/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2256115]

Hey there /sci/entists

How many of these common misconceptions were implanted in your minds by ignorant teachers during your early years of education?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions#Science

The tongue chart is probably the most infamous example. When I was a little kid, one of my stupid teachers told my class all about how different portions of our tongue could sense different kinds of tastes (like sweet, sour, et cetera). But wait! Candy tasted good no matter what part of my tongue it touched! At the time, I figured I was just having trouble noticing the difference, but it turns out that we were simply lied to. I'm not sure why. This whole "tongue map" bullshit stems from a mistranslation of a discredited German paper that was published more than a century ago.

Also, people do not use only 10% of their brains. How many science fiction movies were based entirely on that stupid premise? Too many. I'm not sure if any of my school teachers repeated this bit of mis-information, but they probably did, because every motherfucker believes it. Not that I blame you morons, since it's so easy to believe, and people generally want to believe it. But it's unsupported nonsense. So much for learning telekinesis.

Also, there was never any scientific evidence that men think about sex every ten seconds (or any other number of seconds). Women just like to repeat nonsense this because they think they're somehow morally superior to us disgusting, perverted men.

Oh, and lemmings don't commit suicide.

> mfw

[Anonymous No.2256124]

That there is a god

[Anonymous No.2256126]

The worst one is that bernoulli's principle causes wing lift. I can't believe they teach that; it's not like the laws of motion are postgraduate physics.

[Anonymous No.2256127]

Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb.

My entire life is a lie.

[Anonymous No.2256132]

Silly goyims stop with your critical thinking, go back and eat more of our mainstream crap, your's truly Jews

[Anonymous No.2256136]

>>2256132
Arab spotted.

[ZalgoChrisHansen !vziDxObuGo No.2256134]

I don't see how any of this affect my ability to build a new trans-human nation.

[Anonymous No.2256142]

>>2256136
Zionist detected

[Anonymous No.2256153]

>It is not true that air takes the same time to travel above and below an aircraft's wing.[134] This misconception, illustrated at right, is widespread among textbooks and non-technical reference books, and even appears in pilot training materials. In fact the air moving over the top of an airfoil generating lift is always moving much faster than the equal transit theory would imply,[135] as described in the incorrect and correct explanations of lift force.

I knew that it couldnt be right

[Anonymous No.2256154]

>It is a common misconception that seasons are caused by the Earth being closer to the Sun in the summer than in the winter.
What? Do some people still believe this???

[Anonymous No.2256156]

These are the new things I learned:

- When a meteor lands on Earth (after which it is termed a meteorite), it is not usually hot.

- Sugar does not cause hyperactivity in children.

- Although it is commonly believed that most body heat is lost through a person's head, this is not correct.

- A person who is drowning does not thrash around in the water and call for help

- New neurons can, in fact, be created in the brain.

- Bats are not blind.

- Gyroscopic forces are not required for a rider to balance a bicycle.

In elementary school there should be a week or two of lessons that are nothing but dispelling this shit.

[Anonymous No.2256170]

>>2256156
>- New neurons can, in fact, be created in the brain.
where does the opposite stem from then?

[Anonymous No.2256180]

>>2256154
You wouldn't believe some of the things people say. I visited the US a while back, and I was talking to some chick in a bar. I mentioned that I was going to get back to my family for Christmas, and that I was looking forward to the summer weather.

"So, like, in New Zealand do you call summer winter and winter summer?"

I didn't tap that.

[Anonymous No.2256191]

The one that annoys me most is the myth that mirrors laterally invert images. Of course they don't. If they did, why would they just invert laterally? Where exactly is the anisotropy in the laws of optics that would cause this lateral inversion? If you led on your side and looked at a mirror, why would it then not invert your image so that your head appeared where your feet should?

[Anonymous No.2256194]

>The rigid hypothesis→experiment→conclusion model of science is an important part of many fields, particularly basic sciences like physics and chemistry, but is not the only way to perform genuine science
>basic sciences like physics and chemistry, but is not the only way to perform genuine science
>physics and chemistry == basic science =/= genuine science
wat

[Anonymous No.2256197]

>>2256115
>Also, there was never any scientific evidence that men think about sex every ten seconds

out of personal experience, I can confirm that for myself

[Anonymous No.2256199]

>>2256136
>>2256142
Inferior sandniggers detected.

