6 curious answers to tough questions

Curiosity, like love, is submissive to all ages. The craving for the unknown has always been strong in people, and when there was no Google and Yandex yet, we looked for answers to our questions in books. Today we decided to recall those glorious times, chose popular search queries and found the answers in two books: "" and "".

Why Asia doesn't like the number 4

Did you know that in hotels in Asia, after the third floor, there is immediately the fifth? Number 4 is absent in the names of products of Asian companies, there is no fourth row on planes … This is one of the most unfounded superstitions, and it is connected with the fact that the word “four” and the word “death” are very similar in sound. This applies to Japanese, some dialects of Chinese and Korean.

The four evokes in Asians such strong associations with death that it turned into a kind of inevitable prophecy. According to American statistics, the number of deaths due to heart attacks among Japanese, Chinese and Koreans living in the United States increases significantly on the fourth of each month.

How to choose a wife

The great German scientist of the 17th century Johannes Kepler once conducted such an experiment: when choosing a wife for himself, he considered 11 applicants. Moreover, the first three were immediately screened out according to various criteria, significant and not very significant. One had bad breath, the other was too rich and young, and the third he also rejected after a moment's thought. Kepler was about to stop at the fourth, but then She appeared - modest, hardworking, caring.

It would seem that the ideal wife has been found, but then the scientist was seized by confusion and indecision, he continued his search and met six more (!) Applicants. In the end, he still made a choice and married the fifth candidate.

This story is a good example of optimal stopping theory. Of the five possible options, one will be optimal, and that's what you need to choose.

In other words, Kepler didn't have to go on 11 dates at all. The first five were enough to make the right choice. This mathematical theory finds application in many areas of science, technology, economics, and so on.

How to sell a house more expensive

Research has been carried out at the Department of Psychology at Cornell University, which has proven that large, round numbers make us uncomfortable. Cunning marketers often use this trick to force us to make large purchases at an inflated price, represented by a non-circular number.

Scientists invited several dozen participants in the experiment to view photographs of houses with prices indicated on them. In some pictures, prices were presented in the form of large round numbers, on others - in the form of slightly larger numbers, but not round. Then the scientists conducted a survey, which price is higher. Most of the respondents said with confidence that, for example, $ 330,000 per house is more expensive than $ 331,452.

Is it possible to die from insomnia

In the second half of the last century, the Italian doctor Ignazio Reuter observed the death of two patients, relatives of his wife. Both died from insomnia. Reuter studied the archives and came to the conclusion that in very rare cases, a mutation can occur in the human body, as a result of which he is completely deprived of sleep. This illness has been called fatal familial insomnia. Later, about 30 more cases were recorded, all of which were fatal.

The disease affected the part of the brain responsible for communication with the senses - the thalamus.

Most often, fatal insomnia began in people between the ages of 30 and 60, but there were exceptions: several cases of adolescent illness are known. It all started with panic attacks and various phobias, then hallucinations, rapid weight loss, coma appeared, and in the end - painful death.

Animal experiments have also shown that sleep deprivation is fatal for them. Two weeks without sleep was enough for the experimental rats to lose their ability to move and regulate body temperature. Death occurred in the third week.

How dolphins sleep

At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States allocated $ 100 million to develop a method that would allow the military to go without sleep for a long time. One variation of "artificial insomnia" is based on the sleep patterns of mammals such as dolphins.

Science knows that dolphins lived in water, then moved to land and after a while, for unknown reasons, returned to the seas and oceans. That is why they float to the surface of the water every few minutes to take a breath of air. In such conditions, full sleep is impossible, but the animals were able to adapt: the hemispheres of their brain are awake alternately. In this case, the dolphin behaves as usual, the sleeping half of the brain is revealed only by the eyes closed on its side.

Dolphins can stay awake for two weeks without experiencing any visible discomfort, which is exactly what the military is striving for.

Why men snore more often than women

As a rule, men sleep better next to women than alone. Perhaps the reason is that they simply enjoy emotional closeness, and they do not have to listen to their wife's snoring.

Nature has a black humor: a snoring woman is a rare occurrence, and a woman's sleep is much more sensitive than a man's. In general, every night a dramatic comedy is played out: the representatives of the beautiful half of humanity suffer from insomnia, but their husbands do not.