What fascinates you?

Paulie Gualtieri

how walking barefoot in a sandy beach and going in for a dip really cheers me up .

Bookworm85

yuppies wrote: »

Latest estimate I read for the number of stars in the universe is 300,000 million, million, million (3 x 10^23)!

If you got a penny to represent our solar system, the sun would be like a bit of dust in the centre with the planets like smaller bits of dust, and the nearest star would be 2 football pitches away! Space is fairly empty.

Any mind-bending analogies like this to help us comprehend space, I find fascinating..

From 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson.

On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway)

Mindblowing stuff!!

Laurence_OC

The Unknown.

Orcas. There are two different types of orca pod, transient orcas, who don't have the family dynamic and language of a regular orca pod, they just roam the seas killing and eating; then the family pods, who speak their own individual languages and have family dynamics much like we do - kids are taught by their own parents, play with the other young orcas, probably cousins, take care of the older orcas (grandparents and great grandparents). The BBC video of the orcas teaming up to knock the seal off the block of ice is famous now, but also look up how they kill and eat sting rays without being bitten (*facepalms.... I meant stung). These are fantastic, intelligent animals. I was not surprised when Tillikum killed a trainer in Seaworld a few years ago, the third person who he has been invloved in the death of; he's a bull orca. People think it's good whale gone bad. The media did cover it badly, showing pictures of Dawn the trainer hugging an orca, that wasn't Tillikum. He wasn't used in the hands on parts of the shows, because he was wilder and unpredictable. He was only brought out at the end for the jumping and whatever. My boyfriend's grandmother argued with me over this, she said she's been to Seaworld and the orcas have "plenty of space". Orca pods regularly cover 300km in a day. Plenty of space my arse.

I like dolphins yes, they are every bit as amazing as orcas, but they appear to have a conscience. Orcas don't give a sh*t, they'll just kill whatever they feel like. They are the "wolves of the sea" for a reason!

I have never seen an orca, in my own memory, but I would like to - but not in captivity. Apparently when I was a year old I saw them doing their tricks in Windsor Safari Park. I sometimes wonder if that had any influence on my adult orca reverence.

I also love penguins, but they're not a fascination to me.

dermiek

flutterflye wrote: »

Flutterflye?
Pink bunny avatar?
Finds boobs boring?
Hmmm.... And you think I'm a guy?!!
I'm neither a guy, but i am a lesbian.

FYP


:pac:

charlemont

SafeSurfer wrote: »

Stoned Again :rolleyes:

Too much typing to be stoned !!

Chuck Stone

Engineering and aerospace technology - engines, satellites, space probes, rocketry, tunnels, railways, bridges, trains, cars, trucks etc.

Sociology, psychology, philosophy, economics, politics (of power).

Words. I've been meaning to start a thread on the difference between connotations and denotations and how it impacts how we think about things but... procrastination. :pac:

J. Marston

Space and the infiniteness of it.

LH Pathe

When the seagulls follow the trawler

Jester252

The world economic and the fact that it runs on stuff that we give a value to.
Nuclear explosions I could watch videos of them all day

Plumpynutt

Space in all its mind boggling infinity. An incredibly humbling experience just thinking about it IMO,

however

krudler wrote: »

Space, its mind boggling how insignifigant we are in the universe, we're nothing, a speck on a speck somewhere in a galaxy, look at this picture:

Yes we are small, but we are made out of stars, and we are the universe self aware, and that, to me is one of the most amazing things I've ever considered

quantum physics

smash

The ocean. I could literally spend hours snorkelling and just looking around.

Nothingbetter2d

flutterflye wrote: »

Flutterflye?
Pink bunny avatar?
Finds boobs boring?
Hmmm.... And you think I'm a guy?!!
I'm neither a guy, or a lesbian.

he is transexual

Crooked Jack

Things like the economy and the stock market. Or maybe fascinate is the wrong word but they certainly confuse me. I mean, we made them up. They're not real. We just invented them and yet we have shackled ourselves to them, built a rod for our own backs.
If you were to remove all human life from Earth you'd still have the trees and the grass and the mountains and the oceans and the birds and the fish but it's not as if you'd find the economy ambling through the desert or the jungle. What? All of a sudden some numbers changed somewhere on a computer and now, despite the fact that I'm working just as hard as ever and earning the same money I can now afford less stuff. I dont get it.

