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What Are Things You've Heard That Made You Facepalm?


michaelsteele3

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"It's true, a car protects you from lightning. Because of the rubber tires." Basically what one of my teachers said one day. Funny thing is, I watched a CGP Grey video the previous night saying how cars are faraday cages, and that's how they protect you.

I had a facepalm in my head when the teacher said that, and very nearly had one IRL.

Your teacher is right and CGP Grey is wrong in this case. Lightning is looking for a low resistance path to the ground, the rubber tires are good insulators and prevent that. Faraday cages (of which a car is a very poor one) don't protect against lightning.

Turns out this was wrong, please facepalm at it. :)

Edited by Red Iron Crown
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RULES:

*NEVER make fun of anyone specifically. Just mention the thing they said.

*STAY ON TOPIC

*Do NOT refer to other's posts on this forum. That hasn't ended well in the past.

So what are some things you've heard from some people or things that made you facepalm? It can be related to anything, space, reading, history, etc.

Mine, well, Michael Bay's impression of stopping an asteroid with a Shuttle. GG Bay GG. Armageddon.

seems off topic but isn't...

Just read the two-three rules as NEVER stay on topic! *facepalm*

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Physics (thermodynamics) test (highschool) : "the total energy of a capsule re-entering the atmosphere is Q=x J and does not change throughout re-entry. The capsule radiates away -y J during re-entry." And the question was about work, and energy received by the capsule. (i know it's a rather stupid exercise but you know)

Then the last "easy" question : what is causing the capsule to heat up ?

Me : "air compression in front of the capsule."

2 weeks later---> Teacher gives back copies : i got 0 at that last question.

Physics teacher : "no it's friction"

Me : intense facepalm. I couldn't convince him.

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NASA's Facebook page offers great quantities of stupid comments. Here's one made 12 hours ago on the latest Pluto-Charon photo:

The space behind it looks so dark, I guess it's because there's so little sun out there to light it up.

:D

Also, people who ask questions about New Horizons such as this one:

Is there astronomers in it? Or just a controlled craft?

Honestly, how do they not kill themselves by forgetting how to breathe?

Edited by lajoswinkler
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Your teacher is right and CGP Grey is wrong in this case. Lightning is looking for a low resistance path to the ground, the rubber tires are good insulators and prevent that. Faraday cages (of which a car is a very poor one) don't protect against lightning.

[citation needed]

Lightning doesn't necessarily choose the absolute lowest resistance path to ground. The electrons actually flow in stages of a few hundred feet at a time. The tire itself might not conduct electricity, but the centimeters between the auto body and ground is nothing compared to the thousands of feet the electrons have already traveled.

Faraday cages absolutely protect against lightning - they are commonly used in "lightning simulators"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Older all-metal skin cars are better at protecting than newer cars with their plastic shells. That being said, you still should not do anything stupid - don't open a window, don't touch the exterior, etc.

http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/cars-can-be-safe-place-during/17283636

Lightning bolts are tens to hundreds of thousands of amps, and the current in two paths will depend on the ratio of 1/(resistance) between them. So a metal-ish car with a few ohms and a person with a skin resistance of a hundred thousand ohms (touching the car metal in two places) can cause several amps to flow through your body - more than enough to kill you. A few inches of airgap makes your resistance now hundreds of millions of ohms or more, enough to be mostly safe.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/lightning2.html

Everything lightning strike is actually several "strikes" - so the old adage "lightning never strikes twice in the same place" is wrong. Even a consumer video camera should be able to capture the lightning stages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLWIBrweSU8&feature=youtu.be&t=165

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At work we have an intern, and he is a bit dimwitted. This morning while we were sorting out crates that just came in on the daily delivery truck he asked me: "Where do I put the crates for 'customer X'?" "Put them over here next to 'customer Y'?" I replied. "Oh. Normally I put them over there."

AAARRRGGGHHHH! If you normally put them over there then don't ask me where to put them you moron!

Edited by Tex_NL
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So my mum and I were standing outside last evening waiting for the ISS to pass over. My little cousin asks what we're doing, and I explain it to him. But then he asks:

So how loud will it be?

Me: Umm... it's a thing in space.

Yeah, but how loud is it going to be?

in all fairness, it was a little kid, and kids generally associate airplanes, which move quickly though the sky, with loud noises. So it would be perfectly natural for his little-kid-logic to think that something moving fast through the sky to be loud.

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This comes from my middle school science teacher:

"On Apollo 13, the astronauts were using the engine to get to the moon, but the engine blew up. The only reason they got home, was because they were lucky."

The class then watched the movie "Apollo 13", which proved her wrong. However, she still insists that she's right, and the movie is wrong.

*facepalm*

Disclaimer: The story is passed to me from a friend, and may be inaccurate to an extent.

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This comes from my middle school science teacher:

"On Apollo 13, the astronauts were using the engine to get to the moon, but the engine blew up. The only reason they got home, was because they were lucky."

The class then watched the movie "Apollo 13", which proved her wrong. However, she still insists that she's right, and the movie is wrong.

*facepalm*

Disclaimer: The story is passed to me from a friend, and may be inaccurate to an extent.

Of course you're correct it wasn't the engine that blew but instead one of the cryo tanks. But you can't deny a large dose of luck was involved.

Edited by Tex_NL
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Physics (thermodynamics) test (highschool) : "the total energy of a capsule re-entering the atmosphere is Q=x J and does not change throughout re-entry. The capsule radiates away -y J during re-entry." And the question was about work, and energy received by the capsule. (i know it's a rather stupid exercise but you know)

Then the last "easy" question : what is causing the capsule to heat up ?

Me : "air compression in front of the capsule."

2 weeks later---> Teacher gives back copies : i got 0 at that last question.

Physics teacher : "no it's friction"

Me : intense facepalm. I couldn't convince him.

Air compression CAUSES friction!

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This one is actually something I used to think when I was younger.

Whenever I'd be reading an astronomy book and see a picture of Jupiter, more times than not would be a caption that read "Jupiter is so large it could fit over 1,000 Earth in it!" However, I would always say to myself "no way could I fit 1,000 Earths in just that amount of space!" What I failed to comprehend is that Jupiter is not a two-dimensional sphere, and does indeed have depth. :P

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Fully ambidextrous here, along with a mild case of the whole directional dyslexia thing that usually accompanies it. I was forced to write with my right hand in school (since left-handed people are children of Satan or some BS like that), so my left-hand writing is a bit less precise (yet still legible).

facepalm_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800

IQs were lost today.

Why are people allowed to teach such thing in schools?

Edited by windows_x_seven
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Air compression CAUSES friction!

Yeah obviously, but the main heating factor is the superheated air in contact with the capsule, and anyway when i wrtoe air compression, the teacher saying "no it's not" is wrong...

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