have to be redirected. People have actually died because emergency workers weren’t able to determine where their call came from fast enough. (USA Today has an article about a woman who died because she called 9-1-1 on a cell phone).

Deactivated cell phones are even worse. While it’s useful that people who need help don’t need to keep up with their bills, the calls are completely untraceable. There’s no phone number attached to the phone, and the phone service provider can at best only provide the last known address associated with the phone. Call centers have reported that children often call 9-1-1 when playing with their parents’ deactivated phones, not realizing that 9-1-1 calls still go through.

To learn more about how 9-1-1 calls work (and don't work) on a cell phone, read this CNN article. You can also read some horror stories that emergency dispatchers have about deactivated cell phone prank calls here and here.

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