I used to believe…
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.
I used to believe…
When me and my friend were about 6 years old, we decided to go time-travelling. The only way we could work out how to do this was to sit at the top of my stairs in my baby brother's baby bath and wait for my mum to get home from shopping(the front door was right in front of the stairs) and then we would slide down the stairs and right out the front door so quickly we'd have to go back in time. Fortunately we didn't have the patience to sit all squashed up in the tiny little baby bath for longer than about 10 minutes so we gave up on our time-travelling plans and watched tv instead.
I used to believe…
When I was four or five I recall my dad telling me that it was possible to stop time. He's an amatuer physicist, so I'm sure he was just trying to explain some principle that I was too young to understand. The thing is, I have a very distinct memory of him demonstrating this ability. I was able to pluck a "frozen" bumblebee right out of the air and put it in a jar.
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I used to believe that because of the damage it does, UV light' was 'ultra violent light' not 'ultra violet'.
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I used to believe…
When I was a child, I used to believe that the force of gravity was an old woman named "Marialonga" sucking down children with her hands.
I had heard something about a mirror being a piece of glass with black behind it. So I found some black paper and a piece of glass, and I was very disapointed...
I used to believe…
When I was in grade school I was convinced by another student that you could make a laser by placing a flashlight inside a drinking glass and angling it just the right way. I tried this at home and was delighted when I saw some light rays come out of the glass at weird angles. I thought for sure I had made my own homemade laser beam!
I used to believe…
When I was a little girl I knew that the earth rotated on it's axis. I thought that the earth made a complete turn every day and that while it was turning everything was upside down ! Since this didn't happen during the day I would try to stay awake all night long hoping to see everything upside down. When I would wake in the morning I'd be very disappointed because I missed it !
I teach 8th grade. Many of my students have been amazed to learn recently that our Galaxy is called the Milky Way, that this isn't the only galaxy, that our sun is not at the center of our galaxy, and that no people or even space probes have left our galaxy. I especially love to watch their faces when I show them a picture of the Hubble Deep Field North and say that every point of light in the picture is a galaxy, then explain just how small an amount of the sky that the picture covers.
I used to believe…
The German word for x-rays is R�ntgen-Strahlen, so I used to believe it must be an amazing coincidence that the man who discovered them bore the name of R�ntgen.
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I used to believe that sonic booms were huge explosions that only occured at the very tops of mountains.
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I used to believe…
When I was Younger I used to believe that if I talked into a jar and then covered the top... I could hear myself when I opened the jar
I used to believe…
Up until about 14 years old, I never believed that a knife totally cut anything in half. I always thought there was a tiny sliver that got pushed down directly under the blade that was so small it was not visible to the human eye.
I used to believe that if I jumped from a height and I had my legs crossed I wouldn't break my legs and I would land unharmed.
I used to believe…
When I was young, I believed that when I was walking or riding my bike, I was staying still and that my motion was making the earth revolve!
I used to believe that electricity was these little soldiers on horses charging in a straight line out of the socket. I knew I shouldn't get close or touch a electric socket and I thought if I did these guys would come out and hurt me.
I used to believe…
When I was in grade school (I schooled in Canada), I held the belief that during Winter the world was cold because the world was covered in snow. As you could see manhole covers and vents that had melted snow around it, they were direct links to underground, my premise was that heat actually came through the center of the earth (remember those nifty schoolbooks with the picture of the core of molten hot metal) and snow was actually blocking the heat coming into the air. This was also confirmed by it not being cold in the house, as the floor of the house didn't have any snow on it.
I used to believe that the world was actually flat, and that we were at the bottom of the universe, with the sun and moon, and all the stars floating up above us.
I thought that the universe was in the shape of a pyramid and our solar system was somewhere on the south side of it (yes I know there's no south in space but I didn't as a kid!)
I used to believe…
When I was small I had a toy measuring tape that marked every centimeter (about 0.4 inches). I came to the conclusion that a centimeter is the smallest unit of length. So when something was, let's say, 0.5 centimeters long, I though it's either a measurement error or a pure illusion.