[Anonymous No.2256203]

>The discovery of the spherical shape of the Earth does not date to the Middle Ages. It was well known throughout the Hellenistic period. See Myth of the Flat Earth.

HaHAH are people this fucking dump ? 'dis like basic knowledge

[Anonymous No.2256204]

>>2256203
>HaHAH are people this fucking dump
>dump
I guess so.

[Anonymous No.2256209]

>>2256180
>tried to get laid in the U.S.
>did not tap dat "because she was stoopid"
>big surprise
>he's teh gay

[Anonymous No.2256210]

>>2256204
Sorry, not a native english speaker and I always, for some unknown reason (maybe because I am dump), mix the two.

[Anonymous No.2256211]

>Black holes, unlike their common image, do not act as cosmic vacuum cleaners any more than other stars.[44] When a star collapses into a black hole, the gravitational attraction at a given distance from the body is no greater than it was for the star. That is to say, were the Sun to be replaced by a black hole of the same mass, the Earth would continue in the same orbit (assuming spherical symmetry of the sun). Because black hole formation is explosive, the object would lose a certain amount of its energy in the process, which, according to the mass–energy equivalence, means that a black hole would be of lower mass than the parent object, and actually have a weaker gravitational pull.
Wait, but don't black holes get larger the stuff in consumes? And recedes if it has lack of said stuff?

[Anonymous No.2256212]

>>2256209
Is this meant to mean "you're a fag because you implied that there are stupid people from the US," or "to sleep with smart people in the US you have to be gay."

[Anonymous No.2256213]

I didn't learn anything new ;_;

I guess I already know most of these were wrong, some I'd never heard anyway.

[Anonymous No.2256215]

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_death

BAHAHAHAHA FUCKING KOREANS!

[Anonymous No.2256218]

>People do not use only ten percent of their brains. While it is true that a small minority of neurons in the brain are actively firing at any one time, the inactive neurons are important too.[57][58] This myth has been commonplace in American culture at least as far back as the start of the 20th century, and was attributed to William James, who apparently used the expression metaphorically.[59] Some findings of brain science (such as the high ratio of glial cells to neurons) have been mistakenly read as providing support for the myth.[59]
Wait I don't understand this, does that mean only a minoring part of your brain's neurons are active at one time, then another at another time or something? Also isn't the "We use only 10% of our brain" referring to that only 10% of it is conscious, and the rest subconscious?

[Anonymous No.2256219]

>>2256212
it is just obvious that you were looking excuses not to get laid with a hawt chick

expecting a hot girl to be totally fucktarded in a country with a 40% of its population being creationists is just realistic

[Anonymous No.2256223]

>>2256218
We use 100% of the brain but only 10% at any given point in time.

[Anonymous No.2256224]

>mfw I taste differently with different parts of my tongue

So, am I under some kind of placebo effect or what?

[Anonymous No.2256225]

>>2256219
Okay, you got me, I'm a flaming homosexual.

If stupidity like that was contagious, I think I'd rather go with the AIDS.

[Anonymous No.2256226]

>The idea that lightning never strikes the same place twice is one of the oldest and most well-known superstitions about lightning
Who ever took this seriously

[Anonymous No.2256230]

>>2256225
>If stupidity like that was contagious, I think I'd rather go with the AIDS.
>I'd rather go with the AIDS.
>acceptance
I am proud of you, anon.

[Anonymous No.2256232]

>>2256224

>with slightly increased sensitivities in different locations depending on the person

Nope, I'm good.

[Anonymous No.2256233]

Majority of these things are still taught in public schools as facts

Most of these are so ingrained that you will probably called stupid for trying to correct someone who believes any of this.

[Anonymous No.2256235]

>>2256226
ummm.... I did? Isn't lightning a discharge of static electricity?

[Anonymous No.2256240]

>Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff.

Fucking assholes.

[Anonymous No.2256244]

Lemmings do not engage in mass suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. They will, however, occasionally, and unintentionally fall off cliffs when venturing into unknown territory, with no knowledge of the boundaries of the environment. The misconception is due largely to the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the migration scenes (also staged by using multiple shots of different groups of lemmings) on a large, snow-covered turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff

>photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff

the fuck??

