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“...And if placed side by side, there would be enough to wrap around the world 9 times!!” We’ve all heard at least one of those ‘amazing’ facts. They’re on every company’s marketing page for kids titled Amazing Facts about...[insert product here], and my guess is these facts’ primary reason for existence is most likely so that they will end up on the poster of some kid’s 6th grade science project.
But there’s something about this phrase that makes the fact ‘amazing’, and so people use them over and over. If you don’t believe me, here is a small collection of facts gathered from various websites online. I didn’t cite them because there’s a high possibility they are not credible sources anyway:
“The Sears Tower contains enough concrete to build an eight-lane, five-mile-long highway, enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles, and enough telephone wiring to wrap around the world 1.75 times.”
“More than 3,000,000,000 Otis Spunkmeyer cookies are enjoyed every year. That’s enough cookies to wrap around the world 19 times!”
“Americans use enough toilet paper in one day to wrap around the world nine times.”
“1,000,000 4cm paper clips would wrap around the world 1000.75 times.”
“If all the Play-Doh made since 1956 was combined and extruded through the Fun Factory®, it would make a "snake" that would wrap around the world nearly 300 times.”
“The DNA in our cells would wrap around the world about 350 times.”
“If stretched end-to-end, the Slinky toys sold since 1945 (about 250 million) would wrap around the world 126 times.”
“2 billion brownies if placed side by side would wrap around the world 2 and a half times.”
“Placed side-by-side, a year's worth of SUPERPRETZEL soft pretzels, one billion in all, would wrap around the world three times. This is an estimate since actually wrapping the world in soft pretzels is a logistical nightmare.”
I love that they clarified that... as if someone would be otherwise planning to test it out and disprove them.
“If you were to put every pair of Havaianas sandals ever made in a straight line it would wrap around the world 4 times.”
“If all the sandwiches made by Subway in a year were placed end to end, they would wrap around the world an estimated six times.”
“If all the prunes grown in California last year were laid end-to-end, they would wrap around the world 70 times.”
“In fact, the amount of playing cards produced in one year, if laid end to end, would wrap around the world 11 times.”
“Today there are so many EEGs done that the paper used, if placed end to end, would wrap around the world ten times or more each year.”
“If we put all of our personal cells together it would wrap around the world 5 million times.”
“We would wrap around the world about 10 1/2 times if the average person had a wingspan of 6 FT.”
Wingspan? Yeah we could go flying around the world a lot more times if we had wings.
“If the strawberries produced by California they were laid out next to each other, it is said that they would wrap around the world 15 times and on average there are close to 200 seeds in every berry!”
“If you printed all the tweets ever made, the line would wrap around the world over 3 times.”
“If all of the 6.5 oz. bottles ever produced by the Coca-Cola Bottlers, were placed end to end, they would wrap around the world more than 11000 times.”
“If you stood the Decemberist’s fan base shoulder to shoulder, the line would wrap around the world six times.”
Yeah, but how long is their wingspan??
“The shoreline of Alaska is 34,000 miles and would wrap around the world in stretched into a straight line.”
“25 Billion cups Styrofoam stretched end to end would wrap around the world…twice!”
“A billion burgers, laid end-to- end, would wrap around the world 52 times and still leave enough, laid end-to-end, to reach the moon and back.”
“Oregon produces enough pears to stretch back and forth from Portland to New York 16.5 times. If laid end to end, would they wrap around the world twice.”
“According to IKEA, the 41 million bookcases sold since 1979 laid end to end would wrap around the world twice.”
"Local Kraft managers say the plant makes so much macaroni and cheese in a year that if they lined up all the boxes, end to end, the line would wrap around the world 2.4 times."
“If placed end-on-end 100 million trays of ZESPRI (tm) Kiwifruit would wrap around the world five times.”
“Supposing the average length of collars to be fifteen inches and they were joined end to end, they would wrap around the world thirty -five times.”
“After Christmas, Valentine's Day is the second largest card-sending holiday with around one billion cards sent globally. One billion cards stretched end to end would wrap around the world five times!”
