What else did your teachers tell you. 4

[JCreamerII]

Taking a thought from the a post I just read, what did a teacher tell you as fact, that was wrong?

I had a Biology teacher tell my class that lobsters were red. We started a new club, LAG "Lobsters are Green". He obviously never saw one in a tank. Again this goes back over 40 years. But he was totally convinced that they were red.

Jim C.

 

[BadBigBen]

I never seen a green lobster, just blue (Homarus gammarus) and red (Nephropsis rosea) ones...

btw. the blue ones turn red once cooked... but you would never get me to eat one...

now to the topic of the thread:

heck, I don't remember anything that my teachers taught that sticks out as being wrong...

though, I do remember my Computer Science teacher flipping out, when I wrote a simple word processing program, on the old mainframe-sized computer (C3 Data System) that we had at school...



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[gbaughma]

My mother told me that her science teacher taught her that nothing is *REALLY* in contact with anything else. Everything has at least a molecule of air separating it. Wouldn't that mean that there is NO friction or cohesion in anything? What about in a vacuum? Of course, he was incorrect.

My father told me, authoritatively, that batteries were 60 hz.



Just my 2¢

"What the captain doesn't realize is that we've secretly replaced his Dilithium Crystals with new Folger's Crystals."

--Greg

http://parallel.tzo.com

 

[rjoubert]

I remember my French teacher telling us that the Chevy Nova had poor sales in Spanish-speaking countries, because the phrase "No Va" translates to "It doesn't go." This turned out to be an urban myth.

 

[mscallisto]

My high school physics teacher said:

"The center of a barrel is in the middle ergo rolling a barrel is like picking up one end of a meter stick" (a lever)

I guess he was correct but he sure had a peculiar way to make a point!!

Sam

 

[strongm]

>Of course, he was incorrect

No, he wasn't. At least not completely (or your mother's recollection was slightly faulty). The negatively charged fields of the two surfaces repel each other (ok, it's actually a little more complicated than this, but this will suffice for now) so they can never touch (without such repulsion we'd simply pass through other solid objects ...). Where he is wrong is in the distance involved, which is I believe 1 angstrom unit

 

[FI0L]

My RI teacher (Religious Instruction) told me you could always trust a priest.....


Oh dear...

Expecting the world to treat you fairly because you are good is like expecting the bull not to charge because you are a vegetarian.

 

[djj55]

In drivers education I miss understood the teacher as he was trying to indicate that a speed on an yellow sign was "suggested". I thought he said go however fast you want. (You had to be there).

Note that this was almost 40 years ago so and the laws should have changed.

Also I am of the generation where they taught that people thought the world was flat in Christopher Columbus's time. (see earlier thread).

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[rjoubert]

I remember taking an Economics class with an Eastern Indian professor. He had a pretty thick accent, and at times, was difficult to understand. I distinctly remember him discussing the differences between Microeconomics and Macroeconomics, and not being able to tell which topic he was talking about, as they both sounded the same when he said them.

 

[SkipVought]

My father had an eighth grade education. He told me of a geometry teacher that drew a diagram with something like two parallel lines and a line intersecting the parallel lines (equal alternate interior angles, etc), but the way that the diagram was drawn, I guess it APPEARED that the intersecting line was perpendicular to the parallel lines (but NOT in the given) and the proof was to equate 2 angles that appeared to be equal but with the given knowns, were actually not.

Well he was the only one in the class to recognize that and state therfore angle a not equal to angel b.

Several years later, I encountered a similar classroom problem, and nailed it, having that story in mind.

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[SamBones]

No, he wasn't. At least not completely (or your mother's recollection was slightly faulty). The negatively charged fields of the two surfaces repel each other (ok, it's actually a little more complicated than this, but this will suffice for now) so they can never touch (without such repulsion we'd simply pass through other solid objects ...). Where he is wrong is in the distance involved, which is I believe 1 angstrom unit

I think you need to clearly define the word "touch". To me, two molecules being within 1 angstrom are for all effective purposes, "touching".

To my Mother's standards, if they are close enough for germs to pass from one surface to the other, they have touched. Minus of course the five second rule.

Of course the five second rule actually varies by surface. The five second rule applies to her kitchen floor, but not a gas station bathroom.

 

[mscallisto]

gbaughma

Maybe the teacher was wrong, see this link describing the unit of measurement "Barn":

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/53558/barn

then click the link [blue]Reaction Cross Section[/blue] and note the word hits which to me means touch

sam

 

[strongm]

And then note that

a) it is talking about bombarding an atomic nucleus (not even an atom) or other sub-atomic particle with other (sub-atomic) particles. It is the world of high-energy physics - accelerators, colliders, nuclear bombs, radioactive decay - NOT the scenario where we are simply attempting to put two seperate surfaces together.

b) it is talking about a cross sectional reaction area NOT an actual physical target.

 

[SantaMufasa]

...I miss understood the teacher...

In high school, there were a couple of my recently graduated student teachers that several of my buddies would have liked to miss understand better. <grin>

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
“People may forget what you say, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

 

[Annihilannic]

Haha... the front row had to duck when one of my maths teachers turned away from the blackboard. Her class was very well attended. ;-)

Annihilannic.

 

[SkipVought]

I think I had her in eight grade. Sat right in front of her desk. Oh, Miss Hagy!

Skip,
[sub]
Just traded in my old subtlety...
for a NUANCE![/sub]

 

[djj55]

Sorry Mufasa, as I have stated before and will be the first to tell anyone, (even if they do not want to know), I cannot spell and my grammar is bad even on a good day.


I did not learn much in elementary school and less in high school.

My high school guidance counselor asked what I wanted to do, to which I replied: "I want to work with my hands." She said I should take Chemical Engineering. Since I was trusting I said okay. The only thing you use your hands for is pushing a pencil.

Well now that I have a college degree in Engineering Technology which the school no longer has, I am a DBA. Note that when I got my degree, personal computers were just starting to appear.

djj
The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23) - I need someone to lead me!

 

[Sympology]

Best one I know of is a girl was told not to bother taking up a language as an A-level as she wasn't good enough.

She is now fluent in 7 languages and works for the UN as a translator.

Another girl was told she was tone deaf.
She is now a professional muscian.

maybe, it's the teachers, not the students that are the problem.

PS. I failed IT



Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

http://alvechurchlounge.org.uk

 

[sleipnir214]

djj55:
During my junior year of high school, we had all take a survey that purported to tell us what career we would find most in line with our interests and talents. My report advised me that I should become an "ENGINEER, NUCLEAR OR ENGINEER, RAILROAD"




Want to ask the best questions? Read Eric S. Raymond's essay "How To Ask Questions The Smart Way". TANSTAAFL!

 

[JCreamerII]

Reminds me of an old Candid Camera show, they took IVY League seniors and put them thru a battery of test to find out the best careers for them. Needless to say the careers they chose for the seniors weren't what they were expecting, candle stick maker, indian chief, manual laborer?

Jim C.