Tag: Super Facts

Half the World’s Population Live within a 2 Percent Circle

Super fact 57 : Half the World’s Population live within a circle that covers 2% of the world’s surface, or 10% of earth’s land area. This circle is often referred to as the “Valeriepieris Circle” or Yuxi Circle, and it is centered on southeast Asia.

This circle, has a radius of a bit more than 2,000 miles, and encompasses densely populated areas of East and South Asia, including major population centers like China, India, and Indonesia. The original Valeriepieris Circle was created by a teacher named Ken Myers in 2013 and was larger (radius 2,500 miles) than the more optimized circle created in 2015. In 2015, Singaporean professor Danny Quah—with the aid of an intern named Ken Teoh created a significantly smaller circle (radius 2,050 miles) that included half the world’s population. 4.2 billion people live in the Valeriepieris Circle, which is 5.6 times as many people as in Europe and 12.4 times as many people as in the Unites States.

I consider this a super fact because it is true, it is an important fact, and it is a surprising fact to those of us who have not come across this information before. It is an important fact because it impacts how we view our world. The circle is located far away from Europe and North America, in a part of the world that is rising quickly economically. The people in this highly populated circle have different cultures, music, literature and religions from the US and Europe. They speak different languages, and they play different sports, well soccer (the real football) is international but not as common in the Valeriepieris Circle as in Europe or South America.

Those among us who live outside of this circle, for example, in the United States or Europe, probably need to pay more attention to this half of world. Especially, if you live in the United States, it is easy to believe that the world is about us. The existence of this circle demonstrates that this view is not a realistic view.

This is a world map showing all the continents with the colors of the Valeriepieris Circle inverted. It should be noted that the circle is quite small compared to the whole world | Half the World’s Population Live within a 2 Percent Circle | The original 2013 map by Ken Myers, with the interior of the circle.
The original 2013 map by Ken Myers, with the interior of the circle. Half as many people live inside the circle as outside the circle. However, it is larger and less optimized compared to the circle from 2015 below. This circle is NASA, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
This is a special geometric projection of planet earth showing the Valeriepieris Circle at the center. The proportion of the circle (yellow circle) and the whole earth is proportional, and the circle is obviously much smaller | Half the World’s Population Live within a 2 Percent Circle | Danny Quah's 2015 circle, on a Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection.
Danny Quah’s 2015 circle, on a Lambert azimuthal equal-area projection. It should be noted that the fraction of the area of the circle to that of the globe is equal to its equivalent on Earth. Again, half as many people live inside the circle as outside the circle. From Wikipedia cmglee, jimht at shaw dot ca, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons.

Population of Southeast Asia

The countries that are part of the Valeriepieris Circle are, for example,

The map shows the countries in Southeast Asia as relatively large, especially, China and India. Almost the entire right-hand side of the map is filled with Southeast Asian countries making it easy to understand how just around 20 Southeast Asian countries can correspond to half the world’s population.
Each country’s size represents the size of the population in 2018. Each little square represents 500,000 people. All 15,266 squares show where the world’s 7,633 billion peopls lived in 2018 (now the world population is 8,244 billion people). Image from our World in Data. By Max Roser for OurWorldinData.org – the free online publication on the world’s largest problems and how to make progress against them.

Population Statistics

Most people know that in recent centuries the world population has grown almost exponentially but is now projected to level off sometime around the middle of this century. Europe is an interesting example. A thousand years ago Europe’s share of the world population was around 14.5%. Then came the scientific revolution and the industrial revolution and by 1900 it was 25%. As other countries around the world became industrialized Europe’s share of the world population shrunk, even though the population of Europe kept increasing, just slower. Now Europe’s share of the world population is 9%.

As countries become wealthier their population growth tends to slow down, not just in Europe, but around the world. The world’s population growth is illustrated by the image from Our World in Data below (starting 5,000 years ago, ending the year 2000) and the six minute YouTube video below from the American Museum of Natural History (starting 100,000 years ago and ending the year 2100). The YouTube video also shows the projected population decline beyond the year 2050.

Twelve maps depicting earth’s population distribution (population per square kilometer) at different twelve different times in history. The times are 3000BC, 2000BC, 1000BC, 1AD, 500AD, 1000AD, 1500AD, 1600AD, 1700AD, 1800AD, and 2000AD | Half the World’s Population Live within a 2 Percent Circle
Population per square kilometer. Source of the original visualization Klein Goldewijk, Beusen and Janssen (2010). Long term dynamic modeling of global population and built-up area in a spatially explicit way: HYDE 3.1. In the Holocene 20(4) 565-573. The original visualization was adapted by OurWorldinData.org

A somewhat related super fact is – Poverty and child mortality has been sharply reduced worldwide.