“If we laid out end to end all the chips eaten in this country every year they would wrap around the world 76 times!”
And then I found this gem...
“Even if you put all the people from Asia side by side, they could not go all the way around the Earth.”
While all these facts are alone amazing in themselves, I put them in order so you could compare. So in order of how many times they could wrap around the world...
Alaska’s shoreline
Telephone wiring of sears tower
Ikea bookcases
Styrofoam cups
Oregon pears
Macaroni
Brownies
Tweets
Pretzels
Flip flops
Valentines Day cards
Kiwi fruit
Subway sandwiches
Decemberists fan base
Toilet Paper
EEG paper
People
Playing cards
California stawberries
Cookies
Collars
Burgers
California prunes
USA consumed chips
Slinkies
Play doh
DNA
Paper clips
Coca-cola bottles
All of our cells
Now, to apply our new-found knowledge:
Formula for making any fact into an AMAZING fact
(If you don’t like the word ‘amazing’ any of the following words can be substituted: interesting, mind blowing, unusual, shocking, incredible, etc.)
STEP ONE: First take any ol’ fact that may or may not be impressive in and of itself that contains some sort of number.
Example: In an average week, I eat about 6 Taco bean burritos. Each burrito is approximately 6 inches long , weighs 7 ounces, and it takes me about 2 minutes to eat each one. For every two burritos, I drink 16 ounces of water. Each week, I spend $6.42 at Taco Bell.
STEP TWO: If it’s an already big number, move onto the next step. If it’s not already a big number, make it bigger, by multiplying it by something.
Example: That means that each year (X365) I eat 312 burritos. That’s 137 pounds and 156 feet of burritos. And in one year, I will have spent 10 straight hours eating them, and I will have had 16.25 gallons of water in one year just with my Taco Bell meals. Each year that costs almost $334. If I keep this up for 50 years (X50), I will have eaten 15, 600 burritos, (2,600 yards and 6850 pounds worth). I will have spent the equivalent of 21 days eating them and in the process I will have drunk almost 813 gallons of water out of Taco Bell cups. I will also have spent $16,700 just on Taco Bell bean burritos.
STEP THREE: You might already have an amazing fact, but to take it one step further, you compare it to something else amazing that people are familiar with. For your convenience I have included the measurements for the most stereotypical comparisons in a handy table as well as a link to an online converter.
http://www.peters1.dk/webtools/conversion.php?sprog=en
Whoa… Shocking, really. Freaking Amazing Distance and Length Football Field
(100 yards) Empire State Building (1250 feet tall) Around the earth
(24,901.55 miles) Weight and Mass Bowling Ball
(12 lbs) Volkswagen
(2000 lbs) Blue Whale
(300,710 pounds) Speed Cheetah
(70 mph) Airplane
(500 mph) Speed of Sound
(768 mph) Volume Carton of Milk
(1 gallon) Bathtub
(60 gallons) Swimming Pool
(22,080 gallons) Area and Space Football Field
(57,600 square feet) State of Texas (171,904,640 acres) The United States
(3.79 million square miles) Temperature (hot) Point of Death for Humans ( Above 104°F) Boiling Water
(212°F) The Sun
(11000°F) Temperature (cold) Point of Death for Humans ( Below 95°F) Water Freezes
(32°F) Dry Ice
(-109.3°F)
Application: If I continued eating at Taco Bell like I have been, in 50 years I will have consumed enough burritos to outweigh a Volkswagen Beetle and with the money I would have saved if I didn’t, I could have afforded to buy that Volkswagon with some cash leftover. If laid end to end, the burritos I ate would span 26 football fields and if stacked would reach 6 times higher than the top of the Empire State Building!
The exclamation point is always good for effect. You can also customize amazing facts by making a comparison to something personal (your own height, weight, age, etc) or by choosing to use facts that are pertinent to current events or your current situation (your city, school, family, etc).