Novella

Oh, pregnancy. I think pregnancy is incredible. Growing a whole new, tiny person.

The Princess Bride

Cobwebs.
How such a tiny insect can make such an intricate yet practical design-is quite simply amazing.

Also watching birds making nests- as above-wow.

Duggy747

Space - Many a night if I'm having a ciggie out the back of the house I like to just stare at the moon and the stars, keeping an eye out for any of the huge number of satellites that float by. Fascinates me how tiny and insignificant we are to the surrounding universe, but in a good way.

Don't need weed to appreciate what's right above your head. Staring at the moon thinking that out of the billions and billions of humans that have ever existed, only a handful of people have stepped on it's surface.

Nature docs - I'll watch any documentary but nature ones are my favourite. Anything with Attenborough involved especially, even if he had nothing to do with the production and just narrates. I can't watch his programs if I'm slighty tired, it's the only time I fall asleep watching something. That man has easily been the biggest factor in making me smarter about the natural world.

Plus, having a huge interesting in the production of TV & film the BBC never cease to amaze me with their production and technological skills on these shows.

Technology - Anything from plain gadgetry to medical science. It's Insane how far we've come in 50 years, let alone a 100. Everything in this picture can be carried in your pocket with one device now.

The Brain - Anything involving psychology, what makes a person tick and what drives people to act / do things such as a person with great talents right down to what drives a sick bastard to do horrible things to another.

Animals - Just love watching the wild ones in action and going about doing their thing.

Mr.Biscuits

MP3s and the like.

I remember going on the bounce from school and my mate asked me to bring some good music over as he had zilch and few movies. All I brought was around twenty of my favourite albums and four or five vids but it near broke my arms carrying all that stuff four miles.

Today that would be just a few GB on a memory card the size of your fingernail, or even smaller.

Also, the access to music, films and TV is astonishing.

I can remember writing to radio stations and asking them to play songs so that I could record them. Yes kids, I actually put pen to paper and posted off a letter asking someone to play a song in a week or so, just so as I could listen to it.

I hear people whine about image quality of DVDs and how their Blu Ray just didn't have the depth they were anticipating and I feel like slapping them with my shoe, Muslim style.

VCR Tracking - now there was visual entertainment issues.

Tipsy McSwagger

Shocking crimes and serial killers.

Sauve

The fluidity of water.
I do understand what's going on, but I'm still amazed by it.

AwayWithFaries

Planes Just watched a documentary about the Airbus a380. Ridiculous.

Ghandee

I have a donkey jacket.

It has nine buttons down the front.

I can only fasten eight.

hal9000

SPACE!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVn1oQL9sWg

Paparazzo

Ghandee wrote: »

I have a donkey jacket.

It has nine buttons down the front.

I can only fasten eight.

Jack White even wrote a song about it

candy-gal1

People, their good traits, bad traits, and the people who are pretty much all bad it seems but seem to be proud of that, its funny imho plus a nice learning experience

small minded people, aka people who are only used to some things but seem to be scared or shocked by anything else

life, when it turns around for you in a really really incredible way!

why some people would rather pay more for something when they dont have to, why people sit on you in the cinema practically and the like

Death, or moreso after death, not that i ever want to find out, ever, if thats possable

Godsentme

The receptionist in my job has about 500 phone numbers in her HEAD!!

Plazaman

In the last 10 years, scientists using genome mapping have been able to identify every single DNA strand in a human being.

Also technology has transformed computers from room sized to handheld.

And yet, despite all the money being thrown at it in the last 20 years, no one has come up with a cure for cancer except to poison it out with radiation and the likes.

Should every single disease not now be curable or are we being Mushroomised by someone.