Next Super fact coming up is : Time is the fourth dimension

To see the other Super Facts click here

The Bermuda Triangle the Big Non-Mystery

Super fact 56 : The Bermuda Triangle mystery is a myth. There is not a higher risk of disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle. To be specific, disappearances do not occur in the so-called Bermuda Triangle, or Devils Triangle, with any higher frequency than in other comparable regions of the ocean. The “mystery” of the Bermuda Triangle is largely a manufactured one, perpetuated by sensationalized accounts that often misrepresent the facts and downplay the role of natural hazards like storms.

The number of ships and aircraft reported missing in the Bermuda Triangle is not significantly greater, proportionally speaking, than in any other part of the ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard, along with NOAA, the U.S. Navy, Lloyds of London who pays out insurance for ships and aircraft lost/missing at sea, and other organizations do not recognize the Bermuda Triangle as a unique or mysterious geographic hazard. They emphasize that this is a highly traveled area where the losses are consistent with natural phenomena such as strong storms, the Gulf Stream, human error, and poor navigation, rather than any mysterious forces.

Considering all this, the number of disappearances and accidents is what you’d expect. The Bermuda Triangle isn’t any more mysterious than the Greenland square, the New Zeeland circle, or the Azores Octagon, that I just made up. I consider this a super fact because it is very likely true, and yet surprising to many people who are convinced that there really is a mystery. Furthermore, it is important because it is such a well-known myth.

The Bermuda triangle has one corner in Bermuda, one in Puerto Rico and one around Miami, Florida | The Bermuda Triangle the Big Non-Mystery
The Bermuda Triangle: It is approximately defined as a triangle Florida, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. There is no exact definition. Alphaiosderivative work: -Majestic-, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Bermuda Triangle Mysteries

Just because the risk of disappearances of planes and ships is not higher in the Bermuda Triangle, does not mean that there aren’t mysterious disappearances and mysterious phenomenon occurring in the Bermuda Triangle. Some notable disappearances are USS Cyclops (1918), Flight 19 (1945), Star Tiger and Star Ariel (1948–1949), and the Witchcraft (1967). However, there are mysteries and mysterious phenomena occurring all around the world.

One of the mysterious phenomena occurring in the Bermuda Triangle is ocean swirls, and rogue waves, and methane burps might be another problem, but it is far from unique to the Bermuda triangle, and there are no magnetic anomalies in the Bermuda triangle as often alleged.

Ocean swirls frequently occur all over the world with some famous hotspots for ocean swirls by the coasts of Japan, Norway, Italy, Scotland, and Maine, USA. The ocean swirls in the Bermuda triangle might be due to movement of water between landmasses and/or the Gulf stream, but this is under investigation. There are no known giant or permanent ocean swirls in the Bermuda triangle.

A giant deep ocean swirl in the middle of the blue ocean.
Ocean swirl allegedly in the Bermuda Triangle Asset id: 1158148882 by PHOTO JUNCTION

As mentioned, another mysterious phenomenon is methane bubbling to the surface of the ocean. However, as can be seen in the maps in this National Geographic blog post the source of these methane burps of death aren’t typical to the Bermuda triangle. The methane hydrate field in the first map of the National Geographic blog post is mostly outside of the Bermuda triangle stretching from Cuba and up along the Florida coast. The second map, the world map, shows that these methane hydrate fields exist all around the world.

Our Honeymoon in Bermuda

Below are some old photos from our honeymoon in Bermuda in August of 1991.

Thomas Wikman Super Facts
The Bermuda Triangle the Big Non-Mystery
The Bermuda Triangle the Big Non-Mystery
To see the other Super Facts click here

The Enormous Kuiper belt

Super fact 55 : The enormous Kuiper belt.

The Kuiper Belt is a vast torus/donut shaped region of space beyond Neptune, filled with icy, rocky bodies, including dwarf planets like Pluto. It shares a lot of similarities with the Asteroid belt, but it is much larger, and further out. The Kuiper belt is 20 times wider than the Asteroid belt, 1,000 larger by volume, and 20 to 200 times more massive than the Asteroid belt. It extends from roughly 30 to 50 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun.

I can add that one Astronomical Unit (AU) is the distance from the sun to Earth.

