Amazing facts about India

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The official Sanskrit name for India is Bharat.  INDIA has been called Bharat even in Satya yuga ( Golden Age ) More INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT India : - 

• The name `India’ is derived from the River Indus, the valleys around which were the home of the early settlers. The Aryan worshippers referred to the river Indus as the Sindhu.
• The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan’ combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.
• The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero. More facts after the break...

• Sanskrit is considered as the mother of all higher languages. This is because it is the most precise, and therefore suitable language for computer software. ( a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987 ).
• Chess was invented in India.
• Algebra, Trigonometry and Calculus are studies which originated in India.
• The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.
• The first six Mogul Emperor's of India ruled in an unbroken succession from father to son for two hundred years, from 1526 to 1707.
• The World's First Granite Temple is the Brihadeswara temple at Tanjavur in Tamil Nadu. The shikhara is made from a single ' 80-tonne ' piece of granite. Also, this magnificient temple was built in just five years, (between 1004 AD and 1009 AD) during the reign of Rajaraja Chola.
• India is.......the Largest democracy in the world, the 6th largest country in the world AND one of the most ancient and living civilizations (at least 10, 000 years old).
• The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices. The game was played with cowrie shells and dices. Later through time, the game underwent several modifications but the meaning is the same i.e good deeds take us to heaven and evil to a cycle of re-births.
• The world's highest cricket ground is in Chail, Himachal Pradesh. Built in 1893 after levelling a hilltop, this cricket pitch is 2444 meters above sea level.
• India has the most post offices in the world !
• The largest employer in the world is the Indian railway system, employing over a million people !.
• The World's first university was established in Takshila in 700 BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.
• Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to mankind. The father of medicine, Charaka, consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago.
• Although modern images & descriptions of India often show poverty, India was one of the richest countries till the time of British in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth and was looking for route to India when he discovered America by mistake.
• The art of Navigation & Navigating was born in the river Sindh 6000 over years ago. The very word 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.
• Bhaskaracharya rightly calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. His calculations was - Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: ( 5th century ) 365.258756484 days.
• The value of "pi" was first calculated by the Indian Mathematician Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century, which was long before the European mathematicians.
• Algebra, trigonometry and calculus also orignated from India. Quadratic equations were used by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10*53 ( i.e 10 to the power of 53 ) with specific names as early as 5000 B.C. during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera: 10*12( 10 to the power of 12 ).
• Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world. ( Source . Gemological Institute of America )
• The Baily Bridge is the highest bridge in the world. It is located in the Ladakh valley between the Dras and Suru rivers in the Himalayan mountains. It was built by the Indian Army in August 1982.
• Sushruta is regarded as the father of surgery. Over 2600 years ago Sushrata & his team conducted complicated surgeries like cataract, artificial limbs, cesareans, fractures, urinary stones and also plastic surgery and brain surgeries.
• Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India medicine. Detailed knowledge of anatomy, embryology, digestion, metabolism, physiology, etiology, genetics and immunity is also found in many ancient Indian texts.

Interesting Facts About the Sun

Interesting Facts About the Sun

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Think you know everything there is to know about the Sun? Think again. Here are 10 interesting facts about the Sun, collected in no particular order. Some you might already know, and others will be totally new to you. Interesting facts after the break...

1. The Sun is the Solar System.

We live on the planet, so we think it's an equal member of the Solar System. But that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is that the mass of the Sun accounts for 99.8% of the mass of the Solar System. And most of that final 0.2% comes from Jupiter. So the mass of the Earth is a fraction of a fraction of the mass of the Solar System. Really, we barely exist.

2. And the Sun is mostly hydrogen and helium.

If you could take apart the Sun and pile up its different elements, you'd find that 74% of its mass comes from hydrogen. with 24% helium. The remaining 2% is includes trace amounts of iron, nickel, oxygen, and all the other elements we have in the Solar System. In other words, the Solar System is mostly made of hydrogen.

3. The Sun is pretty bright.

We know of some amazingly large and bright stars, like Eta Carina and Betelgeuse. But they're incredibly far away. Our own Sun is a relatively bright star. If you could take the 50 closest stars within 17 light-years of the Earth, the Sun would be the 4th brightest star in absolute terms. Not bad at all.