>>2256127
>Thomas edison is an evil fuck who took all of tesla's ideas as his own

very informative link op thanks

[Anonymous No.2256246]

>In Korea, it is commonly believed that sleeping in a closed room with an electric fan running can be fatal in the summer. According to the Korean government, "In some cases, a fan turned on too long can cause death from suffocation, hypothermia, or fire from overheating." The Korea Consumer Protection Board issued a consumer safety alert recommending that electric fans be set on timers, direction changed and doors left open. Belief in fan death is common even among knowledgeable medical professionals in Korea. According to Dr. Yeon Dong-su, dean of Kwandong University's medical school, "If it is completely sealed, then in the current of an electric fan, the temperature can drop low enough to cause a person to die of hypothermia."[78][79][80][81]
i wanna lock a whole bunch of koreans in a room with a fan now

[Anonymous No.2256277]

>>2256154
I admit that I believed the same until a couple of years ago, after I'd already graduated from high school. The american school system tends to leave that bit of information out for some reason.

[Anonymous No.2256287]

>>2256235
What does that have to do with anything?

>>2256126
They still teach this in undergrad. In fact, I didn't know this was false.
Care to enlighten?

[Anonymous No.2256304]

>>2256287

it's all about the angle of attack and action and reaction. when the wing is angled slightly downwards, it pushes the air down as the plane moves fowards. also the air above the wing is sent downwards too.

http://www.allstar.fiu.edu/aero/airflylvl3.htm this explains it better

[Anonymous No.2256318]

>>2256287
>What does that have to do with anything?
No charge difference afterwards?

[Anonymous No.2256323]

>>2256246

I'd agree with a fan overheating and catching on fire. Crappy electronics.

[Anonymous No.2256328]

>>2256211
could someone elaborate on this, i am confus also ;|

[Anonymous No.2256329]

>>2256323
that only happens when shit hit the fan

[Anonymous No.2256341]

>>2256211
A black hole exerts a gravitational acceleration on matter, like any other object with mass.

But in order for a star to become a black hole, it must already have an OBSCENE mass. So the resulting black hole has nearly the same mass. Then, over very long periods of time, it pulls in other things. The mass of those things is added to the mass of the black hole, so that it exerts more gravitational pull.
In accordance with the law of gravity.

The point of this is just that black holes also adhere to the well-documented laws of gravity - IE, they don't exert more gravity than the amount of mass that has gone into them would normally.

[Indexer !t1.kaRtHUs No.2256346]

>George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter, though he reputedly discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more for soybeans, pecans, and sweet potatoes.

[Anonymous No.2256351]

>US history
>John F. Kennedy's words "Ich bin ein Berliner" are standard German for I am a Berliner. An urban legend has it that due to his use of the indefinite article ein, Berliner is translated as jam doughnut, and that the population of Berlin was amused by the supposed mistake. The normal convention when stating a nationality or, for instance, saying one is from Berlin, would be to leave out the indefinite article "ein." However, Kennedy used the indefinite article here correctly to emphasize his relation to Berlin.[26][27] Additionally, at the time, the word Berliner was not used in Berlin to refer to the Berliner Pfannkuchen, they were simply called Pfannkuchen.

SUCK IT NEONAZI TEACHERS!

[Anonymous No.2256356]

>It is a common misconception even among adults that humans and dinosaurs (in the ordinary sense of the term) coexisted. According to the California Academy of Sciences, only 59% of U.S. adults know that this is false.[125] In fact, the last of the dinosaurs died around 65 million years ago, after the Chicxulub event, whereas the earliest Homo genus (humans) evolved between 2.3 and 2.4 million years ago.

WTF?

[Anonymous No.2256372]

>>2256356
Fucking Ken Ham.
Fucking Answers in Genesis.
Fucking Creation Museum.

[Anonymous No.2256390]

>>2256341

Not technically true. Due to a relativistic effect, the increase in density due to attraction causes an increased attraction due to an increase warping of space time. In the case of spinning black holes, as most are as a result of conservation of angular momentum, frame dragging is also seen to be increased.