Yes I know >>>>>> Conspiracies Theories... but it's Medical Research that fascinates me, do we not have enough people working on this or wha?

confusticated

Language, how it changes, similarities between words in different languages and how they developed and split. It's crazy.

Genuine racist/sexist/discriminating people. I just cannot understand how their eyes see a black person (for example) and their mind says "bad". I kinda think they can't possibly believe what they're saying and thinking, but they do...poorly expressed, sorry!

sbsquarepants

Existence itself fascinates me. What is all this stuff, where did it come from, what is it made of, how come some of it is alive and so on. I've recently being driving myself demented trying to find out what empty space is made of, i'm guessing it can't be just a lack of matter because forces, radiation etc can travel through it, so there must be some sort of medium for them to travel through, but what is that medium - ie in a universe full of "stuff" is it possible for bubbles of "non stuff" to exist at all? If there is nothing there, does it exist at all?
Also tits, I'm fascinated by tits:D

steddyeddy

We go from a single celled organisim (zygote) to one composed of billions of cells. The regulation in this cellular development is so complete that mistakes in development are in the minority rather than the majority.

steddyeddy

sbsquarepants wrote: »

Existence itself fascinates me. What is all this stuff, where did it come from, what is it made of, how come some of it is alive and so on. I've recently being driving myself demented trying to find out what empty space is made of, i'm guessing it can't be just a lack of matter because forces, radiation etc can travel through it, so there must be some sort of medium for them to travel through, but what is that medium - ie in a universe full of "stuff" is it possible for bubbles of "non stuff" to exist at all? If there is nothing there, does it exist at all?
Also tits, I'm fascinated by tits:D

+1 but I think t1ts arent as fascinating as a womans front bottom!

sbsquarepants

steddyeddy wrote: »

+1 but I think t1ts arent as fascinating as a womans front bottom!

I like those too;)

Sauve

steddyeddy wrote: »

womans front bottom!

Ewwww :mad:

Nothingbetter2d

steddyeddy wrote: »

+1 but I think t1ts arent as fascinating as a womans front bottom!

front bottom? how many centuries have you lived through????

steddyeddy

Nothingbetter2d wrote: »

front bottom? how many centuries have you lived through????

he he I did post some scientific stuff too!!

Sykk

Space and Astronomy. I showed my girlfriend the Moon last night through my telescope and it brought me back to the first time I'd seen the craters myself.

Stunning, can't possibly ever get sick of it.

Jester252

Tech is one of the things that just takes you back every once in a while.
I was doing an experiment in college when we started having problems with the computer. So a lab tech, my partner and I were troubleshooting it when we saw the specs for the computer. My phone was more powerful then it. It was just a moment when were taken back by the advance.

Jester252

Tech is one of the things that just takes you back every once in a while.
I was doing an experiment in college when we started having problems with the computer. So a lab tech, my partner and I were troubleshooting it when we saw the specs for the computer. My phone was more powerful then it. It was just a moment when were taken back by the advance.

BUBBLE WRAP

I always wonderd whats going on inside a wach when its working and also in a PSS3 or computer.

keano_afc

Kids fascinate me. The way they soak info up from such an early age. My daughter is 18 months and its absolutely fascinating watching her develop and pick up something new almost every day.

Space and the universe has been said, and it is absolutely mind boggling.

My wife hates that I have an interest in what drives serial killers to do what they do. But I find it so interesting. Reading up on different killers I'd love to take a walk inside their head and find out what it is that compels them to do what they do.

krudler

Sharks, great whites in particular, shark diving is top of my bucket list. Great Whites are terrifying yet fascinating animals. Scientists know so little about them, where they go to mate, how long their young gestate for etc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2FInaOCqoo

guinnessdrinker

The Irish Neolithic builders fascinate me. 5000 years later and many examples of their handiwork remain standing proudly.

I'm also fascinated how they were able to build some of their passage tombs that aligned to the rising and setting Sun during Winter and Summer Solstices. The most famous example being the sunrise illuminating the chamber in Newgrange at sunrise during the Winter solstice. But also check out Loughcrew in Meath and Carrowkeel in Sligo, just amazing!!!

token56

The electromagnetic spectrum and wireless technologies.

