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Silly things that have blown your mind

was chatting to a chap i know, only found out what he does for work. He works on a coating for drinks cans that increases their efficiency on factory conveyor systems. Increases it that much the companies pay decent money to have this coating on the bottom of the aluminum cans! That blew my tiny mind this morning.
 
If you properly shuffle a deck of cards. It's likely that the order of those cards is unique. As in no deck of cards anywhere, ever, has been in the same order.
 
I was an aircraft engineer before retiring but I still am fascinated that when sitting in a window seat on an aircraft the air is travelling ( relatively) at 550 mph just the other side of the Perspex.
 
Talking of small world..
in a previous co, I had one of our American Partners visit London to meet his client. He wanted a local guy to accompany him as his client was tough. No one was available, so I got roped in as the bag carrier.

Walked into the client office and found that the client and I used to work together in Australia about 10 years ago. We spent most of time drinking all then beer in Sydney. Lost touch when we both left Sydney. Then lo and behold both turn up in London on opposite side of the table.
 
I had only looked at a Rubik’s cube and wondered how??

Thanks to YouTube and Lockdown, now I can do a Rubik’s cube under 3 mins on a regular basis.

Funny what you can learn on the Interweb (and don’t even get me started on Forex trading)
 
52 factorial (52!) unique combinations, which is a massive number!
80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000

Oops. Sorry. I inadvertently truncated when pasting the calculation
 
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Damn. Beat me to it. I had just worked out 49! and run out of wall paper and lead in my pencil (my abacus doesn't cope with those sort of numbers).

Interestingly, that number of combinations is thought to be greater than all the atoms in the Earth or number of stars in the known universe :eek:
 
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80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000
H'mm. Instant thoughts suggest there should be more zeros (7 more, making 10 in fact)! 5 for each of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50; and a further 5 for 5, 15,25,35,45 with an even number.
 
Funnily enough Foxy, I've now finished the calc and according to my calculations, there should be 9 more zero's (making 12), not 7 (making 10) as you suggest. I could of course be wrong - perhaps you could check and confirm.
 
Funnily enough Foxy, I've now finished the calc and according to my calculations, there should be 9 more zero's (making 12), not 7 (making 10) as you suggest. I could of course be wrong - perhaps you could check and confirm.

Hopefully that’ll keep him occupied for a few days ?
 
If you've ever used a permanent marker by accident on a whiteboard and tried to rub it off you'll know how difficult it is.... Just write over it with a whiteboard pen and it just rubs off... I probably took too much pleasure in showing it off in the office but hey ho.. ?
 
Funnily enough Foxy, I've now finished the calc and according to my calculations, there should be 9 more zero's (making 12), not 7 (making 10) as you suggest. I could of course be wrong - perhaps you could check and confirm.
Actually, I agree! Numbers of factors of 25s (5*5), of which there are 2, has an additional effect as 5 is the 'base' number that determines number of zeroes.
The rest of the number in Rulefan's post seems correct
@PhilTheFragger Sorry (not!) to disappoint you!
https://coolconversion.com/math/factorial/_52_
:ROFLMAO::ROFLMAO:
 
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H'mm. Instant thoughts suggest there should be more zeros (7 more, making 10 in fact)! 5 for each of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50; and a further 5 for 5, 15,25,35,45 with an even number.
You are correct. See correction to post above also.
80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000
 
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