A QUITE INTERESTING BOOK 1,227 QI FACTS TO BLOW YOUR SOCKS OFF Compiled by John Lloyd, John Mitchinson & James Harkin with the QI Elves Anne Miller, Andy Murray & Alex Bell Copyright First published in 2012 by Faber and Faber Ltd Bloomsbury House 74–77 Great Russell Street London WC1B 3DA This ebook edition first published in 2012 All rights reserved © QI Ltd, 2012 The right of QI Ltd to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly ISBN 978–0–571–29795–5 Contents Title Page Copyright Introduction Epigraph 1,227 Facts Tasting Notes Index About the Authors By the Same Authors Introduction I am no poet but, if you think for yourselves as I proceed, the facts will form a poem in your mind. MICHAEL FARADAY (1791–1867) Michael Faraday was one of the greatest scientists in history and the greatest experimentalist of them all. The son of a village blacksmith from a desolate part of Cumbria, he left school at 14 with only the most rudimentary education, and taught himself everything he knew by reading the books that passed through his hands during his seven-year apprenticeship to a London bookbinder. At QI, we think a great deal of Michael Faraday, and we’re not the only ones. Albert Einstein kept a picture of him on his study wall, alongside Isaac Newton and James Clerk Maxwell. Like Faraday, we read a lot of books – on any and every conceivable subject, and the more madly random the better. None of us claim to have an ounce of Faraday’s genius, but all three of us, despite the fact that we each went to university (43, 31 and 16 years ago respectively), count ourselves as essentially self-educated. We have achieved this together over the last ten years by applying the QI Research Method, which can be expressed in a single line. It is to ‘read all of anything (even the footnotes) but only write down what you, personally, find interesting’. This not only reduces, by several orders of magnitude, the essentially infinite amount of available information in the universe, but it also has the delightful side effect that we really do ‘learn something new every day’. For instance, until 20 minutes ago, when we started writing this introduction, none of us knew that Michael Faraday (as in so many other ways) was more than 150 years ahead of us. For he did exactly the same thing as we now do: he read every book he came across, but only noted down what he found ‘singular or clever’. Core QI research always begins like this, in nuggets. Each bit is then added to our database, expressed in the clearest and sparest form that we can manage. This simple way of distilling knowledge leaves behind a rich residue of astonishment and delight, a small selection of which is before you. Much of what we find lays bare, surprisingly often, what is not known, rather than what is known. Such information (or lack of it) can be returned to again and again without ever becoming dull. It bears thinking about, often. When Newton was asked how he had discovered the universal law of gravitation, he replied, ‘By thinking on it continually.’ Or, as another of our heroes, Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, put it: ‘Do not become a mere recorder of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin.’ So here, in bite-sized pieces, nestling among the known and the numbered, are the mysteries of the enormous and the minuscule; of human comedy and tragedy; of heat, light, speed, life, art and thought. As Faraday urged his students, we also try to think for ourselves. But more uncannily than that, coaxing these 1,227 items into an order that felt comfortable and right has had the strange result that they have indeed come to form a kind of poem in the mind. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we have enjoyed putting them together. And, if you solve any of the mysteries, let us know. JOHN LLOYD, JOHN MITCHINSON & JAMES HARKIN Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. DANIEL PATRICK MOYNIHAN (1927–2003) Asteroid 1,227 is called Geranium. The ozone layer smells faintly of geraniums. The centre of the galaxy tastes like raspberries. The universe is shaped like a vuvuzela. Light travels 18 million times faster than rain. The Queen is the legal owner of one-sixth of the Earth’s land surface. The name of the first human being in Norse mythology is Ask. Everybody expected the Spanish Inquisition – they were legally obliged to give 30 days’ notice. Octopuses have three hearts. Kangaroos have three vaginas. Three of Fidel Castro’s sons, Alexis, Alexander and Alejandro, are named after Alexander the Great. The opening lines of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men In A Boat are: ‘There were four of us.’