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Things that are accepted as facts that aren't true


The Great Wall of China is visible from space.

On average people shallow 8 spiders a year in their sleep.

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Cold weather causes the flu.

Balderdash. The flu is caused by viruses, which is why you can catch it during the summer. And you cannot catch a flu in Antarctica because it's too cold for the virus to thrive and spread there.

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you see this in a lot of old movies. cold and damp weather causes hypothermia.

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My parents would constantly tell me not to go to sleep with my hair wet because I would wake up with pneumonia.

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Virus responsible for respiratory illnesses survive much better during Winter. Cold weather (like winter cold, not antarctica cold) doesn't causes the flu, but it helps those viruses to survive and transmit.

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This is a great website filled with funny, creative, mature and intelligent posters.

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"The Great Wall of China is visible from space.
On average people shallow 8 spiders a year in their sleep."

Those aren't generally accepted as facts (though they may have been in the past). The first one might not even be a misconception, because the starting point of "space" is generally considered to be 62 miles up, i.e., at the Kármán Line, which is about the point at which the air becomes too thin to provide enough lift for a conventional aircraft to maintain flight.

This paper - https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10824000609480619 - says:

This demonstrates that the Great Wall of China can theoretically be seen at the altitude up to about 500 km. Considering that most manned spacecrafts are orbiting the Earth at a lower altitude of 160-320km, it is logical to state that astronauts can see the Great Wall of China under ideal environment conditions.


Can it be seen from 500 km (~311 miles) up under ideal conditions? Maybe or maybe not, but it almost certainly can be seen from only 62 miles up.

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It can't. It's way too small (narrow) to be resolved by the human eye from that distance.

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Did you read the paper I linked to? If you disagree with it you need to point out a flaw or flaws which negate their analysis, otherwise your post is mere gainsaying.

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My wife wouldn’t be able to find The Great Wall of China even if she was stood on the damn thing, never mind from space, whether that’s 8 miles high (Byrds reference), 62 miles high or even 311 miles high.

I hope that settles this argument.

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This is easy enough to test. Find a high resolution satellite image of the wall, scale it to correct angular size on a monitor viewed from a couple of meters away (to get enough angular resolution from the monitor) and see for yourself.

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It's not easy to test at all. First, you'd have to find a satellite that orbits at an altitude of only 62 miles, which you won't be able to do because:

The lowest altitude by an Earth observation satellite in orbit is 167.4 km (104 mi) and was achieved by JAXA's TSUBAME (Japan) during its mission from 23 December 2017 to 1 October 2019.

TSUBAME was a Super Low Altitude Test Satellite operated by Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA. With its ion engine, TSUBAME was able to capture high-resolution satellite images despite the atmospheric drag and density of atomic oxygen present in super low altitudes. It maintained seven different orbital altitudes, with 167.4 km being the lowest. At 167.4 km altitude, Tsubame used both its ion engine system and gas-jet thrusters.

https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/592663-lowest-altitude-earth-observation-satellite-in-orbit


Then, once you find this nonexistent satellite, you'd have to find relevant pictures from it, and those pictures would've had to have been taken with a lens that has no magnification. On top of that, the idea is to see it with the naked eye. Photographs vary wildly in quality, and even the best ones don't have as much resolution as the human vision system has, which is why someone could always tell the difference between e.g., a photograph of a person's face behind a square hole in the wall and an actual person's face behind the same hole, even if you eliminated the variable of motion.

The only way to test it is to get up that high and look down with the naked eye. But since, using generally accepted formulas for visual acuity when viewing linear objects, you get a theoretical maximum altitude of ~311 miles for being able to see the GWoC under ideal conditions, it almost certainly can be seen at a mere 62 miles (which is only about one-fifth of the maximum theoretical distance), as I already said.

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Fake fact: We humans only use 10% of our brains --> Reality: we actually use the whole thing.

Fake fact: If you sneeze with your eyes open, they'll pop out and roll out on the floor --> Reality: they wouldn't, because your eyes are securely attached to your skull via the optic nerves, tendons, and muscles. The Mythbusters proved this.

Fake fact: hanging bags of water around will keep houseflies away --> Reality: they don't do anything to stop flies from buzzing around (Mythbusters proved this too).

Fake fact: opening the windows in your house will make your home less vulnerable to the suction of tornadoes --> Reality: first off, stopping to open the windows in your home will delay precious minutes you could be using to go somewhere safe in your house. Second, opening the windows will make it so debris can fly into the house and cause unnecessary damage. Third, if the twister's gonna pass over your house anyway, opening the windows won't make any difference. The house is a goner regardless of whether the windows are open or closed.

The Great Wall of China is only visible from space if you're flying directly over it in high orbit and looking down.

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"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results."

There is no evidence that Albert Einstein ever said this, and even if he did, AFAIK there isn't a psychologist, psychiatrist, or textbook which would concur.

Yet to this day I occasionally hear people say this and attribute it to Einstein.

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Whenever someone says this to me I reply that almost every time I throw a pair of dice I get a different result.

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There is no evidence that Albert Einstein ever said this

Agreed. Einstein himself said it in his famous quote "you can't trust internet".

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I still cringe when old TV series blame colds on someone sitting in a draft. 🤦🏻‍♀️

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Bulls get angry when they see the color red.

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I hate gay people.

Never have I said I hate gay people. Like many, I'm repulsed by it, but not the people. I have ONLY, and will ALWAYS say, " do what ever you like, in your private moments, like we all do, just don't be shoving it on everyone". This will never change.

I also can not stand the flavor of green beans, and don't want to partake or be around them. And yet, I do not "HATE" green beans.

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"Like many, I'm repulsed by it, but not the people. I have ONLY, and will ALWAYS say, " do what ever you like, in your private moments, like we all do, just don't be shoving it on everyone". This will never change."

I feel the same way about the sex lives of my relatives.



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