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65 comments to "The 25 Most Important Questions in the History of the Universe."

Marvin Gardens
July 24th, 2006 at 2:53 am
The can opener/can question ignored the important role of Nicolas Appert, the inventor of airtight food processing. His work inspired Durand to patent the can (See this link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Appert). Apparently Appert never took out a patent, prefering to make a gift of his method of canning to the general public.
Rohin
July 24th, 2006 at 7:25 am
“Like falafel and the number “0,” nougat is a product of Middle Eastern genius”

Oh dear, Mental Floss pisses off a billion potential customers. India invented the zero (hurrah!) India also invented the numbers we use. The fact they’re both credited to the Middle East is a misnomer of history. Don’t believe me, read the gospel truth!

Awesome list though
Miss Cellania
July 24th, 2006 at 8:55 am
Homemade American nougat is not bad… basically cooked butter, milk, and sugar, often just called “candy base” because we often add other ingredients and flavorings. When you make it yourself, you can control those preservatives!

PS This is an awesome compiltion.
jael
July 24th, 2006 at 9:37 am
Those cannibals make jeffrey dahmer look like a choir boy.
Not to mention, cannibalism does nothing to promote good looks.
ss
July 24th, 2006 at 1:36 pm
That bread photochop is a topographic obscenity–the mitre box is clearly set for 45 degrees or so…
dystopiandreamgirl
July 24th, 2006 at 11:54 pm
kiwi fruit has the same effect on gelatin - it prohibits jelling unless heated first to disable the enzyme. in case anyone was planning a kiwi jello dish…
Mr. Azo.
July 25th, 2006 at 12:03 pm
I think that the more appropriate answer to no. 14 would have been:

“A woodchuck could chuck no amount of wood since a woodchuck can’t chuck wood.”

There, plain and simple.

Whoever tells me where that comes from, and you get… well… international recognition.
SKiTZo
July 25th, 2006 at 2:26 pm
in response to Mr. Azo’s comment, that wouldn’t be an appropriate answer because the question specifically asks how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Therefore the response to number 14 is accurate
TheGimp
July 25th, 2006 at 2:59 pm
No. 14, A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Duh, everyone knows that!!!
Chris
July 25th, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Based on darwin’s theory of evolution, the egg would have come before the chicken…
Mr. Ooga Booga
July 25th, 2006 at 8:39 pm
In response to Mr. Azo’s comment:

It’s from Monkey Island 2, you damn dirty Hungarian!
Bob
July 25th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
actually…with darwin in mind the chicken was probably around first. the chickens whose progeny was protected by a hard shell would then live to procreate again, while the less protected would die. so then, the egg would have been developed later as a protective measure.
Dave
July 25th, 2006 at 10:08 pm
Good call, Bob. Makes complete sense. The chicken probably came first, according to Darwin.
Mr. Azo.
July 26th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Hi. Reptiles lay eggs too. Since reptiles were around long before birds, the obvious answer would be that the egg did come before the chicken.

In fact most evolutionary theories, including the modern evolutionary syntesis (which is WAY more accurate than Darwin’s theory, and for good reason, its almost 80 years newer), agree that birds are in fact an evolutionary offspring of reptiles. Of course, the question really is, what could exactly be defined as chicken, since, unfortunately, evolution didn’t have a dinosaur lay an egg which gave birth to a chicken. In light of this, the question is almost as easy as answering when does red stops being red and turns to orange.

