Top 10: Facts That People Get Wrong

1. Humans have 5 senses- WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. We have 9 senses (maybe even more). You all know about the 5 common ones- sight, taste, hearing, smell and touch. This was stated by Aristotle. He was smart, but he was usually wrong. The 4 others are :-

i) Thermoception, which is the perception of heat ( or a lack of it therein) on the skin. 

ii) Equilibrioception, which is our sense of balance controlled by fluid in ear cavities. 

iii) Nociception, which is the perception of pain in the internal organs/joints. 

iv) Proprioception, which is basically body awareness. Let me explain. Close your eyes and move your hand. Even though you can’t see your hand, you know where it is in reference to the rest of your body.

2. A Goldfish has a memory span of 3 seconds- This is so common that it is taken to be a fact now. Research has show that goldfish can be trained to be fed at a particular time and they remember this time and place for at least 3 months.

3. Chameleons change color according to background- Nope. They actually change color according to emotional state and if it happens to be the color of the background, that’s completely coincidental.

4. There are 5 states of matter- There are actually around 15 states of matter, including the ones you know- gas, liquid, solid, Bose-Einstein Condensate ( not everyone much know this) and plasma. Including those, there are more such as  amorphous solid, superfluid, supersolid, degenerate matter, neutronium, strongly symmetric matter, weakly symmetric matter, quark-gluon plasma, fermionic condensate and strange matter. 

5. Centipede have a 100 legs- Even though centipedes are named after having a 100 legs, not one till date has been found with exactly 100 legs. 

6. Rhinoceros horns are made out of hair- They are actually made of a material called Keratin, which is admittedly present in hair, as well as fingernails in us humans. 

7. Nero played the fiddle while Rome burned down- The fiddle wasn’t invented until the 15th century, so that is completely wrong. Another myth claims he was singing a song about Troy burning down while Rome burned down. That is wrong as well. He was, in fact, 35 miles away at his holiday home. He rushed to Rome and took charge of the fire fighting efforts when he heard about Rome burning down. 

8. The death of the gladiator was signalled with a ‘thumbs down’- This is portrayed in oh so many Hollywood movies but this is wrong. It was indicated by a ‘thumbs up’. To let him live, the thumb was left tucked inside the palm, like an unsheathed weapon. 

9. Water is actually transparent and the blue color associated with it is merely the refraction of light- Water is actually a VERY LIGHT tinge of blue. This can be seen if you dump water into a pool with white tiles. Granted, most of the blue color is actually because of refraction, but, water is also slightly colored blue. 

10. Spinach is full or Iron- This is a misconception, caused by a misplaced displaced decimal point by Dr. E. von Wolf in 1870 . 

11. Wait, that’s more than 10… Well, this one is pretty cool so I want to include it. Humans evolved from chimpanzees- Both chimpanzees and humans evolved from a common ancestor, but we separated much later on than was first thought. Our ancestor lived in the Pliocene era more than 5 million years ago, but he is still yet to be found and named. This creature evolved from tree-shrews, who evolved from hedgehogs who in turn evolved from starfish. 

Since this has gotten so many views here are a few more facts people get wrong