Five Interesting Facts About the World

Greetings! I welcome you to another fantastic year of the Griffin Post! My name is Shivam Patel, writer of FIFAW, which stands for Five Interesting Facts about the World. In this section we delve into the most fascinating and frivolously unusual fun facts. Let us kick off the year with five fascinating facts about books!

Have you ever read a thick book (Harry Potter, Encyclopedias) and wondered what the world’s thickest book

is? Well, you’d be surprised to find the thickest book in the world is not twice, not thrice, but six times thicker

than Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The Book is called ‘Shree Haricharitramrut Sagar’ and is a

biography of the Hindu figure Bhagwan Shree Swaminarayan. While originally written by Adharanand Swami

and composed in Hindi by Siddhanand Muni, the publication we are talking about was written by

Gyanjivandasji Swami in India (Kundaldham, Gujrat), this book measures 496 mm, or 19.5 inches. This

humongous book contains 10,080 pages, has 2409 chapters and 102,564 couplets. The book itself weighs an

astounding 9.5 kilograms. [Picture Description: An image of the book (closed)]

                                                         Now from the thickest book we turn to an absolute record breaker. Being made up of 429                                                             pages, you may not think much of it, until you see it. Having a page-cover area of 16.4 feet                                                           by 26.44 feet, this gargantuan book titled ‘This is Muhammad’ or ‘هذا محمد’. Made by the                                                             Mshahed International Group, this book clocks in at about 3,306 bounds. It is on display                                                             in Dubai, UAE, and was unveiled on 27 February 2012. It details the accomplishments and                                                           stories of the Islam’s Prophet, and is one of the world’s largest books. The book is on                                                                     display today, attracting many fascinated onlookers and beckoning them to marvel at its sheer size. Each page mathematically would weigh 7.7 pounds on average. The book itself is worth about one million US dollars, and is part of a travelling exhibition that moves frequently. [Picture Description: Creators of ‘This is Muhammad’ awarded the Guinness Book of World Records for Largest Book.]

Now turning from the physically largest book, we look at the book that holds the record for the book with the

most words: Michael Proust’s ‘In Search of Lost Time’ contains the most English words of any published book,

a novel forged into 7 volumes, the work itself totals to about 1.2 to 1.3 million words, while some estimates

put it at 1.5 million words. It is about the essence of memory and the persistence of memory. It is famous for

the Madeline Moment, a moment in the story when the narrator takes a bite of a tea soaked madeline, which

whisks the narrator back to subconscious memories of childhood. [Picture Description: Micheal Proust’s In

Search of Lost Time.]

                              If you have ever seen a crusty old book, then you have probably wondered what the oldest written book                                  must’ve looked like. It is probably not what you think — not a lengthy, beaten up novel, but rather a 6                                      page, ringed document that is made of pure gold. The Etruscan Gold Orphism Book is bound by an                                          elaborate ring and featuring ornate decorations, this work of art is classified as one of the world’s oldest                                  books, dating back to the 660 BCE. It is a measly 5 cm by 4.5 cm, and it weighs a total of 100 grams. The                                  document, featuring cultural images and complex details, seems to be about the funeral of a wealthy                                      aristocrat, featuring predominantly ties to a belief system rooted in tales of the mythical Orpheus. It now sits in Bulgaria’s National History Museum, in the NIM Cellar. The book has been meticulously preserved, its forms and engravings still clear on the gold pages of the book. [Picture Description: Etruscan Gold Orphism Book.]

We have previously talked about the world’s largest books, so let us now talk about the world’s smallest

book, a book called Teeny Ted from Turnip Town: A Success Story, and was written by Malcolm Douglas

Chaplin. It was created by a gallium-ion beam and a microscope at the Simon Fraser University Canada’s

nano-imaging facility. It measures 0.07 mm x 0.10 mm, it is significantly smaller than the head of a pin.

The book itself is made of 30 intricately carved pages, carefully stacked to form a book. The book’s pages

are made of crystalline silicon, with words carved into the plates. To even read it, one must use an

electron microscope, highlighting the extreme size of the book. It even has its own ISBN,

ISBN-978-1-894897-17-4. Versions of the book sell for around 15,000-20,000 dollars, making its price seem a little less tiny than the book itself. [Picture Description: Teeny Ted from Turnip Town.]