If that’s your cup of tea, then you’d better get studying the quantum theory. I’m sure that the answer lies there, somewhere.
me
July 27th, 2006 at 11:05 am
I always wanted to know who the guy on the AOL thing was. And I’ve done the tootsie pop thing and it took me like 500 and some change to get there. Yeah I know pathetic I counted but I was bored and apperntly they had money burn. Anyway it was cool to find some useless facts thanks for the info.
me
July 27th, 2006 at 11:12 am
Actually the egg came first, Dinosaurs came before chickens and they layed eggs. So I’m thinking the egg came first guys.
That Guy
July 27th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Whatever came before the first chicken already laid hard-shelled eggs, considering that birds are descended from dinosaurs, which also laid hard-shelled eggs. Therefore the egg containing the very first chicken was hard-shelled; ergo, egg came first.
Zero Ge
July 27th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
No 16. Associating the color black with bad or evil as in the black spot, black balled, black mail or etc was originated from ancient peoples being afraid of the night and what mysteries or unknown evil was lurking there. Innocent sounds during the day would become goblins at night. Thievery, murder, vicious animals you canâ€™t see all preyed on the unsuspecting, blinded by the dark humans. My good friend tried to tell me that associating black with evil came from the dislike of the black race and it is racist. I explained to him that the ancient practice of associating black with evil, bad, etc. is associated with the night and is not race based at all.
cedar
July 28th, 2006 at 10:44 pm
No 16. Actually, the term Black mail originated with the mideval practice of jousting. It was the custom that the winner of the joust got some of the property of the looser, usually his horse and/or his armor. There were individuals who made a living going from town to town, and challenging the local “best jouster”. Of course the local couldn’t refuse, and he was beaten. He would then loose his property which the traveler promptly offered to sell back to him, for a price he couldn’t refuse.

The challenger traveled alone and did not have a page to clean his armor and chain mail. As a result, the armor and mail tarnshed and turned black, hence the term “black mail”.
Just John
August 2nd, 2006 at 1:31 pm
A little known fact about #16: the chieftains would often send a messenger ahead of them who would knock on the door and, when the victim opened it, would happily announce, “You’ve got blackmail!”
bigsidd
August 2nd, 2006 at 3:20 pm
Actually ‘me’ this dos not necessarily work. Technically this question has several variable factors but the most important one is when do we define a chicken becoming a chicken? Because of Darwin’s theory of evolution all animals have evolved over many millenia to what we see today. Some people in the comments section use this incorrectly to explain their point. Chickens evolved from dinosaurs and Dinosaurs laid eggs so the egg came first, wrong because a dinosaur would not simply lay a chicken as we see it today as that would take many millions of years not one generational lifespan. Additionally if we count dinosaurs as being the chickens predecessor then what came first- the dinosaur or the egg? All animals came from single celled ameobas at what is affectionately called the primordial soup. Therefore if we look at it logically the chicken, or rather the original chicken came first way before the egg which would have been developed later to protect offsping form the evolving predator.

If you would like to look a this through a simple perspective simply ask yourself where the egg came from. The egg is simply a transitional phase from conception through to growth outside of its mother. A chicken would be much more likely to survive on its own from predators with the benefits of sight and motion rather than being stationary and unaare of its surroundings. The species if it wanted to survive would have to had risen from a defendable creature rather than an undefended (from larger stronger predators) external womb. (the earlier a creature can ‘fight of flight’ the better, the longer it stays undefendable the more likely it is to be eaten).
Raptor
August 5th, 2006 at 11:59 am
hmmm…..

When turtles lay eggs, the shells are soft and rubbery and harden after being laid. Who knows what dinosaur eggs were like millions of years ago, so I would say the rubber bag came first….
Linne Dodds
August 6th, 2006 at 3:31 am
I can sense a bad storm coming in my Sinuses . I get a heck of a headache when a Hurricane is on the way & it doesn’t go away til it’s Gone . Then I get another one with the clean up .Lol.
Hmm,perhaps this is also in part because I’ve broken my nose many times .
I can also tickle myself .
I saw a show On PBS about the Franklin expedition to find the Northwest Passage . The folks involved in the show figured that One Big Reason the Expedition Failed was that a lot of the food was in the New Fangled Cans & they were Sealed with Lead . Bad Idea .
william Tucker
August 9th, 2006 at 11:37 am
i love your site
it answer so many qquestion that i have never been able to answer myself
thanks
cricket
August 15th, 2006 at 2:52 pm
If the question is “which came first; the chicken or the egg?”, the answer is “the egg”.

If the question is, “which came first; the chicken or the chicken egg”, the answer is “the chicken.”

If the question is, “which came first; the chicken or the chicken-egg”, the answer is “grape-nuts.”