4. The Sun is huge, but tiny.

With a diameter of 109 times the size the Earth, the Sun makes a really big sphere. You could fit 1.3 million Earths inside the Sun. Or you could flatten out 11,990 Earths to cover the surface of the Sun. That's big, but there are some much bigger stars out there. For example, the biggest star that we know of would almost reach Saturn if it were placed inside the Solar System.

5. The Sun is middle aged.

Astronomers think that the Sun (and the planets) formed from the solar nebula about 4.59 billion years ago. The Sun is in the main sequence stage right now, slowly using up its hydrogen fuel. But at some point, in about 5 billion years from now, the Sun will enter the red giant phase, where it swells up to consume the inner planets – including Earth (probably). It will slough off its outer layers, and then shrink back down to a relatively tiny white dwarf.

6. The Sun has layers.

The Sun looks like a burning ball of fire, but it actually has an internal structure. The visible surface we can see is called the photosphere, and heats up to a temperature of about 6,000 degrees Kelvin. Beneath that is the convective zone, where heat moves slowly from the inner Sun to the surface, and cooled material falls back down in columns. This region starts at 70% of the radius of the Sun. Beneath the convection zone is the radiative zone. In this zone, heat can only travel through radiation. The core of the Sun extends from the center of the Sun to a distance of 0.2 solar radii. This is where temperatures reach 13.6 million degrees Kelvin, and molecules of hydrogen are fused into helium.

7. The Sun is heating up, and will kill all life on Earth.

It feels like the Sun has been around forever, unchanging, but that's not true. The Sun is actually slowly heating up. It's becoming 10% more luminous every billion years. In fact, within just a billion years, the heat from the Sun will be so intense that liquid water won't exist on the surface of the Earth. Life on Earth as we know it will be gone forever. Bacteria might still live on underground, but the surface of the planet will be scorched and uninhabited. It'll take another 7 billion years for the Sun to reach its red giant phase before it actually expands to the point that it engulfs the Earth and destroys the entire planet.

8. Different parts of the Sun rotate at different speeds.

Unlike the planets, the Sun is great big sphere of hydrogen gas. Because of this, different parts of the Sun rotate at different speeds. You can see how fast the surface is rotating by tracking the movement of sunspots across the surface. Regions at the equator take 25 days to complete one rotation, while features at the poles can take 36 days. And the inside of the Sun seems to take about 27 days.

9. The outer atmosphere is hotter than the surface.

The surface of the Sun reaches temperatures of 6,000 Kelvin. But this is actually much less than the Sun's atmosphere. Above the surface of the Sun is a region of the atmosphere called the chromosphere, where temperatures can reach 100,000 K. But that's nothing. There's an even more distant region called the corona, which extends to a volume even larger than the Sun itself. Temperatures in the corona can reach 1 million K.

10. There are spacecraft observing the Sun right now.

The most famous spacecraft sent to observe the Sun is the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, built by NASA and ESA, and launched in December, 1995. SOHO has been continuously observing the Sun since then, and sent back countless images. A more recent mission is NASA's STEREO spacecraft. This was actually two spacecraft, launched in October 2006. These twin spacecraft were designed to watch the same activity on the Sun from two different vantage points, to give a 3-D perspective of the Sun's activity, and allow astronomers to better predict space weather.

Mind Blowing Facts

Mind Blowing Facts

1. Turtles have no teeth.


2. Prehistoric turtles may have weighed as much as 5,000 pounds.


3. Only one out of a thousand baby sea turtles survives after hatching.


4. Sea turtles absorb a lot of salt from the sea water in which they live. They excrete excess salt from their eyes, so it often looks as though they're crying.


5. Helium is a colourless, odourless, tasteless inert gas at room temperature and makes up about 0.0005% of the air we breathe.


6. Helium Balloon Gas makes balloons float. Helium is lighter than air and just as the heaviest things will tend to fall to the bottom, the lightest things will rise to the top.


7. Helium Balloon Gas makes balloons float. Helium is lighter than air and just as the heaviest things will tend to fall to the bottom, the lightest things will rise to the top.


