science

When I was young I used to think that our phone only worked for English speaking people. And that if you wanted to speak another language on the phone you'd have to buy that specific phone.

I didn't understand what a microphone was, and thought the mics and brown microphone covers used by performers on Top of the Pops during the late 1980s were actually gigantic bulbs of chocolate, put there in case the singers became hungry. But I'm alright now...

I first saw a piezzo-electric gas-oven lighter when visiting some of my parents friends. They (the adults) thought it'd be fun to pretend that it was a space-gun and that one of these friend used to be a astronaut. I am sure I remember telling all my friends back at school about my astronaut friend and his gun...

I used to think that little elves lived in my computer and that when the computer was turned off they were sleeping. The computer was right outside the bathroom, so whenever I tried to go to the bathroom I would tiptoe past the computer and if I made a noise I would hide because I was afraid they'd be mad at me for disturbing their sleep.

When I was young, my older brother told me that there were tape recorders that could record voices and more expensive tape recorders that could record music. If you tried to record music with a less expensive voice-recording tape recorder, you would play back silence. We were very lucky that we had one of those expensive, music-recording tape recorders!

When I was a little girl living in Washington State, we would somtimes drive past the Hanford Atomic Works in Eastern Washington. This was during the height of the Cold War, and there was lots of information floating around about the dangers of atomic radiation.

I was so scared that I used to hold my breath for as long as possible whenever we passed through the Hanford area. I thought that if I didn't inhale, the radiation coudln't "get" me.

When I was embarrassingly old--9 or so, I think--I used to believe that if you had half a glass of water and stuffed a washcloth into it, and the water rose to the top of the glass, you now had a full glass of water. My mother was unable to explain displacement in a way that satisfied me, so I held on to my belief persistently.

I used to believe that to use a microphone you had to put a special device in your mouth which made your voice very quiet so that the microphone could 'pick up' the sound. I think this belief came from when I went to a circus when I was younger and the ringmaster leant over to speak to someone next to him without using the microphone and I couldn't hear his voice (even though he was about 25 foot away!)

I used to believe that, because you had to unwind electric cables and extension cords completely before plugging them in, electricity could only run in straight lines.

When I was about 3 ys old I would roll a can (probably a soup can) across the kitchen floor. It would slow down about 8' away and then begin to return roll back to me only to stop again about 3' away and then go forward. Back and forth a few times till it stopped in the middle of the floor. I believed there was some cosmic attachment the can had with the universe, and that the process of rolling would cause it to twist up like a spring in a clock is wound up. It then would return the energy and cause the can to reverse the roll. I accounted for it not making it all the way back each time as energy dissipated by friction. My error was assuming that the floor was level and not concaved downward in the middle of the floor.

I remember being scolded for not shutting the refrigerator door all of the way. Somehow I came to believe that if I didn't shut the refrigerator door all the way that it would eventually stop closing. I would test this theory out by leaving the refrigerator door slightly ajar and then quickly running in a circular path throughout the house (out one kitchen door and in another)back to the refrigerator to see if the door was any harder to shut.

When I was like 3-4, I wanted a horse shoe shaped magnet. I had seen Tom and Jerry use one to attract everything made of metal. I was wery dissapoitet when i found out that it wasnt true. I also always was dreaming about owning a metal-saw. With one of those i would be able to saw everything!!!

I was convinced that chemistry lessons consisted of the teacher standing at the front, saying things like "And now add the green slime to the pink stuff," causing a colour change or an explosion. Actual chemical elements, compounds, etc, never crossed my mind.
I was also convinced that plutonium was green, glowing, and worse still, harmless.

My father-in-law, who is his 50's, has recently got himself hooked up to the internet. Every night, before he goes to bed, he unplugs the main power supply and disconnects the modem. The reason? To stop the computer merrily browsing on the web all by itself and running up a huge phone bill. I swear this is true.

Car phones were just coming out when I was kid...I used to think that your lisence plate number was you car phone number so the people you met on th eroad could call you to chat.

When I was small (5?), I thought I figured out how to use the telephone on my own. My best friend's name was Jennifer, so I decided to call her one day. I picked up the receiver and was delighted to discover that there were letters corresponding to the numbers. I simply dialed her name (it was the same as mine, I knew how to spell it): j-e-n-n-i, etc. By the second "e," it began to ring, and a man I didn't know answered. I dutifully gave the phone to my mom.

When I was kid, I read a lot of physics books, and then, this one time, I saw a program on the big bang, and I thought there was no way the whole universe was made with one big bang. The universe was too big. There must have been a lot of big bangs all over the place to account for the size.

I used to believe that the sun moved up and down in space and that's how we got seasons... then I discovered the tilt of the earth. I also believed that the North and South poles of the earth were due to a giant bar magnet with hte red end sticking out of the North pole and the blue end sticking out of the South pole.