Of course that’s a euphymism.
Joe Truth
August 15th, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Re. Turkeys, there’s a similar misnomer in the French version of the bird, which is “Dindon” (Pronounced DAN-dohwn, more or less) This is from “D’ind…” as in “Of India” thus the French made the same error as those who called the Carib islands the “West Indies.”
Joe Truth
August 15th, 2006 at 5:40 pm
Re. Turkeys, there’s a similar misnomer in the French version of the bird, which is “Dindon” (Pronounced DAN-dohwn, more or less) This is from “D’ind…” as in “Of India” thus the French made the same error as those who called the Carib islands the “West Indies.”

Meanwhile, I’ve always heard that Grapenuts was named after grape SHOT and its nutty flavor. Go figure.
JoJo
August 15th, 2006 at 8:27 pm
Someone please tell me this: Why is every watch in every watch advertisement set to 10:10?
Ryhm'Raith
August 15th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
188-217 Licks. I did it at least a Dozen times.
Bill
August 16th, 2006 at 11:03 am
#28–It’s always 10:10 in ads for analog watches because this configuration allows for the most pleasing symmetry in the image, and that causes people to find the watch more attractive (which means they’re most likely to buy it).

As for the chicken/egg thing, the simple answer is, as has already been noted, that animals had been laying eggs for millions, perhaps even billions, of years before chickens evolved. But even if we ask the narrower question of “which came first, the chicken or the chicken egg?” I believe the answer is still the egg. One assumes that chickens evolved from something that wasn’t a chicken, a proto-chicken, if you will. Although I suspect it would be impossible to pinpoint the exact generation in the development of chicken-kind when a proto-chicken parent birthed a bird that, thanks to some happy genetic mutation, could be called the first genuine chicken, it’s clear that that bird arrived in an egg.

And I bet it was tasty with barbeque sauce.
jojo
August 16th, 2006 at 2:25 pm
From the movie “Stand and Deliver” it was the Myans who invented the “0″
Josh
August 16th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
Question 18 begs the question…why then are people so proficiant at beating off?

#18. Why Canâ€™t You Tickle yourself?

Much to the dismay of wacky masochist everywhere, the human brain is wired against self-tickling. Because the brain controls movement, it knows what your hand is going to do before you do it. Thus it anticipates the exact force, location, and speed of the tickle and uses that information to desensitize you to your own roving hands.
mike
August 16th, 2006 at 7:09 pm
I believe that the Interstates in Hawaii are actually correctly named (#10). The land under the military bases which they connect are not technically part of Hawaii. They are considered national land, and not part of the state. Therefore, since the highways cover both this type of land and Hawaii, they are considered interstates. I don’t have a written source for this (and I may be wrong), but I was told this by a respectable member of the military on the island.
triticale
August 16th, 2006 at 11:55 pm
“The chicken, because G-d never laid an egg.”
Or so I’ve been told.
Jack
August 18th, 2006 at 10:03 am
RE: #4
Actually, in that “Simpsons” episode, Lisa beats Bart. They’re having an argument of some kind, and Lisa suggests that they use Rock-Paper-Scissors to solve it. We then get an internal monologue from each of them:

Lisa: Poor, predictable Bart. Always goes with Rock.
Bart: Good ol’ Rock. Nothin’ beats that.

They then play, with Bart throwing out Rock and Lisa Paper. Bart then gives Homer’s customary “D’oh!”
TG
August 19th, 2006 at 3:25 pm
…The ancient Mayans invented the number Zero.
Jonathan
August 24th, 2006 at 11:07 pm
There’s no point to crediting Mayans with inventing zero
if they did not pass the info on. The ancient middle-
eastern civilizations used the invented digit long enough
for others to copy it. Sort of like sound of a falling tree in a forest: with or without someone to hear?
Jonathan
August 24th, 2006 at 11:15 pm
Re: 8. Batteries of size B. I’m fairly certain that in
the 1950s the cube-like batteries with 2 spring contacts
on top, called lantern batteries, were called size B. I think that internally they were 1.5v cells, stacked two high, arranged in 4 parallel columns, and wired in series, giving 12 volts, just like a car battery, but not so long-lasting. One terminal was centered and one was off-center.
That may have been just one mfr’s size system, and it may have been dropped.
Nick
August 25th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Despite numerous comments to the contrary, it is possible to tickle yourself, but only via one method (at least that I am aware of):

Very gently rub your gum just behind your top front two teeth (on the sloping bit that leads to the roof of your mouth).

