Trivia: Fun facts perfect for your next ward social

In each issue of LDS Living magazine, we love to share short and simple fun facts related to the season, our faith, or other interesting tidbits that we think are just too darn fun not to talk about. So to satisfy that craving you might be having for some trivia, we thought we’d share a few of the facts and other tips from our July/August issue on our website.

See what suits your fancy, and if you like what you read, don’t hesitate to order our latest issue online or pick one up at a Deseret Book store near you. Happy reading!

Of all the ways to study the Book of Mormon, there might be one method you haven’t thought of yet: text analysis. Don’t be fooled by its scholarly name—this exercise is more fascinating than you might think. Through text analysis, we know that the most commonly used word in the Book of Mormon is the, which appears 19,203 times. But if you filter out small, filler words like then, and, or, to, etc., a beautiful insight appears: the most-used word is unto. It’s a gentle reminder to us that the Book of Mormon is meant to draw us unto Jesus Christ and unto the Father.

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24: Number of people who have traveled to the moon (12 have walked on the surface)
105+: Number of robotic spacecrafts that have been sent to the moon
240,000: Approximate distance in miles between the earth and the moon
842: Pounds of lunar rocks and soil that Apollo astronauts brought back to Earth (NASA is still studying them)
6: American flags on the moon

1. Ten years ago, a devasting tsunami hit a nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan. Toxic radioactive waste was released into the surrounding areas, and about 110,000 residents had to be evacuated. To help clean up the area, scientists planted millions of sunflowers. Why? Not only will the plants grow just about anywhere, but they also absorb toxins and help purify soil.

2. The French word for sunflower is tournesol, which literally means “turns with the sun.”

3. Elder Quentin L. Cook made a beautiful analogy about sunflowers in his April 2015 general conference talk: “Sunflowers flourish in soil which has been impacted by farm and snow removal equipment and the accumulation of materials that would not be considered ideal soil for wildflowers to grow. . . . Like the young sunflower, when we follow the Savior of the world, the Son of God, we flourish and become glorious despite the many terrible circumstances that surround us.”

4. A German gardener named Hans-Peter Schiffer loves sunflowers so much that he has broken his own world record for the tallest sunflower three times. His latest record-setting bloom is 30 feet and 1 inch tall.

5. One sunflower can produce 1,000 snackable seeds.

36: Apples it takes to make one gallon of cider

14^th: Century in which infants were often baptized using apple cider (it was cleaner than water)

20: Years it would take to sample all the apple varieties in the world if you ate one a day

25: Percentage of an apple’s volume that is air, which is why they float

8: Years it can take for an apple tree to grow to maturity and produce fruit

If a trailer is actually a preview of a movie, then why don’t we call it that? A quick movie theater history lesson will answer that question. When people went to the movie theater in the 1910s, they tended to stay there most of the day to enjoy a combination of feature-length movies, short films, and cartoons. In 1913, a Broadway producer had the idea to create a short promotional film for his upcoming play to be shown after the featured movie while people waited for their next showing to begin. The concept revolutionized film marketing, and trailers were often used as an advertising tool after that. Today, despite the fact that trailers are almost exclusively shown before movies, its use isn’t all that different—and its name keeps trailing along in our theater lingo too.

Did you know that screen savers were invented to literally save computer screens? Early computer monitors had a problem known as “burn-in,” where any image displayed for too long would actually burn into the screen, causing an irreversible “ghost image.” Screen savers swooped in to save the day by automatically displaying a moving animation when the computer wasn’t in use. In modern computers, however, screen savers are no longer necessary; they just waste energy. So after nearly 40 years of service, it may be time for screen savers to hang up their capes.

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