When I was about seven, my best friend and I were completely convinced that the world was held together with Elmer's White Glue in the small bottle. Not the large bottle, we were very clear about that. The small bottle.

Kevin

I use to believe the speed of sound was the speed of sand and it was measured by how fast you disappeared into quick sand

Anon

I used to believe that houses were built on ball-bearings about the size of a bowling ball. Much later I realised that this must have stemmed from my dad trying to explain that the world was round.

Chris Mo

During the "nukular" 80s I had a fair idea of the power of an 'atom bomb', but couldn't figure out why it was so darned big when I'd been told in school that an atom was a really really really small part of the universe.

mpg

Me and my sis who is two years younger then me used to try to make ways to fly like putting blankets on our tricycles handle bars. Once I got this great Idea that I would take a box and tape feathers to it and slide down the slide and go flying. At the last minute I got concerned about safety. I decieded I had better tie a rope to the top of the slide so I wouldn't crash land. believe it or not the rope held good the problem was it was only half the lenth of the slide so I "Crash Landed" without my box. I got some bruises from that one.

Mandy

I used to believe that when walking on the beach I wouldn't leave any foot prints if I concentrate all my weight in the top half of my body - I tried and tried but always left foot prints in the sand.

Joanne

My mother told me that ceiling fans where used to hold up the ceiling. Being a somewhat smart kid at five years old I knew how propellers worked so this seemed possible to me. (but what happens if someone turns them off by accident?)

planetnewbs

When I was really little, probably about 4 or 5 years old, I knew what gravity did (keeps you planted to the ground), but I used to think that the source of gravity was someone named Mr. Gravity, who lived under my parents' bed! I had a mental image of what he looked like and everything... I would also look underneath my parents' bed, trying to search for "Mr. Gravity". My parents never corrected me, probably because they thought it was "cute" or something.
I even thought that under this same bed was a planet of its own... I was a very, umm, imaginitive child!

~Dom~

I used to firmly believe that there was an opposite to everything. The opposite of a carrot was a pea, just as the opposite of a boy was a girl. I got quite annoyed when my dad, who, after all, was a scientist, wouldn't help me classify some of the ground rules to this world of mine.

Sean

When I was in 6th grade I told a classmate that if reflections and shadows didn't exist that we would fall through the floor. And he believed me!

Carrie

I grew up hearing a lot about the atom bomb, and, having just heard about atoms in school, I thought that these incredibly powerful bombs were, well, the size of a single atom. When my father told me that atoms were always dropping off of me I was wondering how there weren't explosions everywhere.

Kurt

I couldn't understand why after putting a piece of coal next to a hot furnace wouldn't turn it into a diamond. Forgot it also needed pressure.

Mike

I used to believe that people turned off the plug sockets to stop the electricity escaping and electrocuting people.
I believed this until I experimented by waving my hand in front of a plug socket that was on end experienced none of the effects of electrocution.

Jay (UK)

My sisters once told me that the Laws of Gravity are all relative, and that the only reason they work is because we are so convinced that they are true. So basically, if you forget about gravity, then you'll float/fly. They told me that to do this you have to trip and become so distracted that you forget all about the falling, the fact that the ground is coming up very quickly, and the fact that its going to hurt.

I decided to test this theory and went to the living room (which is a carpeted floor) and got my sister to throw pillows at me as I tripped. This was so I could become distracted and forget to fall. It didnt work and I became very distressed and finally gave up.

I still believed that I could fly if I was properly disctacted until my Dad, several months later, told me that they had made it up to make me do something stupid so that they could video tape it...

i was gullible

i used to think that if i were to accidentally run off a clif that i wouldnt ever fall because i wouldnt be stupid like the cartoon characters and look down realizing i wasnt on the ground and then fall.

Hoovnasty

I used to beleive that if you had a big enough magnet, you could reverse the rotation of the Earth and time would go backwards.

Anon

While sitting on the shore of a small lake in the path of the local airport, my sister asked why the waves appeared every time a plane flew overhead? I replied "sonic waves of course." She said that's what I thought.

tooz

I could NOT understand why, if a pen worked on paper, it couldn't also write in thin air.

Can you guess what it is yet?

When I was about four or five, I was fascinated by the way my bedroom would get lighter as I tried to get to sleep. The door was always left ajar and I surmised that the light floated round the door like clouds. When people used to talk about the speed of light I thought it was about 6 feet per fifteen minutes. I have a BSc now!

Mat F

I used to believe that if I was quick enough, I could beat my shadow. I often used to try to hit my table faster than the shadow, sometimes pretending that I wasn't watching it, just to trick it. I never did beat it though...

Matt Phillips