Most incorrect thing you were taught?

iDave · 26-09-2012 10:26am

My primary school teached saw Apollo 11 in a book and told us it was Apollo 2

Sky King · 28-09-2012 11:39pm

Maybe it was Apollo II?

steddyeddy · 29-09-2012 12:02am

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

That swinging a bucket of water over your head was to demonstrate how gravity works.

Maybe who ever told you that was thinking of the principle and invention of foucault's pendulum which demonstrates that the earth rotates?

kowloon · 29-09-2012 12:13am

partyatmygaff wrote:

Ethanol is oxidised by the oxygen in the air in to ethanoic acid. It's also oxidised in the body by a series of enzymes in to ethanoic acid which is then used as an energy source in muscle tissue. Ethanoic acid, being the main component of vinegar, isn't very toxic or dangerous. Most of the alcohol

And I've learnt that acetic and ethanoic acid are the same thing!

Kinski · 18-10-2012 7:23pm

Friends at my school were told by their religion teacher that condoms don't prevent the transmission of HIV because the virus is smaller than the pores in the rubber (Catholic missionaries in parts of Africa were caught out spreading the exact same falsehood a few years back.)

Another friend's English teacher insisted that Shakespeare's Macbeth is spelled McBeth.

Gamayun · 18-10-2012 7:31pm

I remember in 3rd class the teacher told us that approximate meant exactly. I knew that this was wrong but, being a tiny childling, didn't challenge it.

Likewise a friend told me that one of his primary school teachers said that Meteorology was the study of meteors, again he too dared not to challenge.

IvySlayer · 18-10-2012 7:35pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

The maps we've been using are completely wrong. I couldn't believe it when I found out.

http://dahlecommunication.typepad.com/home/2009/10/mercator-versus-peters-projection-why-change-is-a-difficult-process.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM

portumnadaz · 18-10-2012 7:37pm

Getting a car will get you fanny

quickbeam · 18-10-2012 8:24pm

Kinski wrote: »

Another friend's English teacher insisted that Shakespeare's Macbeth is spelled McBeth.

Reminds me that a teacher in my school used to insist on reading Withering Heights.

AlmightyCushion · 18-10-2012 8:36pm

IvySlayer wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8zBC2dvERM

Funnily enough, that's where I found out about it. I thought they just made it up for the show because there's no way it could be true. Out of curiosity I googled it.

SuperInfinity · 18-10-2012 8:42pm

I think one of the most wrong things to be thought is to look left, then right......... then left then right again when crossing the road.

The second "left and right", while I'm sure having the best intentions, is an unnecessary procedure. Spend as long as you need to looking left, and there will be no need to look left again.

I retain this habit occasionally when driving. I look left, then right, then maybe another look left again "to be sure to be sure".... and it's totally nonsense. There are many occasions when your attention would be far better served on something else. If you have to look left again then you shouldn't be crossing in the first place, what you see is as reliable the first time as the second.

Neeson · 18-10-2012 9:24pm

SuperInfinity wrote: »

I think one of the most wrong things to be thought is to look left, then right......... then left then right again when crossing the road.

The second "left and right", while I'm sure having the best intentions, is an unnecessary procedure. Spend as long as you need to looking left, and there will be no need to look left again.

I retain this habit occasionally when driving. I look left, then right, then maybe another look left again "to be sure to be sure".... and it's totally nonsense. There are many occasions when your attention would be far better served on something else. If you have to look left again then you shouldn't be crossing in the first place, what you see is as reliable the first time as the second.

Is something was travelling at supersonic silent speed then you'd be in trouble. I'd always look to be sure myself. Besides it gives the auld neck muscles a bit of exercise instead if looking straight ahead or down after one glance.

LoocyLoo · 18-10-2012 9:29pm

In primary school we were told that at 12.00 the sun was directly overhead and when we went out on our break at 12.00 we could check.

I did. It wasn't.

