technology

I used to think that there was day only so we could have light at night. See, there must have been this big box inside my wall that would suck up the light during the day. At night, when the light outside went away, the light would stay inside the little box in my wall. When you flipped on the light switch a shutter would open in the box and the light would filter through tubes that went through the wall to the ceiling to the light bulb. When you turned off the switch the shutters would close. That was my theory on electricity and day and night.

Riannon Showers

I used to think that conputer viruses were little worms or caterpillars.One day mom was trying to get rid of a virus,then I said "why don't you jump inside and catch it with a net?"

whatever virus!!!!

I used to believe that telegraphs worked by pulling on a cable and the person on the other end would be able to feel when it was pulled. I figured that to send a message a really long distance you had to pull really hard, but could never work out how someone would have enough strength to pull the cable hard enough to send a message overseas.

Claire

I used to baby sit these three girls, and one day i told them I would copy a CD for them, as in burn. The youngest one, at seven, asked me how you burned a CD... I told her that you just throw the CD you want a copy of, and an empty CD into the fireplace, light up, and when the flames are burned out, the CD would be finished, and you could put it in the CD-player. The next time I came to visit her, I found her throwing a cd into the fireplace... You should really learn to watch what you say around kids...

Baby sitter

I thought that inside the speaker things you order through in fast food places, there was a little midget who asked what you wanted then radioed the orders to the people at the window.

Lyssa

I used to think that the remote control for the garage door could also be used to open your neighbors' garage doors as well.

Will

When I was very young, I had a Spectrum 48k computer and I wanted to program in it. There was a program in a book I wanted to play, but I didn't think I had to actually program it, I thought you just had to write the name of the program on a tape and load it, and it would work. I drove myself to tears when it wouldn't work no matter how hard I tried!

Carmine

I liked watching science shows when I was younger, but I guess I didn't understand them too well...I believed that without a doubt that scientists were on the verge of cloning dinosaurs (I couldn't figure out why though!). And when Jurassic Park came out, I thought it was real...

Anon

I used to believe that if you peeled the white border off of a Polaroid picture, the people inside would come out to visit with you.

Michelle C from Michigan

i used to believe that www meant world wide willy until a few months later when i came across a frind who correced me and said it meant world wide web

bethey

When I was younger I used to believe that when you faxed someting the paper would de-materialize and the particles would travel through the phone lines and re-materialize later at the other end of the fax machine.

Laura Vivoni

When I was a kid I couldn't figure out how video got to a TV through a tiny little cable, and with so many channels! I figured that a huge set of tiny images must be transferred through the cable using fibre optics or something (like a multiplexed image), and then the TV would pick a section of this big image when you choose a channel, then magnify that section onto the TV screen and voila - TV! I figured the sound was picked up using some sort of radio tuner. I was tempted to cut the cable and see if a bunch of tiny images would project from it! I understand how they work today, but you gotta admit, it's pretty amazing how color video goes through a simple 2-pin cable.

Anon

When I was 3 we lived with my great-grandmother in Missisiippi and my mom had a record player in our room. (This was in 1967 for those who don't know what a record player is!!) I was so curious about the spinning of it so she told me there was a little man under the record running in a circle making it spin. I always wondered if he had a friend in there to help if he got tired.

mommy0203

Not actually my own belief, but when my young son came across an old typewriter at a car boot sale, he thought it was an antique computer.

Irene

When I first heard the term "burning a CD", I had the immediate vision of someone setting a CD on fire and giving it to someone.

Keven White

'Mole machines' is what me and my brother used to call them. You see them in Thunderbirds, any film about Victorians tunnelling trying to find the core of the Earth, and lots of cartoons. They're basically cylinders with giant screws on the front and they burrow through soil, rock, or the white-hot core of the planet at about fifteen miles an hour.

I knew not everything you saw on TV existed in real life, but I saw these things on too many different shows and films for it to be a coincidence. So Mole Machines must be real, I deduced, and I hoped fervently to ride in one when I was a grown up. Big disappointment.

I was delighted to see a Mole Machine pop up in The Incredibles. Maybe a whole new generation of kids will see them as a viable transport option.

Andy R