Interesting facts

• The word “hundred” comes from the old Norse term, “hundrath”, which actually means 120 and not 100.
• In a room of 23 people there’s a 50% chance that two people have the same birthday.
• Most mathematical symbols weren’t invented until the 16th century. Before that, equations were written in words.
• Conversely, “one” is the only number that is spelt with letters arranged in descending order.
• The reason Americans call mathematics “math”, is because they argue that “mathematics” functions as a singular noun so ‘math’ should be singular too.
• Markings on animal bones indicate that humans have been doing maths since around 30,000BC.
• The ability to tame fire and ice to cook and store food helped humans develop new technology and innovations.
• The industrial revolution transformed cooking forever. Food could be mass-produced, mass-marketed, and standardized.
• Cooking food with fire or heat is a uniquely human activity. While archeological evidence for cooking only goes as far back as 1 million years ago, cooking may have started 2 million years ago.
• Historically, women were most vulnerable to the dangers of cooking, especially because they often wore billowing skirts and long sleeves around open fires.
• Smoke, chiefly from indoor cooking fires, kills about 1.5 million people every year in the developing world.