4 ms·
Ask HN: Wikipedia articles that made you say "wow "?
As title suggests, I'm looking for Wikipedia articles that made you feel like "one of today's lucky 10000" [1].
I recently read the article about Catatumbo lightning [2], which gave me the desired feelings of cool, surprising, and scientifically interesting. I'd love to be aware of more such topics. I suppose it doesn't even have to be Wikipedia; it's just a good medium for this sort of thing.
1. https://xkcd.com/1053/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catatumbo_lightning
- keiferski 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_and_Reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_and_Reality
- mtmail 3y agoFeel free to submit interesting articles, other users do https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org I recently found https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_micronations
- high_byte 3y agothis one is interesting! I really see the future becoming more like the network states balaji is talking about. specifically this one is interesting, crowdfunded an island! I dreamt about exactly this around the same time - but this guy actually did it! :D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Islandia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Islandia
- h2odragon 3y agoI post this one occasionally, for the pure joy of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compression_generator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explosively_pumped_flux_compre... "it doesn't have to work for very long" design doesn't get much shorter time scale than that. (Barring fusion / fission but you shouldn't do that in the garage) In a way it's the inverse of: https://www.capturedlightning.com/frames/shrinker.html https://www.capturedlightning.com/frames/shrinker.html
- mikewarot 3y agoThere was research a while back to fit optics to the back end of fighter aircraft. Effectively turning the airplane into a gas dynamic laser, and extracting the energy from the population inversion of CO2 in the supersonic exhaust could yield up to 10 Megawatts of output!
- speedgoose 3y agoNSFW: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_ball_torture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_and_ball_torture
- bjourne 3y agoNot quite what you're looking for, but there's a video about Wikipedia that will make you say "oh, shit" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- max_ 3y agoAs a fan of the occult & alchemy this Wikipedia page made me feel so emotional especially the "Gallery" section. I found it a few weeks back & I keep visiting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendor_Solis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splendor_Solis
- codingdave 3y agoThere is a fairly decent list at: https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=wikipedia.org
- uaas 3y agoThanks for reminding me of the ‘from?’ feature!
- rfarley04 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bridgman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laura_Bridgman I mean, sure, Helen Keller accomplished a lot. But crazy to me that no one talks about the deafbling woman who validated tactile signing almost 50 years before her.
- thorin 3y agoPosted this a few days ago but no one commented. I heard about it on the new Netflix series on ww2. Impressive stuff https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowding_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dowding_system
- spr3zi 3y agoThe article 'List of missing treasures' is a great launching point. While there are many fantastic things in there, I particularly enjoy learning about all of the artifacts from rulers of past that have been lost to time, and are theoretically out there somewhere in the water or some farmer's field. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_missing_treasures
- neversaydie 3y agoThis one is good for a poke in the critical thinking, with a side of random facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions
- kirubakaran 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow
- idontwantthis 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_sex_scandal?wprov=sfti1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newport_sex_scandal?wprov=sfti... It was basically that episode of South Park where Butters becomes a pimp and it almost cost FDR his career.
- wruza 3y agoNot a wiki article, but a whole googology and fast growing hierarchies field. It is quite a rabbithole. You can read/watch about things like G, TREE, SCG, BB. But only after diving deep you can start to comprehend what you could think they actually are. All astrophysics wows instantly pale in comparison. For example, the tiny big number like 3^^^^3 has ~around 3^^^^3 digits in basically any reasonable base: base-10, base-16, base-64k, base-1m. You can’t express its length in a regular form. For contrast, the “trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillions” has only 21 digits in base-1m. Another example is Moser: N in a triangle is N^N. So e.g. N in two triangles would be (N^N)^(N^N). N in a square is N in N triangles. N in a pentagon is N in N squares. Mega is 2 in a pentagon, i.e. 2 in two squares, or 2 in two triangles and a square, or 256 in a square, or 256 in 256 triangles. Pretty big, huh? Moser is 2 in a Mega-gon.
- Quinzel 3y agoThis isn’t scientifically fascinating, but I didn’t believe this story when I first heard it… Keith Sapsford (14yrs old) died from falling out of a landing wheel compartment of a plane shortly after take off. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel-well_stowaway https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel-well_stowaway