8. Camels can spit.


9. An ostrich can run 43 miles per hour (70 kilometers per hour).


10. Pigs are the fourth most intelligent animal in the world.


11. Dinosaurs didn't eat grass? There was no grass in the days of the dinosaurs.


12. Dolphins can swim 37 miles per hour (60 kilometers per hour).


13. A crocodile's tongue is attached to the roof of its mouth? It cannot move. It cannot chew but its Digestive juices are so strong that it can digest a steel nail, Glass pieces, etc


14. Sharks are immune to disease i.e they do not suffer from any Disease.


15. Animals are either right- or left-handed? Polar bears are always left-handed, and so is Kermit the Frog.


16. Paris, France has more dogs than people.


17. New Zealand is home to 70 million sheep and only 40 million people.


18. Male polar bears weigh 1400 pounds and females only weight 550 pounds, on average.


19. Bison are excellent swimmers? Their head, hump and tail never go below the surface of the water.


20. There are 6 to 14 frogs species in the world that have no tongues. One of these is the African dwarf frog.


21. A frog named Santjie, who was in a frog derby in South Africa jumped 33 feet 5.5 inches.


22. The longest life span of a frog was 40 years


23. The eyes of a frog flatten down when it swallows its prey


24. The name `India' is derived from the River Indus


25. The Persian invaders converted it into Hindu. The name `Hindustan' combines Sindhu and Hindu and thus refers to the land of the Hindus.


26. Chess was invented in India.


27. The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.


28. The game of snakes & ladders was created by the 13th century poet saint Gyandev. It was originally called 'Mokshapat.' The ladders in the game represented virtues and the snakes indicated vices.


29. India has the most post offices in the world


30. 'Navigation' is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH


31. The word navy is also derived from the Sanskrit word 'Nou'.


32. Until 1896, India was the only source for diamonds to the world


33. The' place value system' and the 'decimal system' were developed in 100 BC in India.


34. A snail can sleep for 3 years.


35. The names of the continents all end with the same letter with which they start


36. Twenty-Four-Karat Gold is not pure gold since there is a small amount of copper in it. Absolutely pure gold is so soft that it can be molded with the hands.


37. Electricity doesn't move through a wire but through a field around the wire.


38. The first bicycle that was made in 1817 by Baron von Drais didn't have any pedals? People walked it along


39. The first steam powered train was invented by Robert Stephenson. It was called the Rocket.


40. A cheetah does not roar like a lion - it purrs like a cat (meow).


41. The original name for the butterfly was 'flutterby'


42. An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.


43. Ants don't sleep.


44. Dolphins usually live up to about twenty years, but have been known to live for about forty.


45. Dolphins sleep in a semi-alert state by resting one side of their brain at a time


46. A dolphin can hold its breath for 5 to 8 minutes at a time


47. Bats can detect warmth of an animal from about 16 cm away using its "nose-leaf".


48. Bats can also find food up to 18 ft. away and get information about the type of insect using their sense of echolocation.


49. The eyes of the chameleon can move independently & can see in two different directions at the same time.


50. Cockroach: Can detect movement as small as 2,000 times the diameter of a hydrogen atom.


51. Dragonfly: Eye contains 30,000 lenses.


52. Pig's Tongue contains 15,000 taste buds. For comparison, the human tongue has 9,000 taste buds.


53. The number system was invented by India. Aryabhatta was the scientist who invented the digit zero.


54. Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.


55. Earth weighs 5,972,000,000,000,000,000,000 tons


56. Like fingerprints, everyone's tongue print is different.


57. A duck's quack doesn't echo anywhere


58. Man is the only animal who'll eat with an enemy


59. The average woman uses about her height in lipstick every five years.


60. The first Christmas was celebrated on December 25,


61. AD 336 in Rome.


62. A Cockroach will live nine days without its head, before it starves to death.


63. A chimpanzee can learn to recognize itself in a mirror, but monkeys can't


64. A rat can last longer without water than a camel can


65. About 10% of the world's population is left-handed


66. Dolphins sleep with one eye open


67. Snakes have no external ears. Therefore, they do not hear the music of a "snake charmer". Instead, they are probably responding to the movements of the snake charmer and the flute. However, sound waves may travel through bones in their heads to the middle ear.


68. Many spiders have eight eyes.


69. The tongue of snakes has no taste buds. Instead, the tongue is used to bring smells and tastes into the mouth. Smells and tastes are then detected in two pits, called "Jacobson's organs", on the roof of their mouths. Receptors in the pits then transmit smell and taste information to the brain.


