ERROR ALERT
Uncover the faulty reasoning underlying some persistent science fictions
Myths
Widely held misconceptions about science get passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes they even make their way into elementary and high-school textbooks, where they can spread from old to new books (and from old to new teachers) like viruses. William Beaty, a research engineer at the University of Washington in Seattle, posted the following textbook errors on his Web site, Science Hobbyist (www.amasci.com). What’s wrong with the following statements?
1. Lakes and oceans are blue because they reflect the sky.
2. There are 92 naturally occurring elements on Earth.
3. In his pioneering experiment in electricity, Benjamin Franklin’s kite was struck by lightning.
4. Electricity is made by electrons that flow through a wire at nearly the speed of light.
5. Airplanes fly because the curved upper surface of each wing is longer than the flat lower surface.
Miscalculations
Basic arithmetic mistakes abound in print, in textbooks and in the popular media alike. Edward J. Barbeau, professor emeritus of mathematics at the University of Toronto, exposed the following miscalculations in his book Mathematical Fallacies, Flaws and Flimflam (Mathematical Association of America, 2000). Can you spot where the numbers go astray?
1. Andrew Tobias, in the May 17, 1993, issue of Time magazine, offered this financial advice:
Buy staples in bulk when they’re on sale. . . . Consider a family that buys one bottle of wine each week. With the 10% discount many stores offer on wine by the case, they would be saving 10% every twelve weeks—more than 40% a year, tax free and largely risk free.
2. The summer 1997 issue of Adobe Magazine carried an advertisement from Apple Computer that featured the following text:
In fact, Adobe Photoshop runs 50% faster on a Power Mac. Which translates into 50% less time staring at your screen and waiting for your computer to finish retouching photos, manipulating images or applying filters.
3. The sentence below appears in The Time Before History: Five Million Years of Human Impact (Scribner, 1996) by science writer Colin Tudge:
Twenty years could see a 7 degree Celsius (44.6 degree Fahrenheit) rise in temperature, the difference between a frozen landscape and a temperate one.
Eyesores
Significant scientific errors can be found just as readily in pictures as in words. What is wrong with each of these images?
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