<Humorous Science Mis-statements

Humorous Science Mis-statements The following are examples of the ways students and adults misconceive of science.

ENERGY

One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees. There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are 180 degrees between north and south.
Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil.
Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.
Momentum: What you give a person when they are going away.

GRAVITATION and ASTRONOMY

The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.
Vacuum: A large, empty space where the pope lives.
When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.
While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.
South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage.
Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.
There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there these days.
Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.
The tides are a fight between the Earth and moon. All water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the sun joins in this fight.
Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky.

ELECTROMAGNETISM

Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat.
Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can point in any direction.
You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit, so never mind.
Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.
Talc is found on rocks and on babies.

ATOMS

When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions.
Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.
In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.
Clouds are high flying fogs.
I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.
Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around and around. There is not much else to do.
Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.
H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water.
To collect fumes of sulphur, hold a deacon over a flame in a test tube.
When you smell an oderless gas, it is probably carbon monoxide.
Water is composed of two gins, Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin. Hydrogin is gin and water.

BIOLOGY

Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes and caterpillars.
Blood flows down one leg and up the other.
Respiration is composed of two acts, first inspiration, and then expectoration.
Artifical insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow instead of the bull.
Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them and makes them perspire.
A super saturated solution is one that holds more than it can hold.
Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like umbrellas.
The pistol of a flower is its only protections agenst insects.
The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been taken out and the outsides have been taken off. The purpose of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to.
A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight cuspids, two molars, and eight cuspidors.
A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more extinct it is.
Germinate: To become a naturalized German.
Liter: A nest of young puppies.
Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot.

The following are questions that people actually asked Park Rangers.

Grand Canyon National Park

Was this man-made?
Do you light it up at night?
I bought tickets for the elevator to the bottom--where is it?
Is the mule train air conditioned?
So where are the faces of the presidents?

Mesa Verde National Park

Did people build this, or did Indians?
Why did they build the ruins so close to the road?
Do you know of any undiscovered ruins?
Why did the Indians decide to live in Colorado?

Carlsbad Caverns National Park

How much of the cave is underground?
So what's in the unexplored part of the cave?
Does it ever rain in here?
How many Ping-Pong balls would it take to fill this up?
So what is this -- just a hole in the ground?

Übrige

The world is finally becoming globally aware that exponential resource usage in combination with finite reserves is a recipe that ensures our great grandchildren won't be born.

HISTORY

Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies, and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot.
The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere, so certain areas of the desert are cultivated by irritation.
Early Egyptian women often wore a garment called calasiris. It was a sheer dress which started beneath the breasts which hung to the floor.
The pyramids are a range of mountains between France and Spain.
The Egyptians built the pyramids in the shape of a huge triangular cube.
The Bible is full of interesting caricatures.
In the first book of the Bible, Guiness, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree.
One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
God asked Abraham to sacrifice Abraham on Mount Montezuma.
Jacob, son of Isaac, stole his brother's birthmark.
Jacob was a patriarch who brought up his twelve sons to be patriarchs, but they did not take to it.
One of Jacob's sons, Joseph, gave refuse to the Israelites.
Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread, which is bread made without any ingredients.
Afterwards, Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments.
He died before he ever reached Canada.
David was a Hebrew king skilled at playing the liar.
He fought with the Finkelsteins, a race of people who lived in Biblical times.
Solomon, one of David's sons, had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
Later came Job, who had one trouble after another. Eventually, he lost all his cattle and all his children and had to go live alone with his wife in the desert.
The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history.
The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice.
They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
In the Olympic Games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the java. The reward to the victors was a coral wreath.
Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul.
The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king.
Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus".
Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his poor subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
Rome came to have many luxuries and baths. At Roman banquets, the guests wore garlic in their hair.
They took two baths in two days and that's the cause of the fall of Rome.
Rome was invaded by ball bearings and is full of fallen arches today.
Then came the Middle Ages when everyone was middle-aged.
King Alfred conquered the Dames.
King Arthur lived in the Age of Chivalry with brave knights on prancing horses and beautiful women.
King Harold mustarded his troops before the Battle of Hastings.
Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonized by George Bernard Shaw.
And victims of the bluebonnet plague grew boobs on their necks.
Finally, Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offense.
In medieval times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature. During this time people put on morality plays about ghosts, goblins, virgins, and other mythical creatures. Another story was about William Tell who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
The Renaissance was an age in which more individuals felt the value of their human being. Martin Luther was nailed to the church door at Wittenberg for selling papal indulgences. He died a horrible death, being excommunicated by a bull. It was the painter Donatello's interest in the female nude that made him the father of the Renaissance.
The government of England was a limited mockery. From the womb of Henry VIII Protestantism was born. He found walking difficult because he had an abbess on his knee.
Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen". As a queen she was a success. When Elizabeth exposed herself before her troops, they all shouted "Hurrah". Then her navy went out and defeated the Spanish Armadillo.
It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is an historic figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100-foot clipper.
The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. Shakespeare was born in 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter.
In one of Shakespeare's famous plays, Hamlet rations out his situation by relieving himself in a long soliloquy. His mind is filled with the filth of incestuous sheets which he pours over every time he sees his mother. In another play, Lady Macbeth tries to convince Macbeth to kill the King by attacking his manhood. The Clown in As You Like It is named Touchdown, and Romeo and Juliet are an example of an heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton who wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
During the Renaissance, America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinto, and the Santa Fe.
Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. During the War, the Red Coats and Paul Revere was throwing balls over stone walls. The dogs were barking and the peacocks crowing. Finally, the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay taxis.
Delegates from the original thirteen states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin invented electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand." Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
George Washington married Martha Curtis and in due time became the Father of Our Country. His farewell address was Mount Vernon.
Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the Constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest president. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own two hands. Lincoln said, "In onion there is strength."
Abraham Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address while traveling from Washington to Gettysburg on the back of an envelope. He also freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theatre and got shot by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wiles Booth, a supposingly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy. Gravity was invented by Isaac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1760 to the present.
Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handle. Handle was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was very large.
Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote very loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died of this.
France was in a very serious state. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. During the Napoleonic Wars, the crowned heads of Europe were trembling in their shoes. Then the Spanish gorillas came down from the hills and nipped at Napoleon's flanks. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire is in the East and the sun sets in the West. Queen Victoria was the longest queen. She sat on a thorn fro 63 years. She was a moral woman who practiced virtue. Her death was the final event which ended her reign.
The nineteenth century was a time of a great many thoughts and inventions. People stopped reproducing by hand and started reproducing by machine. The invention of the steamboat caused a network of rivers to spring up. Cyrus McCormick invented the McCormick Raper which did the work of a hundred men. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote The Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx Brothers.
The First World War, caused by the assignation of the Arch-Duck, by an anahist, ushered in a new error in the anals of human history.