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Always love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions Beside chastity belts my f

Always love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions Beside chastity belts my favorite is the myth of the flat earth.

romanovcode 11y ago
This was interesting read, thanks!
fnordfnordfnord 11y ago
> It is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report; in instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies in the United States often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly. The UK government website says explicitly in large type "You don't have to wait 24 hours before contacting the police". Saw this myth repeated on one of those John Walsh type cop shows the other day.
itsybitsycoder 11y ago
Anyone who believes microwaves cook things from the inside out has never tried to microwave a frozen burrito / pizza pop.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  ? Cut a thick piece of meat that's been microwaved. You see complex red/brown variation, because microwaves penetrate. Its not all cooked from the inside, but its different from a conventional heat oven in that there's some cooking from the inside. Its easy to write sophomoric puff pieces about how we had it all wrong. Just assume an Aristotelian posture of black/white 'facts' and show its actually grey. Voila!
- goodcanadian 11y ago
  As stated in the wikipedia article, the microwaves penetrate to a depth of about 1cm (give or take, depending on the food). So, in a sense, it can be argued that the microwaves heat from inside, though in reality, not very far inside. The trouble is that microwaves work mostly by heating liquid water. Ice is not liquid water and absorbs microwaves relatively poorly. The already melted parts tend to heat up faster while the still frozen parts heat up very little. This, in addition to the limited penetration, is how you wind up with food that is napalm hot on the outside and still frozen in the middle. If you are trying to defrost something or cook it from frozen, you are much better off using a lower power setting. The peak power output is actually the same, but it gets turned on and off (you can hear it cycling) so that the warm areas of the food have more time to transfer some of that heat to the still cold areas through good old fashioned conduction. Incidentally, this is the same reason that the instructions for many pre-made items tell you to let them sit for 1 or 2 minutes before taking it out of the microwave.
  - pmahoney 11y ago
    (Some?) Panasonic microwaves claim to be able to lower microwave power linearly without the on/off power cycling. I'm mildly curious if their marketing claims of superior cooking hold up. http://www.panasonic.com/in/consumer/home-appliances-learn/technology/what_s-an-inverter-.html http://www.panasonic.com/in/consumer/home-appliances-learn/t...
    - MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
      Indeed, and they seem to make a difference: http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-microwave/ http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-microwave/
- erichsu 11y ago
  Wait a second. The Wikipedia page first says that microwave do not cook from the inside out because the microwaves do not penetrate beyond 1 cm. but then it says that microwaves really cook by oscillating the magnetic field which jostles around dipoles like the water in food. So does the magnetic field only penetrate very close to the skin, or are all the water molecules inside the food being excited, resulting in the food being cooked indeed from the inside?
- tsotha 11y ago
  On the other hand you really can get severe burns from the filling of a microwaved jelly donut even if the dough part is cool enough to hold. It's true the microwaves don't heat "from the inside out", but it's also true microwaves heat some materials dramatically better than others.
TeMPOraL 11y ago
Learning the truth about many of those misconceptions even before discovering the whole list is what ultimately broke my trust in mainstream opinion. The whole time since I left high school has been a period of systematic unlearning of all the bullshit I've been taught - by teachers, friends, families and talking heads. Just how the hell is an adult supposed to live if every other day they discover another thing they thought is obvious is actually wrong? This is one of those things that really pisses me off about reality.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Buck up! I think of it as, zeroing in on truth. Historically we had approximations and good guesses. Now we're in an unprecedented period of discovery and science. Of course we have a lot to unlearn!
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    That's definitely a good way of looking at it, but still, most of those misconceptions aren't lack of knowledge; it's people presenting bullshit to other people as facts of nature. It's not that we had to discover how, say, microwave oven works - we obviously knew that before the first one ever hit the market! Someone somewhere just invented an explanation and it spread, and most people don't bother to even think twice if it makes sense.
    - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
      My favorite wrong fact was the simple model of friction we were taught - that force was proportional to surface area and weight. In middle school we were given force gauges and wood blocks. Pull them stacked or linked and graph the force vs weight X area. I got a weird curve. Looking around, I saw everybody else fudging their data to make a straight line. Confusing. Decades later I heard on the radio "The traditional model of friction has been proven incorrect for many materials" and I thought, I knew that in middle school.
      - 11y ago

Always love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions Beside chastity belts my favorite is the myth of the flat earth.