[Anonymous No.2256413]

>>2256390

>increase in attraction
read contraction

[Anonymous No.2256471]

Dualism of light, quantum physics, "static" electricity, history, religions, western world inventions, medicines, vaccinations, safety of tap water, safety of food, bohr atomic model.. lies, lies, lies.

Only mathematics is right. Almost.

[Anonymous No.2256498]

What human language do parrots find easiest to learn and speak?

[Anonymous No.2256516]

>>2256471
>Only mathematics is right.
Not that bullshit they teach you in elementary. I don't even understand why they didn't teach us half the tricks I learned at Uni.

[Anonymous No.2256595]

>>2256115

Well, that was a depressing read.

[Anonymous No.2256603]

What OP said

Also that pigs have 30 minute orgasms.

Fuck off they dont, that would be retarded

[Anonymous No.2256646]

>>2256318
Not him, but that has nothing to do with anything. The cloud is still positive and the ground still negative.

[Anonymous No.2256682]

I can't believe no-one has mentioned the myth that you have to wait an hour after eating before going for a swim.

http://www.snopes.com/oldwives/hourwait.asp

When I was in primary school, the school sent letter to the parents before swimming lessons started that *supported* this myth. Mind you, it was a pretty shitty primary school in the north of England, so this kind of nonsense didn't come as a surprise; if I hadn't known better, I would have sworn that the teachers were just random (unqualified) people from the local area who had nothing better to do.

[Anonymous No.2256744]

I always wondered why, if the seasons were because the sun was farther away, we didn't have EIGHT seasons, since the circuit around the sun had two such changes.

[Anonymous No.2256751]

>According to urban myth, the Daddy Long-Legs Spider (Pholcus phalangioides) is the most venomous spider in the world. This is false, as the venom this spider carries is far too limited to affect a human. It would take thousands of these spiders to draw one drop.[111] In addition, there is also confusion regarding the use of the name Daddy Long Legs, because Harvestmen (order Opiliones, which are not spiders) and crane flies (which are insects) are also commonly referred to as Daddy Long Legs, and share (also incorrectly) the myth of being venomous.
I knew it!

[Anonymous No.2256763]

>It is a common misconception even among adults that humans and dinosaurs (in the ordinary sense of the term) coexisted. According to the California Academy of Sciences, only 59% of U.S. adults know that this is false.
>Toilet waste is never intentionally dumped overboard an aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks which are emptied on the ground by special toilet waste vehicles. A vacuum is used to allow the toilet to be flushed with less water and because plumbing cannot rely on gravity alone in an aircraft in motion.
>Air is mostly nitrogen, not oxygen
>It is not easier to balance an egg on its end on the first day of spring.

It's a shame some of these actually need to be disproven. Also, the one with the seasons... it's fucking funny.

[Anonymous No.2256769]

>>2256744

You seem to lack an understanding of where the foci of an ellipse are

[Anonymous No.2256796]

I don't know. I don't remember much of my school life before 18.

[Anonymous No.2256801]

>There is no single, strict scientific method used by all scientists, a misconception popularized by elementary science textbooks. The rigid hypothesis→experiment→conclusion model of science is an important part of many fields, particularly basic sciences like physics and chemistry, but is not the only way to perform genuine science. Many sciences do not fit well into this mold, such as the observational sciences of astronomy or paleontology, or the abstract science of mathematics; and much important scientific work has come from curiosity and unguided exploration, for example, the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation, or the development of the atomic force microscope.

[Anonymous No.2256809]

Every fucking teacher i can remember told me this

>Great Wall of China is the only man-made object visible from the Moon

i had a feeling that it was retarded but since everyone went on about it, i started believing it too ;_;

[Anonymous No.2256813]

i'm only about halfway through, but i know all of this stuff.

you'd have to be retarded to believe any of these.

[Anonymous No.2256814]

When I was a kid, I used to lie in the back yard and stare at the Sun until my eyes burned. Then I'd go inside, eat some cookies or something and enjoy the afterimage, then go back out and do it again. It wasn't until I was in grade 2 that I heard you weren't supposed to do that. Also, I used to watch TV from 5 cm away for as long as I could stand, because I liked the smell of the screen (mmm... ionization....). Had better than 20/20 vision well into my 20s, too.

