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List Of Common Misconceptions About Science, Technology, And Mathematics
Each entry on this list of common misconceptions is worded as a correction; the misconceptions themselves are implied rather than stated. These entries are concise summaries; the main subject articles can be consulted for more detail. Astronomy and spaceflight * There is no scientific evidence that the motion of stars, planets, and other celestial bodies influences the fates of humans, and Astrology and science, astrology has repeatedly been shown to have no explanatory power in predicting future events. * Astronauts in orbit have the sensation of being weightlessness, weightless because they are in free fall around the Earth, not because they are so far away from the Earth that its gravitational pull is negligible. For example, on the International Space Station the Earth's gravity is nearly 90% as strong as at the surface. Objects orbiting in space would not remain in orbit if not for the gravitational force, and gravitational fields extend even into the depths of intergal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Astrology And Science
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems that hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events or descriptions of personality in the human world. Astrology has been rejected by the scientific community as having no explanatory power for describing the universe. Scientific testing has found no evidence to support the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions. Where astrology has made falsifiable predictions, it has been falsified. The most famous test was headed by Shawn Carlson and included a committee of scientists and a committee of astrologers. It led to the conclusion that natal astrology performed no better than chance. Astrology has not demonstrated its effectiveness in controlled studies and has no scientific validity, and is thus regarded as pseudoscience. There is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth in the way astro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Season
A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's axial tilt, tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and polar regions, the seasons are marked by changes in the intensity of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, variations of which may cause animals to undergo hibernation or to Migration (ecology), migrate, and plants to be dormant. Various cultures define the number and nature of seasons based on regional variations, and as such there are a number of both modern and historical definitions of the seasons. The Northern Hemisphere experiences most direct sunlight during May, June, and July (thus the traditional celebration of Midsummer in June), as the hemisphere faces the Sun. For the Southern Hemisphere it is instead in November, December, and January. It is Earth's axial tilt that causes the Sun to be higher in the sky during the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Memory Foam
Memory foam consists mainly of polyurethane with additional chemicals that increase its viscosity and density. It is often referred to as "viscoelastic" polyurethane foam, or low-resilience polyurethane foam ( LRPu). The foam bubbles or 'cells' are open, effectively creating a matrix through which air can move. Higher-density memory foam softens in reaction to body heat, allowing it to mold to a warm body in a few minutes. Newer foams may recover their original shape more quickly. Mechanics Memory foam derives its viscoelastic properties from several effects, due to the material's internal structure. The network effect is the force working to restore the foam's structure when it is deformed. This effect is generated by the deformed porous material pushing outwards to restore its structure against an applied pressure. Three effects work against the network effect, slowing the regeneration of the foam's original structure: * The pneumatic effect, caused by the time it takes air to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
NASA Spinoff Technologies
NASA spin-off technologies are commercial products and services which have been developed with the help of NASA, through research and development contracts, such as Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or STTR awards, licensing of NASA patents, use of NASA facilities, technical assistance from NASA personnel, or data from NASA research. Information on new NASA technology that may be useful to industry is available in periodical and website form in "NASA Tech Briefs", while successful examples of commercialization are reported annually in the NASA publication ''Spinoffs''. The publication has documented more than 2,000 technologies over time. In 1979, notable science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein helped bring awareness to the spin-offs when he was asked to appear before Congress after recovering from one of the earliest known vascular bypass operations to correct a blocked artery. In his testimony, reprinted in his 1980 book ''Expanded Universe'', Heinlein claimed that fo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Teflon
Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a synthetic fluoropolymer of tetrafluoroethylene, and has numerous applications because it is chemically inert. The commonly known brand name of PTFE-based composition is Teflon by Chemours, a spin-off from DuPont, which originally invented the compound in 1938. Polytetrafluoroethylene is a fluorocarbon solid, as it is a high- molecular-weight polymer consisting wholly of carbon and fluorine. PTFE is hydrophobic: neither water nor water-containing substances wet PTFE, as fluorocarbons exhibit only small London dispersion forces due to the low electric polarizability of fluorine. PTFE has one of the lowest coefficients of friction of any solid. Polytetrafluoroethylene is used as a non-stick coating for pans and other cookware. It is non-reactive, partly because of the strength of carbon–fluorine bonds, so it is often used in containers and pipework for reactive and corrosive chemicals. When used as a lubricant, PTFE reduces fric ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Velcro
Velcro IP Holdings LLC, trading as Velcro Companies and commonly referred to as Velcro (pronounced ), is a British privately held company, founded by Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral in the 1950s. It is the original manufacturer of hook-and-loop fasteners, which de Mestral invented. History Swiss electrical engineer George de Mestral who studied at EPFL invented his first touch fastener when, in 1941, he went for a walk in the Jura Mountains, Jura mountains, and wondered why burdock seeds clung to his woolen socks and coat, and also his dog Milka. He discovered it could be turned into something useful. He patented it in 1955, and subsequently refined and developed its practical manufacture until its commercial introduction in the late 1950s. The fastener consisted of two components: a lineal fabric strip with tiny hooks that could 'mate' with another fabric strip with smaller loops, attaching temporarily, until pulled apart. Initially made of cotton, which proved imp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Tang (drink)