romanovcode 11y ago

This was interesting read, thanks!

fnordfnordfnord 11y ago

> It is rarely necessary to wait 24 hours before filing a missing person report; in instances where there is evidence of violence or of an unusual absence, law enforcement agencies in the United States often stress the importance of beginning an investigation promptly. The UK government website says explicitly in large type "You don't have to wait 24 hours before contacting the police". Saw this myth repeated on one of those John Walsh type cop shows the other day.

itsybitsycoder 11y ago

Anyone who believes microwaves cook things from the inside out has never tried to microwave a frozen burrito / pizza pop.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
? Cut a thick piece of meat that's been microwaved. You see complex red/brown variation, because microwaves penetrate. Its not all cooked from the inside, but its different from a conventional heat oven in that there's some cooking from the inside. Its easy to write sophomoric puff pieces about how we had it all wrong. Just assume an Aristotelian posture of black/white 'facts' and show its actually grey. Voila!
goodcanadian 11y ago
As stated in the wikipedia article, the microwaves penetrate to a depth of about 1cm (give or take, depending on the food). So, in a sense, it can be argued that the microwaves heat from inside, though in reality, not very far inside. The trouble is that microwaves work mostly by heating liquid water. Ice is not liquid water and absorbs microwaves relatively poorly. The already melted parts tend to heat up faster while the still frozen parts heat up very little. This, in addition to the limited penetration, is how you wind up with food that is napalm hot on the outside and still frozen in the middle. If you are trying to defrost something or cook it from frozen, you are much better off using a lower power setting. The peak power output is actually the same, but it gets turned on and off (you can hear it cycling) so that the warm areas of the food have more time to transfer some of that heat to the still cold areas through good old fashioned conduction. Incidentally, this is the same reason that the instructions for many pre-made items tell you to let them sit for 1 or 2 minutes before taking it out of the microwave.
- pmahoney 11y ago
  (Some?) Panasonic microwaves claim to be able to lower microwave power linearly without the on/off power cycling. I'm mildly curious if their marketing claims of superior cooking hold up. http://www.panasonic.com/in/consumer/home-appliances-learn/technology/what_s-an-inverter-.html http://www.panasonic.com/in/consumer/home-appliances-learn/t...
  - MrBuddyCasino 11y ago
    Indeed, and they seem to make a difference: http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-microwave/ http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-microwave/
erichsu 11y ago
Wait a second. The Wikipedia page first says that microwave do not cook from the inside out because the microwaves do not penetrate beyond 1 cm. but then it says that microwaves really cook by oscillating the magnetic field which jostles around dipoles like the water in food. So does the magnetic field only penetrate very close to the skin, or are all the water molecules inside the food being excited, resulting in the food being cooked indeed from the inside?
tsotha 11y ago
On the other hand you really can get severe burns from the filling of a microwaved jelly donut even if the dough part is cool enough to hold. It's true the microwaves don't heat "from the inside out", but it's also true microwaves heat some materials dramatically better than others.

TeMPOraL 11y ago

Learning the truth about many of those misconceptions even before discovering the whole list is what ultimately broke my trust in mainstream opinion. The whole time since I left high school has been a period of systematic unlearning of all the bullshit I've been taught - by teachers, friends, families and talking heads. Just how the hell is an adult supposed to live if every other day they discover another thing they thought is obvious is actually wrong? This is one of those things that really pisses me off about reality.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Buck up! I think of it as, zeroing in on truth. Historically we had approximations and good guesses. Now we're in an unprecedented period of discovery and science. Of course we have a lot to unlearn!
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  That's definitely a good way of looking at it, but still, most of those misconceptions aren't lack of knowledge; it's people presenting bullshit to other people as facts of nature. It's not that we had to discover how, say, microwave oven works - we obviously knew that before the first one ever hit the market! Someone somewhere just invented an explanation and it spread, and most people don't bother to even think twice if it makes sense.
  - JoeAltmaier 11y ago
    My favorite wrong fact was the simple model of friction we were taught - that force was proportional to surface area and weight. In middle school we were given force gauges and wood blocks. Pull them stacked or linked and graph the force vs weight X area. I got a weird curve. Looking around, I saw everybody else fudging their data to make a straight line. Confusing. Decades later I heard on the radio "The traditional model of friction has been proven incorrect for many materials" and I thought, I knew that in middle school.
    - 11y ago