chemistry
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when I was a little boy I thought that there is metal and iron. I didn't know that iron is metal too. Till I found out that iron IS metal and copper is metal and aluminium....
ah, and I also thought that steel plate is another kind of metal too.
the second thing I believed is that real iron, real pure iron is so heavy - you can't lift it
Friedl
top belief!
As a kid, my brother used to believe he could split atoms. And so, he would walk around wildly swinging a stick trying to hit some atoms. :)
Anon
top belief!
I used to think that bartenders were scientists and when they were mixing drinks, they were really mixing chemicals and trying to poison people.
Allison
top belief!
When I was about 7 I was playing with the trash burning barrel. My friend and I were throwing in sand and sticks into the burning barrell. All of a sudden there was a tremendous BANG! from the trashcan (I think it must have been a hairspray can that exploded.)
However, my friend and I were CONVINCED that we had created some special sand/stick/and rock combo that was quite explosive. No matter how we tried, be couldn't get the trash can to BOOM again.
reenie
top belief!
I used to believe that if you put water in test tubes it would turn into whichever chemical the test tube was designed to make, so i was really dissapointed when i got one of those perfume making kits (with test tubey type things) and my mixture of water and water did nothing!
Emmie x
top belief!
I knew different things happened at different temperatures, but I didn't know the difference between Celsius and Fahrenheit. So if water boiled at 100 degrees, and if you had a fever of 102 degrees, that meant you were sick because you were above boiling.
Norm
top belief!
I used to think that pneumonia and ammonia were the same thing. When my friend's mother was using a sink full of ammonia to clean some old combs, I thought we were all going to catch "ammonia".
Steve Young
top belief!
I had learnt in school that carbon dioxide turns lime solution white...so if you blow into lime water, it will turn milky. After that everytime mom made nimbu pani (lime juice), I'd spend hours blowing into it, waiting for it to change colour.
Sveta
top belief!
When I was a kid, I had railroad tracks running though my backyard. When I'd walk back there, I'd find little pieces of coal. From science class, I knew that if you put enough pressure on coal, it would turn into diamonds. I put so many pieces of coal on the tracks, but I never did find any diamonds...
Me
top belief!
When I was about 7 a teacher explained that the whole universe was made up of molecules, which were smaller than a pin head and that there was very little difference between one molecular structure and another. For years I believed that if I had an injection or pricked my skin with a needle then I would distort my molecular structure and turn into a table or something.
Lynne
I can't remember what Superman film it was, but there is a scene where Superman gets a lump of coal, squeezes it really hard and turns it into a diamond for Lois.
I thought, why don't people get one of those car crushing machines and then fill it with coal, you'd be loaded!
Ben
top belief!
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.
naive Washingtonian
top belief!
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.
Rachel
top belief!
Until fifth grade, I used to believe that ice was always a constant 32 degrees F. When I found out that a piece of ice could be COLDER than that, it really blew my mind.
Michael H. USA
top belief!
Like others, I also reduced elements to water, and everything else. I thought all liquids had water, except mercury, and, strangely enough, milk. There was a milk mystique in my house.
Andrew Weaver
top belief!
I was convinced that I could invent a machine that would pressurize wood, but denying it oxygen, it would not burn, but melt. I'm still not convinced it's impossible. :-)
Andrew Weaver
top belief!
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.
Martin, England
top belief!
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.
Jim Thomason...
top belief!
On a very long museum trip through the gem section, my mother told me that the floride in toothpast comes from florite, the purple crystal. I remember running through the gem section pointing out every 'toothpaste rock' to her. I didn't find out this was a trick until I was about 17 or 18
Michael Pendleton
When I was a child, I was thinking about matterials in general. As had no idea where to start, I started with the fact that some things were solid, some were liquid and some were gasses.
I not yet had made the connection between ice, water and steam, so I thought that everything that is liquid must have some water in it. I just could not figure out how much. If something would be solid, the water was gone.
houghi
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