Tang is an American drink mix brand that was formulated by General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell and chemist William Bruce James in 1957, and first marketed in powdered form in 1959. The Tang brand is currently owned in most countries by Mondelēz International, a North American company spun off from Kraft Foods in 2012. Kraft Heinz owns the Tang brand in North America. Sales of Tang were poor until NASA used it on John Glenn's Mercury flight in February 1962, and on subsequent Gemini missions. Since then it has been closely associated with the U.S. human spaceflight program, which created the misconception that Tang was invented for the space program. Tang continues to be used on NASA missions in the present day, over 50 years after its introduction. History General Foods Corporation food scientist William A. Mitchell and chemist William Bruce James formulated and trademarked orange Tang in 1957. Tang entered test markets in 1958 and was available t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Soyuz (spacecraft)
Soyuz () is a series of spacecraft which has been in service since the 1960s, having made more than 140 flights. It was designed for the Soviet space program by the Korolev Design Bureau (now Energia (corporation), Energia). The Soyuz succeeded the Voskhod spacecraft and was originally built as part of the Soviet crewed lunar programs. It is launched atop the similarly named Soyuz (rocket family), Soyuz rocket from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution, Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, continued to develop and utilize the Soyuz. Between the Space Shuttle retirement, Space Shuttle's 2011 retirement and the SpaceX Crew Dragon's 2020 debut, Soyuz was the sole means of crewed transportation to and from the International Space Station, a role it continues to fulfill. The Soyuz design has also influenced other spacecraft, including China's Shenzhou (spacecraft), Shenzhou and Russia's Progress (spacecraft), Progress cargo vehicle. The Soyu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Fisher Space Pen
The Space Pen (also known as the Zero Gravity Pen), marketed by Fisher Space Pen Company, is a pen that uses pressurized ink cartridges and is able to write in Weightlessness, zero gravity, underwater, over wet and greasy paper, at any angle, and in a very wide range of temperatures. Inventors The Fisher Space Pen was created by Austrian Friedrich Schächter and expanded by Erwin Rath. Paul C. Fisher invented the "Thixotropy, thixotropic special ink". The pens are manufactured in Boulder City, Nevada. Paul C. Fisher first patented the AG7 "anti-gravity" pen in 1965. Models There are two prominent styles of the pen: the AG7 "Astronaut pen", a long thin retractable pen shaped like a common ballpoint, and the "Bullet pen" which is non-retractable, shorter than standard ballpoints when capped, but full size when the cap is posted on the rear for writing. Several of the Fisher Space Pen models (the "Millennium" is one) are claimed to write for a lifetime of "average" use; however, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Snopes
''Snopes'' (), formerly known as the ''Urban Legends Reference Pages'', is a fact-checking website. It has been described as a "well-regarded reference for sorting out myths and rumors" on the Internet. The site has also been seen as a source for both validating and debunking urban legends and similar stories in American popular culture. History 1990s In 1994, David and Barbara Mikkelson created an urban folklore web site that would become ''Snopes.com''. ''Snopes'' was an early online encyclopedia focused on urban legends, which mainly presented search results of user discussions based at first on their contributions to the Usenet newsgroup alt.folklore.urban (AFU) where they'd been active. The site grew to encompass a wide range of subjects and became a resource to which Internet users began submitting pictures and stories of questionable veracity. According to the Mikkelsons, ''Snopes'' predated the search engine concept of fact-checking via search results. David Mik ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
March Equinox
The March equinox or northward equinox is the equinox on the Earth when the subsolar point appears to leave the Southern Hemisphere and cross the celestial equator, heading northward as seen from Earth. The March equinox is known as the vernal equinox (or spring equinox) in the Northern Hemisphere and as the autumnal equinox (or fall equinox) in the Southern Hemisphere. On the Gregorian calendar at 0° longitude, the northward equinox can occur as early as 19 March (which happened most recently in 1796, and will happen next in 2044), and it can occur as late as 21 March (which happened most recently in 2007, and will happen next in 2102). For a common year the computed time slippage is about 5 hours 49 minutes ''later'' than the previous year, and for a leap year about 18 hours 11 minutes ''earlier'' than the previous year. Balancing the increases of the common years against the losses of the leap years keeps the calendar date of the March equinox from drifting more than ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Egg Balancing
Egg balancing is a traditional Chinese practice of standing eggs on their ends that has also been popularized in the United States. Although the irregular shape of eggs makes this somewhat difficult, eggshells typically have many textural variations such that the vast majority can be balanced on their broad ends with minimal effort. Folklore holds that eggs can be balanced in this way only at a particular time of year: the lunar new year in China, the Dragon Boat Festival in Taiwan, or the vernal equinox in the United States. It is also said that eggs can be balanced on the heads of nails at the equator. In reality, eggs will balance anywhere at any time of year, and the practice has no connection to the gravitational force of the moon or sun. History Lichun egg Egg balancing has been connected with Lichun, the solar term beginning ''Chinese'' spring () on February 4 or 5 when the sun is at the celestial longitude of 315°. On this day, fresh chicken eggs were balanced on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