In the middle of the picture is the sun and around it is Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. Then there is a grey circular band representing the asteroid belt. Further out is Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto and a large circular band representing the Kuiper belt | The Enormous Kuiper belt
I drew this illustration of the solar system and the Kuiper belt. It is not entirely to scale, and in reality, Mercury and Venus are not attached to the sun.

The Kuiper belt is like a giant Asteroid belt located further out, beyond Neptune. The Kuiper Object Pluto, formerly known as the Planet Pluto, is the most admired, the cutest and most beloved of all planets, and it was the first Kuiper object discovered in 1930. However, we did not know of the existence of the Kuiper belt at the time. The Kuiper belt was discovered in 1992 and predicted to possibly exist by Astronomer Gerard Kuiper in 1951. The discovery of the Kuiper belt was one of the reasons Pluto was demoted from its planet status in 2006. There are other dwarf planets in the Kuiper belt similar Pluto, including Makemake, Haumea, and Eris. However, there could be hundreds. Ceres is a dwarf planet located in the Asteroid belt. To read more about the Kuiper belt and verify the facts above, click here, or here, or here.

This picture features the photo of Pluto taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 plus some text. The text says : This is Pluto! In 2006, the International Astronomical Union declared that Pluto is no longer a planet. Despite that, it keeps revolving around the Sun the same way it has been doing for billions of years. Pluto doesn't care what others think about it! Be Like Pluto!
Pluto and its moon Charon from NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI. NASA / Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory / Southwest Research Institute, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft captured this high-resolution enhanced color view of Pluto in 2015.

I selected this to be a super fact because the existence of the Kuiper belt drastically changed our view of our Solar system, so it is important, we know it exists, so it is a true fact, and despite its enormous size the Kuiper belt is much less known than the Asteroid belt, and its existence often comes as a surprise to people.

The Kuiper Belt Resides in Darkness

You may wonder why the Kuiper belt was discovered so late whilst the Asteroid belt has been known since the beginning of the 19th century (Ceres 1801, Pallas 1802, Vesta 1807, etc.) The reason is that the Kuiper belt resides in darkness. The Asteroid belt is 2.2AU to 3.2AU from the sun whereas the Kuiper belt is between 30 to 50AU from the sun.

Let’s say you take an object that is 2.5AU from the sun and place it at a distance that is 40AU from the sun. Due to the spreading of the light the object will now receive 16 X 16 = 256 times less sunlight. This is called Geometric dilution. In addition, this light needs to be reflected back to earth for us to see the object, and once again the light will  spread resulting in 256 X 256 = 65,536 times less light reaching our telescopes. The Kuiper belt is huge, but it resides in darkness. Despite this fact, we have now discovered and catalogued more than 2,000 Kuiper belt objects. However, it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands of Kuiper belt objects wider than 100 kilometers.

What is a Dwarf Planet?

A planet as well as dwarf planet is a celestial body that orbits the Sun and is nearly round due to its own gravity. Basically, it must be large enough to have compressed itself to a near spherical shape. To be classified as a planet and not a dwarf planet it must also have cleared its orbit of debris. So, a dwarf planet is therefore a celestial body that orbits the Sun, is nearly round due to its own gravity, but has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit. Obviously, a planet in the Asteroid belt or the Kuiper belt is a dwarf planet. Just to make this complicated Astronomers have found giant exoplanets that have not cleared their orbit of debris . I wonder, are these exo-planets giant dwarf planets?

Oort Cloud

Astronomer and Author David Lee Summers (blog here) reminded me of the Oort cloud, which could be interesting to bring up in this context. The Oort Cloud is a vast spherical cloud of icy bodies, which is hypothesized to surround the solar system, extending from about 2,000 to 200,000 AU. It is thus thousands of times further out and wide than the Kuiper belt. I say hypothesized because the objects are so small, there’s really no direct observation of them and there’s some variation in numbers for its distance and extent, meaning it’s still not well defined yet. Still, its outer edge is believed to be the boundary between where the sun’s gravity dominates and the galaxy’s gravity dominates.

The Oort cloud is generally considered to be the outer edge of the solar system and believed to be the origin of most long period comets. The Oort cloud is thought to encompass two regions: a disc-shaped inner Oort cloud aligned with the solar ecliptic (also called its Hills cloud) and a spherical outer Oort cloud enclosing the entire Solar System.