70. Birds don't sweat


71. The highest kangaroo leap recorded is 10 ft and the longest is 42 ft


72. Flamingo tongues were eaten common at Roman feasts


73. The smallest bird in the world is the Hummingbird. It weighs 1oz


74. The bird that can fly the fastest is called a White it can fly up to 95 miles per hour.


75. The oldest living thing on earth is 12,000 years old. It is the flowering shrubs called creosote bushes in the Mojave Desert


76. Tea is said to have been discovered in 2737 BC by a Chinese emperor when some tea leaves accidentally blew into a pot of boiling water.


77. A person can live without food for about a month, but only about a week without water.


If the amount of water in your body is reduced by just 1%, you'll feel thirsty.


If it's reduced by 10%, you'll die.


78. Along with its length neck, the giraffe has a very long tongue -- more than a foot and a half long. A giraffe can clean its ears with its 21-inch tongue


79. Ostriches can kick with tremendous force, but only forward. Don't Mess with them


80. An elephant can smell water three miles away


81. If you were to remove your skin, it would weigh as much as 5 pounds


82. A hippopotamus can run faster than a man


83. India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history


84. The world's known tallest man is Robert Pershing Wadlow. The giraffe is 5.49m (18 ft.), the man is 2.55m (8ft. 11.1 in.).


85. The world's tallest woman is Sandy Allen. She is 2.35m (7 ft. 7 in.).


86. The only 2 animals that can see behind itself without turning its head are the rabbit and the parrot.


87. The blue whale is the largest animal on earth. The heart of a blue whale is as big as a car, and its tongue is as long as an elephant.


88. The largest bird egg in the world today is that of the ostrich. Ostrich eggs are from 6 to 8 inches long. Because of their size and the thickness of their shells, they take 40 minutes to hard-boil. The average adult male ostrich, the world's largest living bird, weighs up to 345 pounds.


89. Every dolphin has its own signature whistle to distinguish it from other dolphins, much like a human fingerprint


90. The world's largest mammal, the blue whale, weighs 50 tons i.e. 50000 Kg at birth. Fully grown, it weighs as much as 150 tons i.e. 150000 Kg.


91. 90 % of all the ice in the world in on Antarctica


92. Antarctica is DRIEST continent. Antarctica is a desert


93. Antarctica is COLDEST continent, averaging minus 76 degrees in the winter


94. Mercury is the closest planet to the sun and it doesn't have a moon. Its atmosphere is so thin that during the day the temperature reaches 750 degrees, but at night it gets down to -300 degrees.


95. Jupiter is the largest planet. If Jupiter were hollow, you could fit 1000 earths inside! It is made up of gas and is not solid. The most famous feature on Jupiter is its Red Spot, which is actually an enormous hurricane that has been raging on Jupiter for hundreds of years! Sixteen moons orbit Jupiter.


96. Saturn is a very windy place! Winds can reach up to 1,100 miles per hour. Saturn is also made of gas. If you could find an ocean large enough, it would float. This planet is famous for its beautiful rings, and has at least 18 moons.


97. Uranus is the third largest planet, and is also made of gas. It's tilted on its side and spins north-south rather than east-west. Uranus has 15 moons.


98. Neptune takes 165 Earth years to get around the sun. It appears blue because it is made of methane gas. Neptune also has a big Spot like Jupiter. Winds on Neptune get up to 1,200 mile per hour! Neptune has 8 moons.


99. Pluto is the farthest planet from the sun... usually. It has such an unusual orbit that it is occasionally closer to the sun than Neptune. Pluto is made of rock and ice.


100. Just about everyone listens to the radio! 99% of homes in the United States have a least one radio. Most families have several radios.


101. Sound is sent from the radio station through the air to your radio by means of electromagnetic waves. News, music, Bible teaching, baseball games, plays, advertisements- these sounds are all converted into electromagnetic waves (radio waves) before they reach your radio and your ears.


102. At the radio station, the announcer speaks into a microphone. The microphone changes the sound of his voice into an electrical signal. This signal is weak and can't travel very far, so it's sent to a transmitter. The transmitter mixes the signal with some strong radio signals called carrier waves. These waves are then sent out through a special antenna at the speed of light! They reach the antenna of your radio. Your antenna "catches" the signal, and the radio's amplifier strengthens the signal and sends it to the speakers. The speakers vibrate, and your ears pick up the vibrations and your brain translates them into the voice of the radio announcer back at the station. When you consider all the places the announcer's voice travels


103. Every radio station has its own frequency. When you turn the tuning knob on your radio, you are choosing which frequency you want your antenna to "catch."