Example: I consume about 2.5 times my own body weight in Taco Bell every year.
Once you’ve finished, be sure to find a sixth grader. There’s a science fair coming up and they are going to need some material for their poster.
But there’s something about this phrase that makes the fact ‘amazing’, and so people use them over and over. If you don’t believe me, here is a small collection of facts gathered from various websites online. I didn’t cite them because there’s a high possibility they are not credible sources anyway:
“The Sears Tower contains enough concrete to build an eight-lane, five-mile-long highway, enough steel to build 50,000 automobiles, and enough telephone wiring to wrap around the world 1.75 times.”
“More than 3,000,000,000 Otis Spunkmeyer cookies are enjoyed every year. That’s enough cookies to wrap around the world 19 times!”
“Americans use enough toilet paper in one day to wrap around the world nine times.”
“1,000,000 4cm paper clips would wrap around the world 1000.75 times.”
“If all the Play-Doh made since 1956 was combined and extruded through the Fun Factory®, it would make a "snake" that would wrap around the world nearly 300 times.”
“The DNA in our cells would wrap around the world about 350 times.”
“If stretched end-to-end, the Slinky toys sold since 1945 (about 250 million) would wrap around the world 126 times.”
“2 billion brownies if placed side by side would wrap around the world 2 and a half times.”
“Placed side-by-side, a year's worth of SUPERPRETZEL soft pretzels, one billion in all, would wrap around the world three times. This is an estimate since actually wrapping the world in soft pretzels is a logistical nightmare.”
I love that they clarified that... as if someone would be otherwise planning to test it out and disprove them.
“If you were to put every pair of Havaianas sandals ever made in a straight line it would wrap around the world 4 times.”
“If all the sandwiches made by Subway in a year were placed end to end, they would wrap around the world an estimated six times.”
“If all the prunes grown in California last year were laid end-to-end, they would wrap around the world 70 times.”
“In fact, the amount of playing cards produced in one year, if laid end to end, would wrap around the world 11 times.”
“Today there are so many EEGs done that the paper used, if placed end to end, would wrap around the world ten times or more each year.”
“If we put all of our personal cells together it would wrap around the world 5 million times.”
“We would wrap around the world about 10 1/2 times if the average person had a wingspan of 6 FT.”
Wingspan? Yeah we could go flying around the world a lot more times if we had wings.
“If the strawberries produced by California they were laid out next to each other, it is said that they would wrap around the world 15 times and on average there are close to 200 seeds in every berry!”
“If you printed all the tweets ever made, the line would wrap around the world over 3 times.”
“If all of the 6.5 oz. bottles ever produced by the Coca-Cola Bottlers, were placed end to end, they would wrap around the world more than 11000 times.”
“If you stood the Decemberist’s fan base shoulder to shoulder, the line would wrap around the world six times.”
Yeah, but how long is their wingspan??
“The shoreline of Alaska is 34,000 miles and would wrap around the world in stretched into a straight line.”
“25 Billion cups Styrofoam stretched end to end would wrap around the world…twice!”
“A billion burgers, laid end-to- end, would wrap around the world 52 times and still leave enough, laid end-to-end, to reach the moon and back.”
“Oregon produces enough pears to stretch back and forth from Portland to New York 16.5 times. If laid end to end, would they wrap around the world twice.”
“According to IKEA, the 41 million bookcases sold since 1979 laid end to end would wrap around the world twice.”
"Local Kraft managers say the plant makes so much macaroni and cheese in a year that if they lined up all the boxes, end to end, the line would wrap around the world 2.4 times."
“If placed end-on-end 100 million trays of ZESPRI (tm) Kiwifruit would wrap around the world five times.”
“Supposing the average length of collars to be fifteen inches and they were joined end to end, they would wrap around the world thirty -five times.”
“After Christmas, Valentine's Day is the second largest card-sending holiday with around one billion cards sent globally. One billion cards stretched end to end would wrap around the world five times!”
“If we laid out end to end all the chips eaten in this country every year they would wrap around the world 76 times!”