Curiously, I never really believed a lot of the things that later turned out to be lies. Great Wall visible, Bernoulli, cold weather=sickness, and so on. I tried to count how often I thought about sex when I was 13, and it was nowhere near every 7 seconds. Also, I had serious problems reconciling the idea that neurons can't regenerate with the statement that your body completely replaces all its cell every 10 years or so. And, thanks to the Bug Book, I knew what Harvestmen were at age 6 (and that they aren't spiders, nor poisonous). My toilet flushed the wrong way, too, so I never believed that.

I fell for the tastebud thing, sugar=hyperactive, and specific parts of the brain for specific functions, mostly because a university psych book that say on my parents' book shelf said so.

More recently, I've believed in neurolinguistic programming and that mouth guards protect against concussions, both of which turn out to be false.

[Anonymous No.2256825]

>>2256304
If you know the correct velocity profile you can still use Bernoulli's principle to back out a correct lift force. The problem is that explanations often assume the "equal transit time" falsehood that states a particle going above the wing and a particle going below the wing will depart from the leading edge and arrive at the trailing edge at the same time.

But yeah, it's really all about that flow turning.

[Anonymous No.2256830]

>It is a common misconception even among adults that humans and dinosaurs (in the ordinary sense of the term) coexisted. According to the California Academy of Sciences, only 59% of U.S. adults know that this is false.

o.O

[Anonymous No.2256836]

>>2256682
That is kind of stupid, but if you exert yourself physically after a meal, there is a chance you'll throw up.

[Anonymous No.2256930]

That we can't create new brain cells in our brain by learning more.

[Anonymous No.2257037]

(Warts on human skin are caused by viruses that are unique to humans (Human papillomavirus). Humans cannot catch warts from toads or other animals; the bumps on a toad are not warts.)

Damn it! My plot to wart up my sister was doomed from the start.

>>2256814
Wow, that's exactly what I'd figured, except for the mouthguard. How would a mouthguard prevent concussions anyway?

[Anonymous No.2257056]

I think the "men think about sex every 10 seconds" myth isn't supposed to be read literally. I think it basically just means that over a 24 hour period men think about sex one tenth of the time, which may very well be true. My mind probably thinks about sex a lot when it's sleeping.

[Anonymous No.2257113]

>>2256744
> I always wondered why, if the seasons were because the sun was farther away, we didn't have EIGHT seasons, since the circuit around the sun had two such changes.

You mean two summers and two winters and so on? If distance from the sun were the cause of seasons, having two summers per year would imply that the Earth is closest to the sun twice during its orbit. That's not the case. This is how it actually works (pic related:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic_orbit

But again, that's not the cause of the seasons. It might be for another planet with an extremely eccentric orbit (as shown in the picture), but the Earth's orbit around the sun is very nearly circular.

Also, temperature and weather change gradually throughout the year, so the number of seasons, and the separations between them, are completely man-made. Some places on Earth are considered to have only two seasons (rainy and dry) because that's a more convenient way of describing the weather changes in that location. When you started talking about "eight seasons" it really confused me.

[Anonymous No.2257114]

>There is no evidence that Vikings wore horns on their helmets
I don't know what to believe anymore...

[Anonymous No.2257115]

>>2257113

By the way, you'll have to click on that image to see it properly. Fucking transparency.

[Anonymous No.2257863]

>>2256814
>neurolinguistic programming
>false

LOL
no

[Anonymous No.2257962]

>>2257863
Fuck you and every person who ever though NLP was remotely real.

Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.2258083]

>>2256809
that's the most stupid one. Why could you see the great wall of china which is about 10 meters wide and not expressways which 4 lanes in each directions and service lanes which can be way larger than 100 meters. While we are at it, cities that cover thousands of square meters should be a little more visible from space than a thin line of brick.

[Anonymous No.2258092]

>>2257962
NLP is totally real. There are sets of audio and visual stimuli that will get people to do pretty much anything.

Specifically, seeing large piles of cash and hearing 'do a thing to get this large pile of cash' will cause most people's brains to make them do the requested action.