20 Weird Science Facts That You Might Just Need One Day

16. A Rubber Band Shrinks When Heated And Expands When Cooled... Because Of Entropy

Right, this fact is only weird if you already know that, usually, matter expands when it is heated and contracts when it is cooled - with the notable exceptions of water and rubber bands. Funny old world, innit?

Oddly enough, in the case of rubber bands, this is due to the effects of entropy, which is a measure of disorder in physics. When you heat up a rubber band, you increase the entropy in the tangle of loosely-packed chains of atoms that they're made from, causing them to jumble up, contract and shrink the rubber band.

When you might need to know this:

When attempting to tightly fix something with rubber bands.

15. The Amount Of Fresh Water In The Earth Is 50 Times As Much As On It

The Earth is really wet, and not just on the blue bits.

Anyone who has ever tried to dig through to the other side of the Earth (or, indeed, dig a well) will know that as you dig deeper, you will eventually hit water. There is a hell of a lot of water just under the Earth's surface and it all adds up to more that all of the freshwater sources on its surface.

When you might need to know this:

When digging a well, to the other side of the world, or a gave in the woods (burying a body too deep could contaminate the water table and give the game away. Just in case you need to know. For reasons.)