physics

When I was a young boy, I believed that when I step on a wire, the electrons would not move.... Now I am an IC designer ;-)

Anon

When i was like 6 or 7 i was on a family vacation in cape cod and we decided to go on a whale watch. I was on the top deck with a good number of other people. When a whale came into view all the people of course would go to one side. the waves where making the boat dip back and forth. I thought this was caused by all the whale watchers standing on one side. So to avoid capsizing the boat i would run to the other side and try to balance us out. Needles to say i didn't see very many whales on that tour.

Ghotzy

Once when I was much younger I had recieved a helium balloon for my birthday. After playing with it, I popped it. I quickly grabbed a nearby bucket and held the ballon over it waiting for it to leak out. After all, my mom said it was filled with gas.

Ben

I used to wonder why rockets were launched to the moon during the day when the moon was only around at night. Eventually I figured it out -- rockets weren't instantaneous, so by the time they got to the moon it would be night time.

There was another impressive logical leap after this, but I don't remember it. Probably for the best...

dino

I used to believe that after you made ice in the freezer, you could put it in the fridge and it would stay frozen. I thought the fridge was cold enough to keep the ice frozen, but not cold enough to actually freeze it.

papakapp

I beleived as a child that everything that moved had a wind up key and that it was just a matter of finding it. Some years later I began to think that they were only visible when you had your eyes closed and that if you looked for them really quick you might see them before they disappeared

Anon

When I was about 7 or 8, I thought that as I walked along the sidewalk I was stationary and the Earth was turning beneath me. It was a strange little illusion, but even now if I think about it I can still fall into it...

Paul Martin

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.

Ward Webber

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.

Sue

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.

Rob McKenzie

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!!!

Anon

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.

mcp

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.

Russ

One day when I was at a park with my parents, I looked straight up into the sky and got real dizzy and felt like I was about to lift off. There was a railing next to me that I immediately grabbed. At that very moment my dizziness went away. From that moment on (at least for a couple of years) I harbored the belief that the only reason people do not fly off the face of the earth was because there was always an object nearby they could grab a hold of.

DM

I used to believe that if the lift cable snapped and I jumped in the air just before hitting the ground I would escape serious harm. My children asked why I had curly hair. I told them I was an African. They asked why I wasn't black. I told them my mother used to keep me indoors to protect me from the sun. They believed me.

Brian Lockett

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?

I used to watch the clouds blowing across the sky and think I was seeing evidence of the earth's rotation.

Dave T

during a long car journey, i asked my father what the deal was with whirlpools, where did they come from? what made them..well, whirl..

After a few miles it was evident that he had no idea at all and so, i came up with my own kid-theory for him to validate.

I suggested that there were wide brick built chimney like structures under water, at the base of the chimney there was a pipe connected to a pump somewhere and that sucked the water downwards making it swirl like a bath plug hole. To my amazement he agreed.. yes thats right son. shea' rite dad

Well, this partly explains the strange and twisted way in which i now view the world, of course i am ommiting the mind altering drugs i took at university.

farber