Urban myths

[Frank]

Who knows a good one?

"Why are bananas curved?"

Well, the question itself isn't so much an urban myth, as are almost all the explanations. But then again, anyone who ever saw a banana tree would disregard the question as utterly stupid. Because it's plain to see why they are, gravity being what it is and all.

"Mobile phones emit lethal radiation."

Yes, they do. But watching (a CRT) television every day for a few hours nets you a much larger dose of radiation.

"God exists."

 

[Neeyik]

Not really urban myths but they're ones that I have to regularly 'correct' during my line of work:

"Mobile phones use microwaves of a similar frequency to ovens, so they must be boiling our brains"

"Microwave oven frequencies are equal to the resonant frequency of water molecules"

"Ducks quacks don't echo"

"The Sun is yellow in space"

"Objects of different mass but same surface area fall at the same terminal velocity in the Earth's atmosphere"

"The Earth is nearer to the Sun during the summer (UK)"

"There's no gravity in space"

"There's no gravity on the Moon because it has no air"

"There's no gravity on the Sun/Jupiter/Saturn/etc because they're made from gas"

"The glass in windows is liquid and flows over hundreds of years"

"We can see infrared/ultraviolet waves"

 

[Npl]

I consider SPAM an urban myth, I just dont know which way.
Either the spammers believe that they make a buck out of it someday - or there are enough idiots actually believing it, making it a viable business. Ridiculous in both accounts, but yet there it is in vast amounts.

I also like movies where they take an surveillance tape, then a smart persons sees a miniscule detail and zooms in 100x to reveal something other than a unsharp mess.
Ditto with electricity in movies. Often enough you`d have to believe current wont take the shortest way down the ground, but instead take a nice round-trip up the body of a victim.

 

[_xxx_]

Npl, trust me that there are more than a few idiots out there which fall for spam. Especially older, not-so-technical people.

 

[Frank]

I consider SPAM an urban myth, I just dont know which way.
Either the spammers believe that they make a buck out of it someday - or there are enough idiots actually believing it, making it a viable business. Ridiculous in both accounts, but yet there it is in vast amounts.

You might change your mind if you see the actual success rate, or ponder the costs of the marketing. And become one, too.

 

[Simon F]

Not really urban myths but they're ones that I have to regularly 'correct' during my line of work:
"Ducks quacks don't echo"

That was on myth busters. IIRC, it was quite hard to detect the echo though.

"The Earth is nearer to the Sun during the summer (UK)"

When it is, presumably, closer to the sun during (UK) winter.

"The glass in windows is liquid and flows over hundreds of years"

Well, it is slower than the University of Queensland Pitch Experiment.

 

[Diplo]

Water, going down a drain, spirals clockwise in one hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the other.

'Hanoi' Jane Fonda handed overs slips of paper bearing POWs social security numbers to the Vietcong.

Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 hijackings

 

[nutball]

"Rockets work by pushing against the Earth / atmosphere"

"Two heads are better than one"

"We built this city on rock and roll"

 

[Rys]

"The glass in windows is liquid and flows over hundreds of years"

Well I've been guilty of perpetuating this myth on more than one occasion. What actually happens, then? I've witnessed really old buildings where the glass is definitely fatter at its base in the pane, so I just presumed it was true

 

[Basic]

Back in the old days, glass wasn't made with the same precision as now. So you had pieces of glass with varying thickness. If you were to put in a window glass that were fatter at one side, which way would you put it? Fat side up, or fat side down?

 

[Mize]

"Dark side of the Moon" - great album, urban legend.

 

[_xxx_]

Water, going down a drain, spirals clockwise in one hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the other.

That's likely not a myth. I actually experimented with that and it seemed to be that way in vast majority of the cases.

 

[soylent]

C/C++ compilers are good enough to make rewriting hotspots in assembly pointless.

 

[Mize]

That's likely not a myth. I actually experimented with that and it seemed to be that way in vast majority of the cases.

Given identical vessels and no other perturbations it should work this way. In reality the vessel shape is dominant. I've forced it either way in both the US and Brazil

 

[tongue_of_colicab]

"Rockets work by pushing against the Earth / atmosphere"

I hate that one. Once had a long and hard discussion about the ''new'' space shuttle and how I'd rather seen a airplane type instead of the apollo type they now are going to use. Then we got into talking about the hughe boosters needed to get into space with a apollo type craft and he said that was necesarry to get enough speed into space to go to a other planet because you need hugh engines in space to move. I just couldnt get in into his thick skull that rockets push against the craft to move and because of low gravity you need little power. What was even worse is that he kept saying he knew what he was talking about.

 

[Mize]

I hate that one. Once had a long and hard discussion about the ''new'' space shuttle and how I'd rather seen a airplane type instead of the apollo type they now are going to use. Then we got into talking about the hughe boosters needed to get into space with a apollo type craft and he said that was necesarry to get enough speed into space to go to a other planet because you need hugh engines in space to move. I just couldnt get in into his thick skull that rockets push against the craft to move and because of low gravity you need little power. What was even worse is that he kept saying he knew what he was talking about.

I used to watch this science show as a little kids (we're talking 6-8 years old) and I was an avid wanna be astronomer with this little book I always carried. Anyway the guy on that science show spouted this pushing on the earth thing and I had a meltdown over it because it was wrong and it was on TV!

 

[hey69]

When it is, presumably, closer to the sun during (UK) winter.

no, the UK will get closer but earth doesnt move closer or farther away. The earth tilts forward or backward so the polar points move.

 

[_xxx_]

I highly doubt that the Earth's orbit is a perfect circle...

 

[Rainbow Man]

That's likely not a myth. I actually experimented with that and it seemed to be that way in vast majority of the cases.

Coriolis effect is extremely weak, especially if you're not standing on top of the earth's axis of rotatiion..


Peace.

 

[DuckThor Evil]

That was on myth busters. IIRC, it was quite hard to detect the echo though.

Last summer on our summer gottage it was VERY easy to hear ducks echo. I just heard this myth a week before hearing the echo, and the echo was very clear.