Uploaded July 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
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Science Facts that are WRONG (part 1) youtu.be/sd4hGKFV-Bc
CHAPTERS
0:00 Common science beliefs that are wrong
0:31 Lightening
1:31 Coriolis effect
2:32 The color red
5:17 Bats
6:35 Goldfish
7:39 Human brain
9:29 Human senses
11:17 Sugar
12:55 Cracking
13:55 Hair
SUMMARY
Lightning absolutely can – and does – hit the same spot repeatedly. Tall and pointed structures like skyscrapers or radio towers get struck many times a year.Lightning is just an electrical discharge seeking the path of least resistance, so if one spot was struck once, it can be struck again under the right conditions.The phrase was meant metaphorically – to comfort someone that a rare bad event won’t happen twice. Over time, people started to believe it literally.
The direction of a toilet’s swirl is determined by the toilet’s design and the angle of water jets, not Earth’s rotation. The Coriolis effect is real – it influences large-scale phenomena like hurricanes – but it’s far too weak on small scales such as the volume of water in a bathtub or toilet.
Everyone “knows” that when a bull fighter waves a red cape, it makes bulls charge, except no. Like most cattle, are red–green colorblind. So they can’t even see the color red. In Spanish bullfighting, the matador’s red capeisn’t special because of its color – the bull actually reacts to the motion of the cape. A red cape is traditionally used in bullfighting to mask blood stains, not to enrage the bull.
The saying “blind as a bat” is scientifically laughable. Bats can actually see quite well at night. In fact, most species of bats see better at night than we do. This myth likely arose because bats use echolocation, which to humans seems like a replacement for vision.
Goldfish have a “3-second memory.” The reality is that goldfish can remember things for months!
The myth might have started as a joke or misinterpreted science and became “common knowledge.” Seeing fish endlessly swim around a bowl could look like they’re constantly surprised (because they might pause and examine things repeatedly).
It’s commonly believed that we use only 10% of our brain. We actually use 100% of our brain – just not all parts at the same time. The 10% myth has been around for over a century, repeated in self-help books and movies. Early psychologists like William James speculated we weren’t reaching our mental potential (he didn’t literally mean a 10% limit, but it was later misquoted).
Do we have only 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell? Humans have at least nine or even more senses! For example, balance (the vestibular sense) is a sense. There’s proprioception, your sense of where your body parts are without looking. We also sense temperature (thermoception) and pain (nociception) separately from ordinary touch. There’s even interoception, the internal senses of hunger, thirst, or knowing your heart is pounding. Each of these has distinct receptors and nerve pathways, so scientists count them as additional senses beyond the “famous five.”
Giving kids candy doesn’t actually make them hyperactive. Sugar isn’t responsible for hyperactivity in children. Careful scientific trials have found no significant difference in behavior between kids who consumed sugar and those who got a sugar-free placebo. But interestingly, parents who believed their child had sugar often perceived them as more hyperactive. In reality, what often makes kids wild at birthday parties or holidays isn’t the cake – it’s the excitement. This myth started in the 1970s with some unproven hypotheses that sugar could trigger behavioral issues. We often wrongly blame the candy, when it’s just youth.
If you’re a knuckle-cracker, you will have been warned that you’ll end up with arthritis. But the good news is, multiple studies have compared people who habitually crack their knuckles to those who don’t, and they found no difference in rates of joint problems like arthritis. Medical experts confirm there’s no evidence that this nervous habit leads to arthritis or any serious joint disease.
You know that if you shave off your hair and it’ll grow back thicker, darker, and faster. Reality is, shaving has no absolutely effect on the hair’s thickness or growth rate. When you shave, you’re cutting the hair at the surface of the skin. The new hair that grows out has a blunt tip (because of the cut) rather than the natural tapered tip. That bluntness can make the hair feel stiffer or look a bit darker at first, but the hair’s diameter and color do not change.
#sciencefacts
This misconception sticks around because when hair grows back after shaving, the blunt stubble can give the illusion of thickness.