The picture is of the Oort cloud with an inset picture of the Kuiper belt at the top. The inset picture is an enlargement of the dot in the middle corresponding to the Kuiper belt.
NASA This SVG image was created by Medium69.Cette image SVG a été créée par Medium69.Please credit this : William Crochot, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Other Astronomy Related Super Facts

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Digging Up Super Facts

Daily writing prompt
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
View all responses

I have two blogs, Leonberger Life and this one called Superfactful.

Leonberger Life feature amusing and heartwarming stories about our late Leonberger dog Bronco, as well as other Leonbergers. It also has a lot of information about the Leonberger breed, the history, care, training, Leonberger organizations, etc. I also wrote a Leonberger book, which I am featuring in the sidebar. With my Leonberger Life blog I want to spread information about the Leonberger breed, a rare, large, furry, friendly and fun dog breed and also bring attention to my book The Life and Times of Le Bronco von der Löwenhöhle, stories and tips from thirteen years with a Leonberger.

The goal of Superfactful, which is this blog, is to create a long list of facts that are important, not trivia, and that are known to be true and yet are either disputed by large segments of the public or highly surprising or misunderstood by many. I call these kinds of facts Super facts because they could potentially be very impactful on how we view the world.

Humans have accumulated an enormous amount of knowledge. Science does not know everything, but it knows a lot. The same cannot be said for us as individuals. We know next to nothing and harbor a lot of false beliefs. I think that is pretty much true for all of us, including me, but we may not know it. With this blog I am trying to correct some of that, at least regarding important facts. In addition, along the way, I am hoping to learn a lot myself and have some of my own false beliefs corrected.

In short, the change I would like to make in the world with my blog is to correct as many false beliefs as possible and educate my readers, and myself, about facts that are both important and mind blowing.

A blue brain is splitting up into pieces.
Smash your old beliefs with new surprising facts, super facts. Expand your mind. Shutterstock ID: 1685660680 by MattL_Images

What is a Super fact?

A super fact is:

  • An important fact but it can be simply stated.
  • Very surprising, shocking, widely disputed, misunderstood, or mind-blowing.
  • Yet it is true with a very high degree of certainty.

The first two criteria are subjective. The last criteria can be determined from longstanding scientific consensus, my own expertise and education (valid for just a few topics), agreement between multiple reliable online or offline sources such as agreement among research papers, reputable scientific organizations, NASA, NOAA, Pew Research Center, Our World in Data, etc. I should say I also link to less academic sources such as Wikipedia, but I do not solely rely on them.

You can read more about how I choose super facts here. Also, I am open to challenges based on good data (not opinions), as well as questions. With that I don’t mean that you cannot give your opinion in a comment. I just won’t update or remove a super fact based on an opinion. In addition, I am happy to receive suggestions for super facts. I am trying to collect a few hundred super facts and need all the help I can get. In the end I want to pick the 100 best ones. I might use a poll for that.

Sometimes a super fact involves doing myth busting of a popular myth and sometimes a super fact is stating something that is well known but disputed by many. In these cases, the evidence is likely to be conclusive, but the fact is still disputed by those who don’t know much about the evidence, or don’t want it to be true. In this case, I will include a substantial amount of evidence, and it might be lengthy. People get bamboozled all the time, and that includes me. It is not easy to admit that you have been bamboozled. You can read about my own experiences with that here.

Picture shows a scale held by a pointing finger. Fact is on the left shown as a bright light bulb. Myth is shown on the right as grey ball | Digging Up Super Facts
Fact or myth. Shutterstock Asset id: 2327968607

Examples of Super Facts

At the time of posting this I have made plans for 150 super facts and so far, I have posted 54. I will post a lot more. Below I am listing a few of my first 54 super facts.

Superfact 5 : Two events may be simultaneous for some but not for others. Click to visit post.

Two events may be simultaneous for some but not for others. This means that two events that are simultaneous to an observer may happen at different times to other observers. If two lamps A and B turn on at the same time according to observer #1, lamp A may turn on first for observer #2, and lamp B may turn on first for observer #3. All three observers are correct because time is relative.

The picture shows three pairs of lamps and three people. The setup is used to show three situations.
Amy is traveling at a high speed to the left compared to two lamps A and B. Alan is standing still compared to the lamps. Adam is traveling at a high speed to the right compared to two lamps A and B. Alan turns on the lamps at the same time. After considering the travel time of the light she sees, Amy concludes that lamp B turned on first. After considering the travel time of the light he sees, Adam concludes that lamp A turned on first. I should add this non-simultaneity can only happen if the lamps are separated by a distance.
Superfact 7 : Poverty and child mortality has been sharply reduced worldwide. Click to visit post.

