science

I used to believe…

for quite sometime as a kid (when I had numerous battery operated toys) I used to believe that empty batteries were lighter than full ones: it took me quite sometime to get my head around the concept that electricity could not be weighed!

My older brother told my cousin that while laying down, if you tried hard enough, you could lift your entire body off the floor by an inch-or-two, supporting yourself with only the back of your head touching the floor. - My cousin tried it and of course failed...

When I was little I called a radio show to request a record for my mum. I got the busy signal but I thought that if I stayed on the line, listening to the busy signal, that when the line was free, I would be put straight through....I was on the phone for HOURS!!

When I was 8 my elder brother told me that due to the spin of the Earth, if anyone faced exactly east they would fly off into space, when I questioned this he said very few people had ever done it because it was almost impossible to exactly face east.

When I was a kid, I used to think that NASA couldnt send up a rocket into outer space unless it was night-time! I seem to remember believing that it had to be night so it looked like outer space.

When I was about 4 and 5, I believed that the voices heard on the telephone handset travelled in the space made by the coils in the cord, and that I could interrupt the conversation by putting a finger into that space.

I used to believe that tape recorders had to be rewound on both sides. I would sit for hours and rewind my Micky Mouse tape on one side, flip it to the other and rewind that side, flip it back over and think "guess I didn't rewind it all the way!"

When I was about 12 I had an inept orthodontist who kept losing my x-rays, and after the third set or so my mom fired him, saying something about the cumulative cancerous effect of all that radiation. When I was 17 I hurt my neck skiing and she didn't want me to have a head x-ray because I'd already had my lifetime allowance. Fifteen years later, I still decline dental x-rays because my mom had me convinced I'd get brain cancer if I got any more head x-rays.

I used to believe that if you splashed water on an electrical outlet or on a light switch sparks would fly out. I got this idea from being told never to turn on or off a light switch with wet hands. I used to shake my hands off in the direction of the light switch anyway before drying them with a towel, because I thought it would be cool if sparks did come out.

I used to think that when you send a fax, the actual paper that you put in the fax machine goes through the plug to the other place you're sending it to and comes out there

When I was not very tall, I was told that when you flick up the lid of a lighter, the flint gets struck and the flame ignites. So I thought it only sensible that when you push the lid back down, the flint would be struck from the other direction, thus the flame would go out.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if that's what really happens.

For years when I was a child, I believed that telephone cable was curly because curly cable was cheaper to make than straight cable. My dad told me that so it must be true, musn't it?

When I was little, my older sister told me that If I picked up the telephone and dialled the number for that telephone it would automatically trip a self destruct devise and blow up the whole house. I believed this for a very long time.

When I was 3 or 4, I always saw my parent put video tape in the vcr. So I thought that my parent was feeding a monster. One day, my mother gave me a carrot stick. I decided I want to feed the monster. So I walked into my parent's room, jammed the carrot stick in (where you slide in the tape), and slided the carrot stick side to side. So yeah, I killed the vcr monster after that incident.

I once believed that I could look into photographs, like you would a window, and look "around the edges" by holding them at an angle (also see further into the distance in the photo using binoculars).

I used to believe that if I spun around really fast in the living room and then fell to the ground I'd feel the world spinning as I held onto the floor. At times I experienced a similar sensation in college after drinking too much.

I used to think that all telephones were wireless, but you had to plug them into the wall because they needed a special sort of electricity (that's why the cable port was different). And I thought cell phones were special only because they had batteries.