This leads to your body shivering in that ” I have been desperate for a pee, and now it’s out” way.
Thomas
August 27th, 2006 at 10:54 pm
Chicken/Egg Thanks Bill. It amazes me how many people don’t get the very simple explanation that you gave and I also give all of the time. They will still argue. I could understand if they were coming from a GOD creationism viewpoint but when they are arguing from the evolution viewpoint it is so obvious that it is painful. I can’t think of the name of one of the mixed dog breeds which have gained fame but IMAGINE you had a labrador and a poodle and they had an offspring ….a labroodle or poodrador. Which came first rather obvious isn’t it.
fcklfl
September 30th, 2006 at 12:13 pm
whats the author of this magazine and what page is the pineapple in jello on?
foobar
December 2nd, 2006 at 11:49 am
Trust me: The chicken-egg came first. Because it contained the genetic mutation that produced the chicken that then produced the harder egg.

QED
Mie Aars
December 6th, 2006 at 8:43 am
#18. Why Canâ€™t You Tickle yourself?

This is correct but there is an exception named your tongue. Try to stroke your tongue slowly and gentle against the upper inside of your mouth. Do this from the back to the front and you will notice that just before you hit your teeth you will feel a tickle.
Guaranteed for months of fun laughing at yourself!
Jeroenemans
December 6th, 2006 at 5:01 pm
1. why is it that narrating scenes from any comedy show is nowhere near funny EXCEPT for the simpsons?
2. the grape-nut story unfortunately isn’t totally correct: grape sugar (which it is still called in dutch) is dextrose, or d-glucose.. it’s a breakdown product of maltose.. which is the process also occuring in the brewing of beer..
Bob Hawkins
December 9th, 2006 at 8:02 pm
The reason chimpanzees do so much better on the pull test, is leverage. (I learned this in physical anthropology class at Ohio State.) Their muscles are attached to their bones farther from the joint than in humans. This gives them greater leverage, therefore more force. However, the speed is reduced proportionately. So they’re no good at throwing.

Bottom line: if you get into a beef with a chimp, don’t wrestle it. Throw rocks at it from a safe distance.
sal
December 14th, 2006 at 11:23 am
question 13
was not a country first. Sure, it was peopled by Turks but the place was not identified as Turkey until 1919. Previously it was known as the Ottoman Empire.
Whereas the mis-named turkey guineahens had been imported from Africa for years earlier as can be ascertained from recipes in Mrs Beaton’s book of household management written and published in the 1800s.
Ben
January 4th, 2007 at 7:12 pm
Thomas and Bill……THANK YOU!!!!!! I would have had to try to explain the chicken/egg thing to the other hapless retards. Your the first people ive found who have understood it.
jessika
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 am
144 licks? i say ten minutes to get to the center…. (depends how much ive drankin and how much of it i can fit in my mouth.
Norm
January 31st, 2007 at 4:15 pm
#18. Why Canâ€™t You Tickle yourself?
“…the human brain is wired against self-tickling. Because the brain controls movement, it knows what your hand is going to do before you do it. Thus it anticipates the exact force, location, and speed of the tickle and uses that information to desensitize you to your own roving hands.”

If that’s so, why does masturbation work (so well)? What if it didn’t!!!
rayjay
March 24th, 2007 at 8:44 am
chicken or the egg? one could look at it from a predators point of view. do you want a omlette first, or the meat?…Ok i’m warped.
Tala Amirbayat*
April 2nd, 2007 at 11:09 am
Dear Mr. Dear!
You kept me up all night long and could not get to finish my paper for visual communication class which was a month passed due!
BUT, Thank you so much for all the information, it was great spending time on this site…
* Stay Beautiful~
gerie
April 10th, 2007 at 3:09 am
Very wonderful site…most comments are mind-boggling,too.
pol x
April 16th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
#11 the nine mins on the snooze alarm thing.

