Book Facts | Facts about Books

Why we sometimes are unaware, or at least alter-awared

Have you ever been so absorbed in a book or tv that you weren't aware of somebody entering or leaving the room? This is one of many definitions of a trance state

Fun fact about the bible

The Bible has been translated into Klingon.

Where did the name Wendy come from?

The name Wendy was made up for the book "Peter Pan."

How much do you love your library?

Abdul Kassem Ismael, Grand Vizier of Persia in the tenth century, carried his library with him wherever he went. The 117,000 volumes were carried by 400 camels which were trained to walk in alphabetical order.

Crazy fact about the Indiana University library

The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.

What is the worst computer virus ever?

The "Love Hurts" virus hit in spring 2000 and infected affected millions of computers and caused more damage than any other computer virus to date. Users were infected via e-mail, through Internet chat systems, and through other shared file systems. The worm sent copies of itself via Microsoft Outlook's address book entries. The mail included an executable file attachment with the e-mail subject line, "ILOVEYOU." The worm had the ability to overwrite several types of files, including .gif and .jpg files. It modified the Internet Explorer start page and changed Registry keys. It also moved other files and hid MP3 files on affected systems. Visit Symantec's Security Response for instructions on how to remove LoveLetter.

U.S. population, and how many people do you have to poll?

When a poll tells us a candidate for president of the United States is favored by ___% of the population, they tell us it has a "margin of error" of +-__% .

For example, August 6, 2008, CBS poll on the president of the United States put John McCain with 39% of the vote and Barrak Obama 45% of the vote, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The World Fact Book reports U.S. population at over 300 million, 301,139,947 (estimate as of 2007).

How many people do you think you'd have to poll to get within plus or minus 3% or 300,000 of the correct vote?

10 million? 1 million? This particular CBS pre-poll accurately extrapolates the minds of over 300 million people by polling just 906 people, or .00009 % of the population.

We're not so different after all!