Learn a new job in tech starting from $200/mo! Sign up for a FREE TripleTen career consultation with my link: get.tripleten.com/arvinash
TALK TO Arvin:
patreon.com/arvinash
RELATED VIDEOS
Science Facts that are WRONG (part 1) youtu.be/sd4hGKFV-Bc
CHAPTERS
0:00 Common science beliefs that are wrong
0:31 Lightening
1:31 Coriolis effect
2:32 The color red
5:17 Bats
6:35 Goldfish
7:39 Human brain
9:29 Human senses
11:17 Sugar
12:55 Cracking
13:55 Hair
SUMMARY
Lightning absolutely can – and does – hit the same spot repeatedly. Tall and pointed structures like skyscrapers or radio towers get struck many times a year.Lightning is just an electrical discharge seeking the path of least resistance, so if one spot was struck once, it can be struck again under the right conditions.The phrase was meant metaphorically – to comfort someone that a rare bad event won’t happen twice. Over time, people started to believe it literally.
The direction of a toilet’s swirl is determined by the toilet’s design and the angle of water jets, not Earth’s rotation. The Coriolis effect is real – it influences large-scale phenomena like hurricanes – but it’s far too weak on small scales such as the volume of water in a bathtub or toilet.
Everyone “knows” that when a bull fighter waves a red cape, it makes bulls charge, except no. Like most cattle, are red–green colorblind. So they can’t even see the color red. In Spanish bullfighting, the matador’s red capeisn’t special because of its color – the bull actually reacts to the motion of the cape. A red cape is traditionally used in bullfighting to mask blood stains, not to enrage the bull.
The saying “blind as a bat” is scientifically laughable. Bats can actually see quite well at night. In fact, most species of bats see better at night than we do. This myth likely arose because bats use echolocation, which to humans seems like a replacement for vision.
Goldfish have a “3-second memory.” The reality is that goldfish can remember things for months!
The myth might have started as a joke or misinterpreted science and became “common knowledge.” Seeing fish endlessly swim around a bowl could look like they’re constantly surprised (because they might pause and examine things repeatedly).
It’s commonly believed that we use only 10% of our brain. We actually use 100% of our brain – just not all parts at the same time. The 10% myth has been around for over a century, repeated in self-help books and movies. Early psychologists like William James speculated we weren’t reaching our mental potential (he didn’t literally mean a 10% limit, but it was later misquoted).
Do we have only 5 senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell? Humans have at least nine or even more senses! For example, balance (the vestibular sense) is a sense. There’s proprioception, your sense of where your body parts are without looking. We also sense temperature (thermoception) and pain (nociception) separately from ordinary touch. There’s even interoception, the internal senses of hunger, thirst, or knowing your heart is pounding. Each of these has distinct receptors and nerve pathways, so scientists count them as additional senses beyond the “famous five.”
Giving kids candy doesn’t actually make them hyperactive. Sugar isn’t responsible for hyperactivity in children. Careful scientific trials have found no significant difference in behavior between kids who consumed sugar and those who got a sugar-free placebo. But interestingly, parents who believed their child had sugar often perceived them as more hyperactive. In reality, what often makes kids wild at birthday parties or holidays isn’t the cake – it’s the excitement. This myth started in the 1970s with some unproven hypotheses that sugar could trigger behavioral issues. We often wrongly blame the candy, when it’s just youth.
If you’re a knuckle-cracker, you will have been warned that you’ll end up with arthritis. But the good news is, multiple studies have compared people who habitually crack their knuckles to those who don’t, and they found no difference in rates of joint problems like arthritis. Medical experts confirm there’s no evidence that this nervous habit leads to arthritis or any serious joint disease.
You know that if you shave off your hair and it’ll grow back thicker, darker, and faster. Reality is, shaving has no absolutely effect on the hair’s thickness or growth rate. When you shave, you’re cutting the hair at the surface of the skin. The new hair that grows out has a blunt tip (because of the cut) rather than the natural tapered tip. That bluntness can make the hair feel stiffer or look a bit darker at first, but the hair’s diameter and color do not change.
#sciencefacts
This misconception sticks around because when hair grows back after shaving, the blunt stubble can give the illusion of thickness.
