24 November 2009

everything you thought you knew

About Science is wrong. I love to turn student's worlds upside-down with that statement. I'll give you some examples:

  1. There is no such thing as suction, there is only the absence of air. Its called a vacuum. Many students are heavily vested in this particular misconception, especially since it is such a part of our vernacular. Basically, atmospheric pressure is very, very strong! Check out the Madgeberg Spheres as an example of just how hard it will resist. Think of vector arrows pushing in on the spheres from all directions.

  2. There is no such thing as cold, only the absence of heat. Its called the Kinetic Theory of Gases. Temperature is a measure of the kinetic energy of the molecules of an object, whether its a gas or not.


Yes, its late. Yes, I'm tired. I'll continue this list in another post. Stay tuned and as always, thanks for reading.

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