The fact that radio waves were first predict in 1867 and we know have practically ubiquitous wireless coverage in some form for wireless communication.

That the first commercial mobile phone was developed in 1983 and we now have the ability to freely surf the internet on our phones downloading huge amounts of data purely using wireless technologies. It is actually incredible to think about, well at least in my opinion.

Also this
http://jackadam.net/misc/radio_broadcasts/radio_broadcasts.jpg

The extent to which our radio communications have travelled. This is only our own galaxy, one of billions of galaxies. It really shows how infinitesimal small we are in the grand scheme of things and how young we are as an advanced species.

Voodoomelon

A bit morbid and creepy, but torture and the history of torture fascinates me. Spent an hour once on Wikipedia going from page to page on historic methods, weird but interesting none the less!

Princess Peach

Teddy Tedson's mind.

nua domhan

Have to go with quantum physics. The fact that you can have particles that will switch their direction instantaneously when you change their corresponding one is crazy kinda rules out the speed of light theory for me.

Also hydrogen bonds - that weird chemical anomaly - without those there'd be no life. I like to argue with atheists that it's pretty much proof of god.

Hoggy1000

Cant believe someone has said it already, or it might just be me?

The Human brain... I mean if you think about it, it is truely F**ked up.

& Dreams, Theyve always fascinated me. To think while you sleep in your bed that your mind has the abilty to put you in some ridiculous scenarios, each wierder and wierder, night after night.

Bajingo

krudler wrote: »

Anything that just can't know enough about? doesnt matter how big or small or what it is, mine would be stuff like

Space, its mind boggling how insignifigant we are in the universe, we're nothing, a speck on a speck somewhere in a galaxy, look at this picture:

http://djer.roe.ac.uk/vsa/vvv/iipmooviewer-2.0-beta/vvvgps5.html

thats 1% of our galaxy, and it contains over a billion stars. there are approx 300-400 BILLION stars in the galaxy. and thats one galaxy. then this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e4/HubbleUltraDeepFieldwithScaleComparison.jpg

is the Hubble ultra deep field, which is over 10,000 galaxies, each containing up to billions of stars themselves. mind=blown.


Photographs, such an everyday thing, we all carry phones with cameras now but imagine the world before photohraphs. you carry a small piece of equipment that could capture something that could become an image future generations will look at. the Photos That Shook The World thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055750426

is one of the best threads on boards, there's some stunning images, both haunting and disturbing in there, some were shot off the cuff and have become iconic. its crazy to me how a moment in time can be captured on something tangible and physical.

The sea, only a tiny percentage of it has been explored by man, its inhospitable to our species yet it has the greatest amount of life on the planet in it. from barely visible organisms to something like the blue whale, its a good thing we still dont have massive sea creatures like in prehistoric times, 50 foot sharks? no thanks : http://orangemonk.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/megalodon_scale1.png

obligatory AH answer: bewbs, cos who doesnt find them fascinating.

This post reminded me that I have Blue Planet on DVD, started to watch it. It's brilliant, i'll be getting the other sets on Blu Ray when the prices are driven down a bit.

I'm very analytical and driven by the scientific method. I'm interested in ghost stories and things of a 'paranormal' nature, though I don't believe in ghosts and such I think that's a lazy man's approach to try and explain what's going on.

Plazaman

Plazaman wrote: »

In the last 10 years, scientists using genome mapping have been able to identify every single DNA strand in a human being.

Also technology has transformed computers from room sized to handheld.

And yet, despite all the money being thrown at it in the last 20 years, no one has come up with a cure for cancer except to poison it out with radiation and the likes.

Should every single disease not now be curable or are we being Mushroomised by someone.

Yes I know >>>>>> Conspiracies Theories... but it's Medical Research that fascinates me, do we not have enough people working on this or wha?

It's a lot more complicated than that. A lot more complicated.