104. Mountain lions are known by more than 100 names, including panther, catamount, cougar, painter and puma. It's scientific name is Felis concolor, which means "cat of one color." At one time, mountain lions were very common!


105. The large cats of the world are divided into two groups- those that roar, like tigers and African lions, and those that purr. Mountain lions purr, hiss, scream, and snarl, but they cannot roar.


106. They can jump a distance of 30 feet, and jump as high as 15 feet. It would take quite a fence to keep a mountain lion out!


107. Their favorite food is deer, but they'll eat other critters as well. They hunt alone, not in packs like wolves. They sneak up on their prey just like a house cat sneaks up on a bird or toy- one slow step at a time. A lion can eat ten pounds of meat at one time! That's equivalent to 40 quarter-pounder hamburgers!


108. Queen ants can live to be 30 years old


109. Dragonflies can flap their wings 28 times per second and they can fly up to 60 miles per hour


110. As fast as dragonflies can flap their wings, bees are even faster... they can flap their wings 435 times per second


111. Human thigh bones are stronger than concrete.


112. You can't kill yourself by holding your breath


113. Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day


114. Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people


115. The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!


116. Fingernails grow nearly 4 times faster than toenails!


117. Women blink nearly twice as much as men


118. Honey is the only food that does not spoil. Honey found in the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs has been tasted by archaeologists and found edible


119. Coca-Cola would be green if colouring weren't added to it.


120. More people are allergic to cow's milk than any other food.


121. Camels have three eyelids to protect themselves from blowing sand


122. Earth is the only planet not named after a god.


123. It's against the law to burp, or sneeze in a church in Nebraska, USA.


124. Some worms will eat themselves if they can't find any food!


125. It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open


126. Queen Elizabeth I regarded herself as a paragon of cleanliness. She declared that she bathed once every three months, whether she needed it or not


127. Slugs have 4 noses.


128. Owls are the only birds who can see the colour blue.


129. Your tongue is the only muscle in your body that is attached at only one end


130. More than 1,000 different languages are spoken on the continent of Africa.


131. There was once an undersea post office in the Bahamas.


132. Abraham Lincoln's mother died when she drank the milk of a cow that grazed on poisonous snakeroot


133. After the death of Albert Einstein his brain was removed by a pathologist and put in a jar for future study.


134. Penguins are not found in the North Pole


135. A dentist invented the Electric Chair.


136. A whip makes a cracking sound because its tip moves faster than the speed of sound


137. Alexander Graham Bell's wife and mother were both deaf


138. Cockroaches break wind every 15 minutes.


139. Fish scales are an ingredient in most lipsticks


140. Canada" is an Indian word meaning "Big Village".


141. 259200 people die every day.


142. 11% of the world is left-handed


143. 1.7 litres of saliva is produced each day


144. The worlds oldest piece of chewing gum is 9000 years old!


145. The largest beetle in the Americas is the Hercules beetle, which can be 4 to 6 inches in length. That's bigger than your hand!


146. A full-grown male mountain lion may be 9 feet long, including his tail!


147. There are two kinds of radio stations: AM and FM. That's why there are two dials on your radio. AM is used mostly for stations that specialize in talking, such as Christian stations that have Bible stories and sermons; sports stations that broadcast live baseball and football games; and stations that specialize in news programs and "talk shows," where listeners call the station and discuss various topics. FM is used mostly for stations that specialize in music.


148. The average lead pencil can draw a line that is almost 35 miles long or you can write almost 50,000 words in English with just one pencil


149. The Wright Brothers invented one of the first airplanes. It was called the Kitty Hawk.


150. The worst industrial disaster in India, occurred in 1984 in Bhopal the capital of Madhya Pradesh. A deadly chemical, methly isocyanate leaked out of the Union Carbide factory killing more than 2500 and leaving thousands sick. In fact the effects of this gas tragedy is being felt even today.


151. Mars is nicknamed the "Red Planet," because it looks reddish in the night sky. Mars has 2 moons.


152. Venus is nicknamed the "Jewel of the Sky." Because of the greenhouse effect, it is hotter than Mercury, even though it's not as close to the sun. Venus does not have a moon but it does have clouds of sulfuric acid! If you're gonna visit Venus, pack your gas mask!


153. Tens of thousands of participants come from all over the world, fight in a harmless battle where more than one hundred metric tons of over-ripe tomatoes are thrown in the streets.