Fascinating Fact Fridays

Beyond the bezels of this screen, outside the boundaries of this world, past the celestial giants and dwarves, and further than our comprehension reaches, there lies a single immutable truth: It would be pretty cool if we could teleport, bro. Think about it. No more sitting in traffic with people who  must  know how to drive correctly but simply choose not to. No more enduring draconian airport security lines, awkwardly untangling yourself from belts, shoes, and dignity. No more fretting over whether your luggage has mysteriously decided to vacation in a different country. In a world where teleportation exists, convenience would reign supreme, and humanity could finally experience a life free of logistical nightmares. After miraculously recovering from their space-deaths, these are the thoughts that must have been running through the minds of Ashlee and Laura as they eagerly ordered the newly announced Toshiba People Faxer 5000—the world's first teleportation device. * * * * *...

For thousands of years, humanity relied on some pretty creative benchmarks for measurement. The foot? It was literally the length of a royal foot—thank you Henry I. The meter was once defined by a physical bar stored in France but is now based on the distance light travels in a vacuum during a specific time interval. Similarly, the second transitioned from being measured by Earth's rotation to being defined by the vibrations of cesium atoms. But amidst all this new-fangled scientific razzle-dazzle, one lone measurement clung to its physical form: the lonely kilogram. Le Grand K ( Pronunciation: [sting-kee cheez])  was manufactured in 1879 and stored in the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in Sèvres, France. This shiny platinum-iridium cylinder was chosen to be the kilogram, replacing older, less glamorous standards like the mass of a liter of water or random hunks of metal. Housed in a bell jar, Le Grand K was the VIP of weights—the one and only star aro...