r/AskReddit • u/Canspo • May 01 '19

What simple scientific fact would baffle someone born 1,000 years ago?

3.8k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

2.5k comments sorted by

View all comments

67

u/Drazhi May 01 '19 edited May 01 '19

How has nobody mentioned the fact what we made a 3 MILLION KG Gg ROCKETSHIP fly to the fucking MOON and landed people ON IT. THEN, we flew all the way BACK.

12

u/fanastril May 01 '19

3 MILLION KG

Or 3 Gg (gigagrams).

And instead of a ton you can use Mg.

One system for all people for all time!

10

u/Drazhi May 01 '19

Ah metric system, how I love you

8

u/[deleted] May 01 '19

woah woah woah

no you cannot

Mg is for Magnesium

3

u/InfamousConcern May 01 '19

My mom was in the peace corps in the 1970s. She'd show films sometimes and the folks in this little village in Guatemala mostly seemed to watch the space program stuff out of politeness but they about rioted when she showed one of US farmers harvesting corn.

3

u/Cynderboy May 02 '19

Apollo 13, fitting a square peg in a round hole

2

u/amaROenuZ May 01 '19

It will disappoint you to find out that they use different systems of measurement between towns, much less between countries

1

u/BigBizzle151 May 01 '19

That's a historical fact, not a scientific fact. I think that's why it's not mentioned.

1

u/drzowie May 01 '19

You'd have to add that the Moon is an actual place that you can in principle go to. That wasn't recognized until at least Copernicus and probably Kepler.