When I was quite youg (couldn't have been over 3 or 4) we watched a documentary on black holes with Stephen Hawking in it. This was before he had his robo-chair, so he siply spoke the best he could at the time and was subtitled. Now my sister and I both couldn't read at this time, so we were put off by this, and one of us asked why he spoke that way. "It's because a black hole sucked out his voice," Dad joked. My sister and I believed him explecitly... a few years ago we were talking and we remembered this, and confronted Dad. He claimed not to remember.

Pink

When I was around 5 my parents warned me several times that if I fell from a height then I would break my neck.

I figured that since my body was heavier than my head, my body would fall faster than my head and the two parts would seperate at the neck while falling.

Tosh McG

I used to believe that when you yawn you risk floating. As is gravity wouldnt be able to hold onto you, the strange thing was, im sure I can remember watching tv and watching a program about yawning can cause you to float away into the sky.

Jay

I was once told by my dad that peddling a bike down a hill would actually slow you down. I wwas about 15 before i realized this wasn't true.

Ann

When I was a child I asked my Dad how the tides worked and why the sea came in and out. He took a long time explaining to me about gravitational forces and the pull of the moon. When he was done, I simply stared at him and said "yeah right dad, pull the other one". I refused to believe this elaborate hoax.

Kerry

I used to believe that when i cut my sandwich, i had a slight chance of splitting an atom in the bread, so every time i made a PB&J sandwich i expected to die within a millisecond and everyone within a half of a mile to get they're face melted off. that lasted until i stopped thinking about it, then i learned that the edge of the knife wasn't precise enough to split an atom, so i stopped worrying about it.

Samuel

When I was a child I thought that blankets had heat built into them. That
was why they kept you warm. The more you piled on the warmer you
would be. I can't remember when I stopped believeing this but it came
as a shock that I was wrong.

Tetsubo

i was convinced that if i could spin fast enough i could fly like a helicopter. I got my limited knowledge of science involved, I figured since helicopters had tilted wing things, so if i held books tilted in my hands i would have better lift. I gave up after I realized that even if I did spin fast enough when I would float I wold lose spinning action and come back down anyway

Chris Ferry

I couldn't understand why I couldn't just pick myself up (by the feet) and fly away. Thought I just wasn't strong enough.

Still not 100% sure...

Stephen

I used to belive that the only factor that made a difference to how well a sailboat sailed was how pretty the sail was. As far as I could understand, any boat with a plain white sail --even a million dollar yacht-- couldn't possibly sail well.

Jackie F

When I first learned how a helicopter's rotor gives the helicopter lift that raises it off the ground and keeps it suspended in the air, I decided that in buildings that had ceiling fans, the fans were part of what was holding the ceiling up, on a similar principle.

Dan

My dad told me to work out how to achieve perpetual motion and so I used to try and for ages he just said I must be doing it wrong until one day I realised.

Richard

My friend Baz believed that a large truck travelling along a road would stop dead for a tiny fraction of a second each time a fly hit the windscreen (that's a "windshield" for you folks from the US of A). He was aged 33 when he let that one slip!

ned

I used to believe that the frying pan and metal stuff were never hot unless they glowed red. That changed the day I decided to test it out when Mom wasn't looking. I cried for an hour I think.

James Chen

i used to think that if you disconnected your speakers while playing music, the noise would build up inside the wires like water at a dam, and when you plugged them back in the built up sound would all come out at once like a flood.

mat

When I found out that Neutrinos passed through anything, I thought that they caused people to itch when they passed through them.

Brian

When I was little, I saw a science show on t.v. that explained about how splitting atoms would make nuclear explosions etc...etc...etc... So I believed if a person just broke something or tore something in half it would cause atoms to split and blow apart the planet.

queeeney63

When I was young, I used to occasionally get paranoid that gravity would suddenly start working in reverse. When I thought about this I would always try and make sure that there was a roof over me, just in case, cos I didnt want to fall into space forever.

Tufty the Squirrel

My sisters once told me that if you tripped, and then had something sudden happen to attract your attention, you would float. They told me that this was because we are so convinced that the Laws of Gravity are true that therefore they work. But when you are suddenly distracted, you forget about the Laws of Gravity and thus you float. Lets just say that jumping off of stools and ladders and having your sisters throw things at you is not a good idea...
(I believed this for several days until my Dad told me that they got it from some books by Douglas Adams.)

Flying Man

I used to believe that echos were actually the sound going completely around the world and coming back to you.

kyle