Old Wives’ Tales Debunked
Live Science has a great article debunking many of the old wives’ tales you frequently hear. Among my favourites proved wrong:
- Gum does not take 7 years to go through your system
- A coin dropped off a tall building will not kill someone
- Lightening can strike the same place twice
- Water does not rotate in an opposite direction in the southern hemisphere
- Men do NOT think about sex every 7 seconds (Ha!)
- The 5 second rule for food on the ground is not true
- The Great Wall of China can’t be seen from the moon
[Link]
Chaff said,
January 13, 2006 at 9:14 pm
A link would be nice. As would a spell check.
Dane said,
January 14, 2006 at 2:34 pm
I object to them proving that water does not rotate the opposite direction in the southern hemisphere. This is absolutely true and has been demonstrated many times. The experiment was first performed in 1962 by Ascher H. Shapiro at MIT and then repeated in 1965 by Lloyd M. Trefethen at the University of Sydney. The force that makes this happen is called the Coriolis Force (although this force is not commonly seen in sinks and toilets, etc. due to the fact that they can be elliptical in shape with uncentred plug holes), however if you set up the experiment just right, then the water will flow clockwise in southern hemisphere and anti-clockwise in the northern. For more info see Dr Karl’s new book.
Administrator said,
January 14, 2006 at 5:42 pm
Interesting Dane.
All fixed chaff
Chaff said,
January 14, 2006 at 5:53 pm
That is such a lie admin… but thanks for the link.