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36 Stats, Numbers and Pieces of Data That Will Make You Want to Punch a Calculator in the Face

How dare you display such ridiculousness, Texas Instruments!

36 Stats, Numbers and Pieces of Data That Will Make You Want to Punch a Calculator in the Face

December 04, 2024

Before you start screaming that these numbers are filthy liars, please trust that we triple-checked each stat after we had that same initial reaction.

Well, admittedly, we didn’t personally check anything. Much smarter fact-checkers than us spent the day trying to disprove these wildly suspicious figures, and they couldn’t find a single digit out of place.

If you’re not convinced, feel free to feverishly scrawl on a chalkboard like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, but we’re just trying to save you some time. Believe the unbelievable, as they say.

36

Being Smelly

You don't need an olfactory bulb to smell. A study found 6% of women without one could smell perfectly fine. That figure rose to 6% in left-handed women. CRACKED.COM — Source: Science Direct

35

Jogging

Jogging becomes running after 6 mph. CRACKED.COM According to condition- ing coach Mike Antonia- des, jogging means moving at speeds less than 6 mph. Any faster than that, and it's tech- nically running. — Source

34

50 Cent

15 50 Cent 82 used his Twitter 6.52 to pump a 7.54 worthless penny 5 4.63 stock he owned. 8 54.64 15.95 5 .85 4 51.85 156.107 85.32 It rose by about 5

33

Dirty Money

How dirty is money? 5 TI 1 E 34112 C. 34112707E WANNINGTON, D.G. 1 a 5 كس I - - - - THE UNITED STATES OPAY THE 5 ..... SHITE I 1 5 E IERICA 5 34112707E U WASHINGTON.D.C. 2010 ONE DOLLAR E 34112707E LINA a III 5 a Jews 1 Summer S - SMT 5 5 C.. sm I A U.S. bill contains an average of 10 microbes per square centimeter. American paper bills are especially hospitable to bacteria. CRACKED COM — Scientific American

32

Scotland

5 percent CRACKED.COM From 1993 to 2002, 5% of murders in Scotland were contract killings. — Source

31

Impulse Purchasing

CRACKED.COM When possible, WALK to the store. Research shows impulse purchasing increases by 44%, just by taking your car with you. — Source

30

Mustard Gas

1,673.5 tons 1,673.5 tons of mustard gas is stockpiled by the U.S. government, to be destroyed by 2024. — Source: Department of Defense

29

Australia

An Australian island settled by mutineers is plagued by migraines. CRACKED.COM The crew of the HMS Bounty settled on Norfolk Island in 1789. 23% of the descendants of the Bounty are affected by migraines, almost double the worldwide number of 12%. — Pubmed

28

100 Bird Gangs

Feral chickens began terrorizing an island in the UK in 2019. CRACKED COM Escaped chickens multiplied exponentially due to lack of predators, and 100-bird gangs began attacking jog- gers, destroying yards, blocking traffic, and waking residents at 4 AM with deaf- ening crowing. — Source

27

Jazz

CRACKED HANGMAN It turns out that the most difficult word to guess in Hangman is jazz. It's made up of 75% uncommon letters (J and Z) and you only get three chances to get it right. — Source

26

Wi-Fi

We owe Wi-Fi to black holes. In 1992, to create Wi-Fi, a physicist used some math he had come up with while looking for signals from tiny black holes. This math was able to pick up faint signals hidden in a lot of noise, which was key to Wi-Fi. CRACKED — dencg/Shutterstock,
Lia Koltyrina/Shutterstock
ABC Science

25

Dune

CRACKED DUNE: MATH PROBLEMS The 1984 Dune movie had a huge marketing push, including coloring and activity books with 44 pages of wild scenes, 60 pages of puzzles and games, mazes, paper dolls, word puzzles, and most excitingly, math problems. — Open Culture

24

Pianos

Learning to play a piano makes you better at math. After 8 months of piano lessons, students went from scoring in the 30th to the 65th percentile on the Stanford 9 Math Test. GRACKED COM — Source

23

Calculators

YOUNG INVENTORS 19-YEAR-OLD BLAISE PASCAL INVENTED THE FIRST FUNCTIONING CALCULATOR. In 1642, the French mathematician and philosopher started developing a machine that could add and subtract (and multiply and divide by repeating additions or subtractions). Pascal built around 70 prototypes until 1645, nine of which still survive. 3 2 5 3 dizar new Containir malla Containne do mille de mill one OWO CRACKED.COM — Rama/Wiki Commons
Wikipedia
Datacube/YouTube

22

Winnie Cooper

Winnie Cooper is a math whiz. indl ot TO 7 OFF 25% af 140 140 bee top bHom 4 of 4 40 4 B5 As a teen, Danica McKellar played Kevin Arnold's love intere

21

Lysol-Related Deaths

Product LYSOL Original DOUCHE Purpose nees -440 tes wk 4at 4 1tls 4sei4 yeu bertes .4 6 -70 O aree 0- e4 --4- 441 .4.0 t e 44 4201040 o af llse 99EA v — Source: Mother Jones

20

Jay-Z and The Number 4

Jay-Z is crazy about number 4. In fact, he likes the number SO much he created a personal challenge to go vegan for 22 days (2+2=4) a day before his 4

19

Statue Sizes

597 ft. The Statue of Unity in India is so tall the Statue of Liberty could barely touch his knees with her torch. 152 ft. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

Saffron Prices

Saffron can be up to three times as expensive as gold per kilogram. Saffron is more expensive than gold because harvesting it is so laborious. 1kg of saffron averages over $130,000. CRACKED NOW YOU KNOW — Daily Mail