And then I found this gem...
“Even if you put all the people from Asia side by side, they could not go all the way around the Earth.”
While all these facts are alone amazing in themselves, I put them in order so you could compare. So in order of how many times they could wrap around the world...
Alaska’s shoreline
Telephone wiring of sears tower
Ikea bookcases
Styrofoam cups
Oregon pears
Macaroni
Brownies
Tweets
Pretzels
Flip flops
Valentines Day cards
Kiwi fruit
Subway sandwiches
Decemberists fan base
Toilet Paper
EEG paper
People
Playing cards
California stawberries
Cookies
Collars
Burgers
California prunes
USA consumed chips
Slinkies
Play doh
DNA
Paper clips
Coca-cola bottles
All of our cells
Now, to apply our new-found knowledge:
Formula for making any fact into an AMAZING fact
(If you don’t like the word ‘amazing’ any of the following words can be substituted: interesting, mind blowing, unusual, shocking, incredible, etc.)
STEP ONE: First take any ol’ fact that may or may not be impressive in and of itself that contains some sort of number.
Example: In an average week, I eat about 6 Taco bean burritos. Each burrito is approximately 6 inches long , weighs 7 ounces, and it takes me about 2 minutes to eat each one. For every two burritos, I drink 16 ounces of water. Each week, I spend $6.42 at Taco Bell.
STEP TWO: If it’s an already big number, move onto the next step. If it’s not already a big number, make it bigger, by multiplying it by something.
Example: That means that each year (X365) I eat 312 burritos. That’s 137 pounds and 156 feet of burritos. And in one year, I will have spent 10 straight hours eating them, and I will have had 16.25 gallons of water in one year just with my Taco Bell meals. Each year that costs almost $334. If I keep this up for 50 years (X50), I will have eaten 15, 600 burritos, (2,600 yards and 6850 pounds worth). I will have spent the equivalent of 21 days eating them and in the process I will have drunk almost 813 gallons of water out of Taco Bell cups. I will also have spent $16,700 just on Taco Bell bean burritos.
STEP THREE: You might already have an amazing fact, but to take it one step further, you compare it to something else amazing that people are familiar with. For your convenience I have included the measurements for the most stereotypical comparisons in a handy table as well as a link to an online converter.
http://www.peters1.dk/webtools/conversion.php?sprog=en
Whoa… Shocking, really. Freaking Amazing Distance and Length Football Field
(100 yards) Empire State Building (1250 feet tall) Around the earth
(24,901.55 miles) Weight and Mass Bowling Ball
(12 lbs) Volkswagen
(2000 lbs) Blue Whale
(300,710 pounds) Speed Cheetah
(70 mph) Airplane
(500 mph) Speed of Sound
(768 mph) Volume Carton of Milk
(1 gallon) Bathtub
(60 gallons) Swimming Pool
(22,080 gallons) Area and Space Football Field
(57,600 square feet) State of Texas (171,904,640 acres) The United States
(3.79 million square miles) Temperature (hot) Point of Death for Humans ( Above 104°F) Boiling Water
(212°F) The Sun
(11000°F) Temperature (cold) Point of Death for Humans ( Below 95°F) Water Freezes
(32°F) Dry Ice
(-109.3°F)
Application: If I continued eating at Taco Bell like I have been, in 50 years I will have consumed enough burritos to outweigh a Volkswagen Beetle and with the money I would have saved if I didn’t, I could have afforded to buy that Volkswagon with some cash leftover. If laid end to end, the burritos I ate would span 26 football fields and if stacked would reach 6 times higher than the top of the Empire State Building!
The exclamation point is always good for effect. You can also customize amazing facts by making a comparison to something personal (your own height, weight, age, etc) or by choosing to use facts that are pertinent to current events or your current situation (your city, school, family, etc).
Example: I consume about 2.5 times my own body weight in Taco Bell every year.
Once you’ve finished, be sure to find a sixth grader. There’s a science fair coming up and they are going to need some material for their poster.