science

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.

I always got confused when I watched movies with pepole jumping of trains or cars that was moving. Thats because I thought that if I just stepped of I woudld immediatley stand still, not faling and hurt myself. Because it was the cars or train that was moving, I just sat there...

When I was young I thought that I you put something in a copying machine it would puplicate any object. For example my toys or my money. I thought I was really smart, because noone else seemed to have realised this! I would be the ruler of the world or somethinf if I could only get to one of these machines. Finnally, I got really dissapointed when I tried it at my mothers work...

As a seven-year old, I believed that every noise ever made or that will be made goes directly to a cave in some vast mountain, and that they will remain there until the destruction of the earth when they will all be released simultaneously.

I used to think that filling a plastic bag with air took away the gravity inside.
I spent many hours at my grandmothers testing this theory with a plastic sandwich bag and a ten cent coin.

I used to believe that if I dug up my garden enough I would discover a completely new colour that no-one else had ever seen before. I tried to imagine what this colour would be, and it was always orange.

Somehow I got this strange idea that if you held a piece of paper so that it's edge was facing a piece of glass, and pushed it fast enough it would actually travel through the glass without the glass breaking. I thought it was a phonomenon associated with time travel but later as I discovered that all material thigs were made up of atoms I figured that the paper was actually squeezing through the spaces in between the molecules. Actually none of my experiments to make the paper pass through the glass ever worked but I figured that it was because I couldn't move the paper fast enough.

I used to believe (and carefully taught this to my even smaller brother) that all liquids were just different things dissolved in water. So engine oil, molten rock etc - all just something plus water.

In my childhood, to make a phone call, you picked up the receiver and waited for a live operator to say, "Number, please?" She would make the call for you.

I believed that if the telephone operator could tell you when a line was busy, they should also be able to tell you when no one was home.

As a child I used to spin myself around and around. When I'd stand still after spinning the room would be moving around and I was convinced that I was witnessing the earth rotating on its axis.

For some reason, when I was a little kid I was convinced that if you hooked two nine volt batteries to each other, they'd explode violently and destroy anything within about 100 feet.

Not really Physics this one but...

Iused to believe that living things were made out of cells and non-living things were made out of molecules.

A wonderful theory until you realise that molecules are a LOT smaller than cells!

When I was a kid, I used to believe that the sky was the surface of a solid sphere and that we were inside this sphere.

I think the fact that the sky is usually blue and satellite pictures showed the Earth as being blue led me to belive this.

I was never able to figure out the knotty problem of how rockets managed to pierce through this solid wall of sky to make their way into space though.

I used to believe that written messages could be passed through the phoneline. I spent ages trying to send cards through the reciever! I even tried to send my grandmother some icecream...

As children, my best friend (who will remain anon because he is now a respected Engineer) tried to convince me that raising the seats on our bicycles actually made them heavier, because there is more metal showing.

At the age of ten, I had a fantastic idea for walking on water. I put inflatable arm-bands around my ankles and stepped 'onto' the swimming pool. Luckily my dad was there to rescue me as I dangled upside-down under water :)

I used to believe (because a relative told me) that if you didn't jump off an escalator or moving walkway when you got to the end, you would get sucked underneath and chewed up by the mechanism.

I was told that diamonds were made out of coal, crushed under the earth. So I put a piece of coal under a brick in the garden, and checked it regularly. I knew I didn't have enough pressure for diamond, but I figured I'd get something good - possibly chocolate.

I used to believe that each U.S. state's local phone company was named after the state the company was located. (This was in the late 1980s, after AT&T was split up.) I believed this because I knew that Indiana's phone company was "Indiana Bell" and Illinois had "Illinois Bell," so naturally I thought there was a "Florida Bell," a "New York Bell," and a "California Bell."