There was this period of time when teachers knew everything. Well, actually they knew even less than they know today, but kids had to respect their opinion. I suppose this was the era when parents were mostly uneducated so a seemed looked like Mr. All Wiki. Here are 10 things that most likely you learned in school and are absolutely incorrect!
#1 There is no gravity in space WRONG! There is no place in space in which there is no gravity. There can be places where the sum of gravitational vectors add up to zero, like the L1 Lagrangian point, but this does not mean that there is no gravity. Astronaufts in Earth Orbit seem weightless as if there was no gravity, but what really happens is that they are actually in a constant fall towards earth.
#2 Newton discovered gravity after the apple incident WRONG! This was the story that Newton came up with after he discovered that the mathematical equations that he already had solved some 20 years earlier were so valuable. As a matter of fact, it was Halley that kickstarted Newton's curiosity on gravity with his questions after betting that there has to be a simple mathematical rule that governs the motion of planets around the sun.
#3 Tomas Edison invented the light bulb WRONG! Tomas Edison bought Heinrich Goebel's patent when he died from the widow. Let alone the fact that 22 other inventors had worked with incandescent light bulbs in the past including Nicola Tesla.
#4 Humans are descended from chimpanzees WRONG! Both humans and chimpanzees share a common ancestor. But some 6 million years ago, the two species began to form separately.
#5 Columbus discovered America and proved that the Earth is not flat WRONG and WRONG! America was originally discovered by a Viking named Leif Erikson in 1000AD. And ancient Greeks had already proved that the Earth is round. Moreover they had discovered a way to measure Earth's diameter!
#6 Van Gogh cut off his ear during a mental illness WRONG! Van Gogh lost his ear in a sword fight with a fellow artist Paul Gauguin. They both swore Omerta, and the truth only surfaced after Van Gogh's death.
#7 Chameleons use camouflage to hide from enemies WRONG! Changing colors is a way of communication among the species. They use this method to mate or speak out loud of threats. They also change their color to regulate their temperature, darker to absorb more heat, whiter to cool down.
#8 Diamonds are made by compressed and superheated coal WRONG! Most likely diamonds were made by the carbon that was trapped inside Earth during its formation. We know that diamonds are older than plants, and coal is made by the plants, so coal cannot be the source of diamonds.
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