Oddly this thing going off all the time while I was half asleep taught me one thing.

The nine times tables results for the first ten instances is a palindrome

091827365445678190

Odd the things you notice when tryin got sleep.
pol x
April 16th, 2007 at 4:39 pm
ahem

rather

09182736455463728190

you notice something cool and bugger it up in the typing…bloody typical.
jim-bob
April 25th, 2007 at 4:57 am
i personally think it was the chicken that came first…but i guess we will never no!! anyways ive got 2 go and u r all saddo’s anyway bye bye love yaz x x x x x
Martin
May 8th, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I just looked it up, and in the dictionary, and in the encyclopedia, chicken comes first. (by two letters)
chris
May 18th, 2007 at 4:47 pm
hey, my chicken always comes first!
person.
July 1st, 2007 at 2:43 am
â€œA woodchuck could chuck no amount of wood since a woodchuck canâ€™t chuck wood.â€

heh. monkey island.
test-object
July 17th, 2007 at 5:00 am
I have read the article about the moon and would love to say i have a spot on th big old star. And on top of everything else, I got it for free!

Not so very long ago there was a belgian tv-show named “Robland”. A man called Rob Vanoudenhoven wanted to be king of his own country. During this show he searched for lots of stuff: A national folksong, a flag, but more important: inhabits and a land.

People could go on the internet and ask to become a citizen of Robland for free. The province where people voted to become “Robiaan” the most, would become his property.

So, he got himself a piece of Belgium and went to America to ask an official agreement and acknowledgement of Robland. Some fancy minister disagreed, but Rob got himself a huge piece of the moon and he gave all Robianen their coordinates.

So now if NASA or anybody else is planning to build something on the moon: TOUGH LUCK!
Tony Sorrentino
July 26th, 2007 at 9:09 am
Damn I thought i’d discovered the 09182736455463728190 9 times table palindrome!

pol x beat me to it!!!

Also there is a striking amount of nines in the answers too if you’re bored enough to look for them. ie 54×9=486 (4+8+6=18 and 1+8=9).
Dave
July 30th, 2007 at 11:06 am
It amazes me that in this time of scientific enlightenment that people are still holding to evolution. It has been disproven so many times that it just isn’t funny anymore. As a Christian, I firmly believe in Creation, but if you don’t like that, you can just go with the secular term “Intelegent Design”. This way you don’t have to agree that God is real, but you can agree with that which has never been disproven.

Also, I thought that the mitre saw was set for a 45 degree cut, but cutting the bread at a 90 angle, but sometimes my eyes play tricks on me (gotta love astigmatism).

Most digital alarm clocks that I have owned had a 7 minute snooze. It wasn’t until the last year or so that I got one with a 9 minute snooze. Whatever. When you hit it 10-15 times in a row before finally dragging your carcass out of bed, it really doesn’t matter how long it is.

Finally, Jell-o won’t harden underwater like concrete will.
T
August 19th, 2007 at 11:19 am
Dave: Evolution hasn’t been disproven, you read that in christian books I bet, but they tend to have a funny way of twisting the truth, anywho, to have any kind of credibility you may want to spell “Intelligent Design” correctly. Spelling the word intelligent incorrectly tends to show a lack of the trait in question.

Anyway, one interesting note about not being able to tickle yourself, there have been cases of schizophrenics being able to tickle themselves,
Homer
February 19th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
BART DOESN’T BEAT LISA, LISA BEATS BART!!!! SHE KNOWS HE ALWAYS GOES WITH ROCK!!!!
bobby
February 20th, 2008 at 9:14 am
i wanna find out where the golden arches convention is for those freakin clowns so i can tell the colonel and the king of burgers and they can go and gun his ass down, then they will separate their connection of combined efforts and rage war on one other in an all american action hero finale starring tommy lee jones as the colonel, george bush as ronny and chuck norris as the king. written by me, directed by tarantino. …umm yeh..
Greg C
February 20th, 2008 at 10:25 pm
The Rooster came first, as guys usually do…

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