Education has long been touted as the formula for success. Go to school, get good grades, go to a good university and land yourself a good job. That has always been the straight and narrow path that has been recited to us over and over again. But the likes of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg shatter that one-sided view. Now someone can make the argument that not every college dropout is a technological genius but to say that school is the only prerequisite for success might be a bit of a hyperbole.
From the color of our blood, to true brainpower, to one of the greatest minds ever in Albert Einstein, these are just a few of the things that school got wrong. Let's check out the following "truths" that we were taught in school.
7. It has been touted that the great scientist, Albert Einstein was a horrible math student who even failed some math tests.
This is a complete myth. Einstein was not only an excellent math student, he regularly ranked at the top of his class. Einstein himself has said that ‘I never failed in mathematics. Before I was fifteen I had mastered differential and integral calculus.’ This myth may have been born out of the fact that while in University, Einstein began to become more involved with physics than math. He began to attend fewer and fewer math courses and received a 4 out of 6 (the point scale back then) in mathematics when he usually got a perfect score in his other courses. He wrongly believed that physicists only needed an elementary understanding of mathematics thus he decided to forego (or pay less attention) to the math courses. This led to one of his professors calling him a ‘lazy dog’.
6. Due to the fact that we see astronauts in space floating about and not being tied down by the earthly substance that is gravity, we presume that there is no gravity in space.
But there is gravity all around us (yes, even in space) just in varying degrees. Gravity is what keeps the moon in our orbit and what keeps us rotating around the sun. Gravity is the force that causes every object to pull every other object toward it. There is a small amount of gravity in space and the further away we get from a massive object (such as the sun) the less gravity we experience. Gravity exists everywhere in the whole universe and is considered to be the most important force in regards to matter. Without gravity, all matter would fly apart in different directions and nothing would exist.
5. There is a common myth saying we can only use about 10 percent of our brain, therefore implying that we are only tapping at the surface of our vast potentials.
In reality, neurologist Barry Gordon has destroyed that myth. Although the origins of that myth are still a mystery, what Barry has found out is that we use 10 percent of our brains when we are at rest or thinking. Barry goes on to explain that we use almost every part of our brain, and that the brain is active almost all of the time. He says that the brain weighs only about 3 percent of the body’s weight but uses up 20 percent of the body’s energy. Even during sleep where most people assume the brain is least active, the brain is still hyper sensitive. Through imaging and mapping, neuroscientists have concluded that we use virtually all of our brains throughout the day.
4. The common assumption that diamonds are formed through the compression of coals is actually not true.
Diamonds were actually formed about 1 to 3 billion years ago according to geologists and evolutionists. They were created through a combination of high temperature and intense pressure deep in the Earth’s mantle. Carbon containing minerals provide the carbon source and the slow but steady growth occurs over large periods of time (1 to 3.3 billion years!). Diamonds, unlike other gems, are not composed of a combination of elements but just one: carbon. Carbon containing minerals that are deep in the Earth’s mantle begin to crystallize to form diamonds when intense heat from the molten magma along with the pressure come together. The diamonds are then brought to the surface due to deep-source volcanic eruptions in the magma. When all these circumstances come together, a piece of diamond is created. The combination of history, natural occurrence and rarity is what creates the value of diamonds.
3. If our blood is red why is it that when we look at our veins they happen to appear to be blue or greenish? The common myth is that de-oxygenated blood is blue while blood from the heart is red because it’s just been filled with oxygen.
Thus, during a cut or a wound, the ‘blue’ blood turns to red since it interacts with oxygen right away. The reason our veins appear to be a different color is simply due to a trick of the light and the way light reflects off of our eyes. Veins appear to be blue because light has to penetrate the skin to illuminate it. Different colors of light penetrate the skin differently thereby altering the appearance of your veins.
2. During our formative years we are taught that different areas of our tongues are susceptible to different tastes and flavors.
We were told that various areas of our tongue would elicit different tastes from salty to bitter to sweet to savory. But this myth has been disproved since scientists have found several thousand sensors on the tongue that can recognize any of the tastes. Researchers found out that it is actually the neurons in the brain that decipher the wide assortment of tastes and not the different segments of the tongue. In hindsight, this all makes sense since if the ‘tongue taste map’ was accurate then we could chew a piece of lemon on the sweet tasting part of our tongue and not have to deal with the acidity.
1. The stained glass windows of churches.
Some speculators have said that the stained glass windows inside of old churches are thicker at the bottom because glass flows slowly just like a liquid. While some may find it ridiculous that a solid object can behave like a liquid, there are some firm believers of this claim. During medieval times, a lump of molten glass would be rolled, expanded and flattened before being maneuvered into the glass panes that you see today. Those panes were thicker at the edges and heaviest at the bottom in order to be installed properly. Due to some cooling and heating behavior during the creation of the glass, it leaves the object in a state between a liquid and a solid. This has led many to believe that the glass is ‘in flow.’ A group of scientists have debunked that theory by analyzing a 20-million year old piece of amber that destroys all ‘glass transition behavior.’