Extreme poverty as well as child mortality has been sharply reduced the world over. The countries that are the worst-off today are still better off than the countries that were doing the best at the beginning of the 19th century. Over the last 20 years extreme poverty and child mortality have continued to decline sharply.

This graphics contain two graphs one for the world (blue) and for the United States (red) | Digging Up Super Facts
Child mortality in in the world since 1950. The spike you see around the end of 1950 to 1960 is the great leap forward famine in China. In 1950 the child mortality rate was 22.7% and in 2023 the child mortality rate was 3.6%.
Superfact 25: Global Warming is Happening and is Caused by us – click to visit post.

Global warming is happening. Or if you call it Climate Change or Climate Disruption is indeed happening. And it is happening very fast. We also know that it is caused by us primarily as a result of our burning of fossil fuels. There is a long-standing scientific consensus on these two facts because the evidence is conclusive. Check the evidence in the post.

Superfact 28: That Earth is round was well known long before Columbus – click to visit post.

That Earth is round, or spherical (or closely spherical) had been known for at least a couple of thousand years by the time Columbus set sail. Columbus did not set sail to prove that earth was round, and he knew it was round.

On the left a wheel with spokes. On the right there is a sphere and sun rays that hit in two places. One without a shadow and one with a shadow | Digging Up Super Facts
Illustration of the measurement of the Earth circumference by Eratosthenes (2,300 years ago). On June 21st there is no shadow in Syene/Aswan but there is one in Alexandria. Asset id: 2319651251 by Javier Jaime
To see a list of the Super Facts click here

Satellites handle a very small amount of global internet traffic

Super fact 54 : Satellites currently handle a very small percentage of global internet traffic, estimated at about 1%. The vast majority of internet traffic is carried by undersea cables.

I consider this a super fact because it is surprising, true and not trivia. It is an important fact since most of us use internet every day. It is a very common belief that satellites handle most of the global internet traffic, or at least a very large portion of it. I should say that a few years ago I thought so myself.

Space satellite orbiting the Earth. 3D rendering | Satellites handle a very small amount of global internet traffic
Stock Illustration ID: 1372134458 by Boris Rabtsevich
Multiple layers inside a black cable. Optical fibers emerge from the cut end, and they shine.
Submarine underwater communication fiber optic cable on deep seabed. Asset id: 2175977719 by Dragon Claws

How Much Internet Traffic is Handled by Satellites

I should say that I did not find a lot of sites that answered this question, but all of the sites that I found gave similar answers such as, less than 1%, 1.5%, 1-2%, very little, etc.

I started out by asking ChatGPT this question “How much of internet communication does Satellites handle?” The answer I got was that Satellites handle a relatively small percentage of global internet traffic — typically less than 1–2% — with most of the world’s internet communication carried through undersea fiber optic cables and terrestrial infrastructure (like cell towers and wired broadband). Wikipedia states that satellites handle less than 5% – to an estimate of even 0.5%. I should add I do not rely on ChatGPT, SGE or Gemini, or Wikipedia for this blog but I take hints from them.

According to NOAA, over 95 percent of international data and voice transfers are currently routed through the many fiber optic cables that crisscross the world’s seafloors, whilst satellites currently carry just about 1% of global internet traffic according to Research Outreach. Operations Forces Report, Space Voyage Ventures, Neterra, and Newsweek made similar claims .

The reason satellite internet is used less is because satellite internet is significantly more expensive to use than traditional wired connections. In addition, satellites have higher latency (delay) compared to fiber optic cables, and less bandwidth (data capacity). Satellite internet is primarily used in remote areas where other forms of internet access are unavailable. Satellite internet is also used for military and government operations, as well as maritime and aviation connectivity. However, satellite internet is improving so this may change in the future. This is a comparison between satellite internet and optical fiber.

Satellites handle a very small amount of global internet traffic
Photo by SpaceX on Pexels.com
Eight layers in various colors are shown. See below for indicators.
This is a cross section of submarine fiber optic cable. Picture by Oona Räisänen (User:Mysid), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The layers in the picture of the submarine communications cable above are (from outside to inside): (1) Polyethylene (2) Mylar tape (3) Stranded steel wires (4) Aluminum water barrier (5) Polycarbonate (6) Copper or aluminum tube (7) Petroleum jelly (8) Optical fibers.

Related Post

A related post and super fact is: GPS uses relativity for accuracy

To see the other Super Facts click here