She forgot that our Northern Latitude means that the sun is never directly overhead. Maybe she meant it would be the highest it would get that day. Except that we're 4 minutes real time away from Greenwich so that's not true either. And I doubt she stopped to consider if it was Summer Daylight Saving time or not (I cannot recall what time of year it was, but I'm sure that nuance totally escaped her).

miralize · 19-10-2012 12:05am

Every single teacher I had could not teach me how to do inequality in Maths. This went up to 6th year like...

Sky King · 19-10-2012 8:39am

SuperInfinity wrote: »

I think one of the most wrong things to be thought is to look left, then right......... then left then right again when crossing the road. .

You're supposed to look right first because a car drives on the left and will be coming from your right.

gobnaitolunacy · 19-10-2012 8:47am

All the rebels of 1798, 1916 and the War Of Independance were noble, god-like superheroes that could do no wrong.

And then there was something that came after the WOI that we didn't really cover. So it can't have been that important.

Gurgle · 19-10-2012 4:34pm

LoocyLoo wrote: »

She forgot that our Northern Latitude means that the sun is never directly overhead. Maybe she meant it would be the highest it would get that day...

More likely she never understood geometry in the first place. The sun is never directly overhead anywhere north of the Tropic of Cancer or south of the Tropic of Capricorn.

Its the same with the 'sun rises in the east, sets in the west' story.
Sure it does, twice a year.

ozmo · 20-10-2012 3:21am

Duggys Housemate wrote: »

The browser adds it.

or try press ctrl+enter instead of enter - and the browser will add not only the "www." but a ".com" also then go there. Works on most browsers.

google<ctrl>+<enter>

ozmo · 20-10-2012 3:38am

oh - that electricity flows from the Positive to the Negative terminals in batteries.

Actually link

hardCopy · 20-10-2012 3:43am

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Funnily enough, that's where I found out about it. I thought they just made it up for the show because there's no way it could be true. Out of curiosity I googled it.

We had one of those maps in school, I laughed when I saw it in The West Wing and remembered our primary teacher banging on about it.

Spread · 20-10-2012 4:12am

That the world would end in the year 2000. It seems that the teacher thought (and taught) that God made the world about 2000 BC.

grenache · 20-10-2012 4:17am

That Limerick is a maritime county.

It is in its fcuk.

Sky King · 20-10-2012 11:30am

ozmo wrote: »

oh - that electricity flows from the Positive to the Negative terminals in batteries.

Actually link

Yeah i rmember being told that actually current flowed from neg to pos and conventional current flowed from pos to neg.... suggesting there were two types of current flowing in the circuit

citrus burst · 20-10-2012 11:58am

ozmo wrote: »

oh - that electricity flows from the Positive to the Negative terminals in batteries.

Actually link

Actually if you were taught that, you were taught correctly. Current is defined as the direction a positive charge will travel in an electric field. It just so happens electrons are negatively charged and so move in the opposite direction.

Confusing, but not wrong. More like a bad definition.

Capt'n Midnight · 20-10-2012 2:17pm

citrus burst wrote: »

Actually if you were taught that, you were taught correctly. Current is defined as the direction a positive charge will travel in an electric field. It just so happens electrons are negatively charged and so move in the opposite direction.

Confusing, but not wrong. More like a bad definition.

Back in the early days some famous guy was looking at sparks in a tube to figure out which way they moved. In then end it was more or less a guess because the process was too fast for the human eye and he guessed wrong.

Later on fast cameras confirmed this.

Same is true of the Left / Right handedness of either DNA or amino acids, but this time they guessed right.

FloatingVoter · 20-10-2012 2:34pm

I love that West wing clip. Though I was taught something about the Greenland thing - we were told it had something to do with the world being a globe, the map being 2D and something had to give - so the least populated unimportant piece of land got a size increase. Greenland won. D'oh.

angeline · 20-10-2012 3:50pm

I remember my English teacher saying when I was in 2nd year that people who talk about suicide will never actually commit suicide. Because she was always perceptive I'm surprised at her saying something that has been proven to be very incorrect.