17

Atoms

The atom is SO infinitesimally small that a single grain of sand contains more atoms than all the beaches of the world contain grains of sand CRACKED.COM — Source

16

Meteorites

ONE MAN HAD A COSMIC TARGET ON HIS HOUSE. CRACKED.COM Bosnian man Radivoke Lajic had his house pelted with meteorites. The odds of one strike is 1 out of 20 trillion. Lajic's home was hit 6 times. We are not smart enough to calculate the odds of 6 meteorite strikes, but suffice it to say, it's unusual. — More: 20 Completely Impossible Coincidences (That Really Happened)

15

Coin Toss Odds

x MYTH A coin toss holds 50/50 odds. FACT A coin is more likely to land on the face that it started on- with odds of about 51-49. CRACKED — ICMA Photos/Flickr
Dynamical Bias in the Coin Toss

14

Terrorism

CRACKED COM ARE YOU AFRAID OF BEING ONE OF THE VICTIMS IN A TERROR ATTACK? CHILL. YOU ARE 1860 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE HIT BY A WORLD-ENDING ASTEROID THAN GETTING BOMBED BY A TERRORIST. ODDS OF DYING IN A TERROR ATTACK=1/9.3 MILLION ODDS OF EARTH BEING HIT BY A HUGE ASTEROID=1/5 5000 — Source: 20 Statistics About Probability That Will Blow Your Mind

13

Odds

The odds of being hit by lightning and winning the lottery in one's lifetime are about 1 in 2.6 trillion CRAGh 2015 Atic 1oto July Amotique Lotery Pet

12

Low Social Interaction

Low social interaction is as dangerous to your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day Social connections (including friends and family) improve our odds of survival by 50% CRACKED.COM — Source: ScienceDaily

11

STEM Degrees

If you're a guy in a relationship with another guy, you're less likely to complete a STEM bachelor's degree. Specifically, the odds are 12% lower than for men in relationships with women. NOW YOU KNOW — Source: JSTOR

10

Blue Lobsters

When you think of a lobster, you imagine it pink, but there are bright blue lobsters, too. The odds of catching one, however, are roughly one in two m

9

Cheating Odds

h any given year, the overall likelihood that your significant other will cheat on you is about 6% Your odds improve. the more religious you are, the older YOU are, and the more education you have. The odds are worse for women who are remarried: and for both genders a higher number of sexual partners is correlated with a higher chance of infidelity. CRACKED.COM — Source: 24 Shocking Statistics That Change How You View Sex

8

The Odds of Dating a Supermodel

The odds of dating a supermodel: 1 in 88,000 The odds of getting a royal flush in poker: 1 in 649,739 You are 7 times more likely to date a supermodel than getting a royal flush! CRACKED.COM — Source: 20 Statistics About Probability That Will Blow Your Mind

7

Earthquakes

Although an earthquake is a terrifying experience, the odds of dying in a modern anti seismic building are less than being struck by lightning. From t

6

Larry Walker

The baseball Hall of Famer Larry Walker was fixated on the number 3. CRACKED.COM Не wore number 33, was married on November 3 at 3:33 and his phone number had as many threes as the phone company would al- low. In 1993, he signed a $3 million contract. — Men’s Journal / Wikipedia

5

Student Loans

ab + П-3,14 R=1/2 7C b2 The average person (a+b)2 am a = a (m+n) n/n ab with student loans (b) - d = O owes $37,113 f si 20 X + 3x + 5 If you take private loans 2-3<- 14b A into account, that number goes X+ 2/2/02 +C 2 up to $40,904. ma D=b2-L y, = y+b CRACKED.COM — Source

4

People’s Favorite Numbers

NUMBER FACTS CRACKED.COM A SURVEY ASKED 30,000 PEOPLE FOR THEIR FAVORITE NUMBER. o 9 9 C 3 4 8 8 1 2 2 9 8 3 4 7 4 ^ o 3 9 5 4 7 9 8 5 5 9 5 9 6 5 5 4 5 6 A 8 & 6 1 2 . 2 6 3 6 5 9 4 5 7 7 4 7 5 9 9 5 5 9 7 7 8 3 8 9 9 4 4 1 ٤ 4 O 8 ح ١ E 3 L 6 o ح 8 2 2 6 1 — Source

3

Prime Numbers

The largest found prime number is 5 9 4 8 6 7 5 04 4 6 10 2 1 2 2 3 2 3 3 1 1 2 1 6 10 9 6 2 3 4 3 7 45 1 10 8 8 4 8 4 J 7 45 ( 1 10 6 7 9 6 7 6 7 7 9 2 6 5 5 2 10 5 1 1 9 l 9 1 6 3 8 3 7 10 2 7 8 10 5 4 10 2 7 8 10 5 7 3 8 5 3 5 1 3 — Source: 23 Insane (But True) Statistics

2

College Costs

ab П-3,14 R=1/2 (m+n) College (a th) costs have a am a = increased B by 169% a d = a 1 2 2 2 si 20 X + 3x X 5 O Since the 1980s, college costs 2-3<- A have skyrocketed, but pay for young workers В has only 2 x+C 2(b2 +C increased by 19%. D=b2-L y, = y+b CRACKED.COM — Source

1

Graduation Rates

(m+n) ab Only b2 62% who start R= (atb)2 a IN their degree finish their a В program in six years 2 2 si 20 X + xb 3x + 5 O Only 42.2% who start at a 2-3<- A two-year public school finish x + their program within six years. 2 2 C t D=b2-L y, = y+b CRACKED.COM — Source

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