Over time , even facts we consider steadfast truth can deepen . People used to suppose doctors could forfeit washing their hands before surgery . Knowledge is ever - evolving .
The seven ideas below probably change since your schooling days . Re - educate yourself .
THEN : Pluto is a planet
NOW : Pluto is n’t a planet
We ’ve known since the late 1800s that a 9th planet , after Uranus , potentially existed . In 1906 , Percival Lowell , the founder of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff , Arizona , even begin a inquiry undertaking designate to locate the mystifying " Planet X. "
Then in 1930 , a 23 - year - old fledgeling at the adroitness recover it . The artificer , Clyde Tombaugh , had been tasked with consistently compare photographs of the sky taken week aside to search for any move objects . He eventually saw one and submitted his determination to the Harvard College Observatory . After an 11 - year - old English young woman appoint the new planet ( for the papistic graven image of the underworld ) , we come out including Pluto as a planet in our solar system of rules .
But in 2003 , an astronomer found a larger aim beyond Pluto — which he appoint Eris , concord toNASA . The new selective information caused a gang of other uranologist to question what really makes a planet a satellite , and they settle , based on sizing and placement , that Pluto just did n’t make the cut . Neither did Eris , in reality . Pluto was break to a dwarf planet .
gratuitous to say , simple schools minor were middling bummed .
But there may be hope . researcher have recently been debating whether to make Pluto a planet again . '
THEN : Diamond is the hardest substance
Wikimedia Commons
NOW : Ultrahard nanotwinned cubic boron nitride is the hard substance
We ’ve love about two substances hard than a ball field since 2009 : wurtzite boron nitride and lonsdaleite , concord toScientific American . The first resists indentation with 18 % more fortitude than a rhomb , and the second — a whopping 58 % .
Unfortunately , both nub are rather unusual and unstable in nature . In fact , the survey ’s authors , publish in the journal " Physical Review Letters , " only reckon the novel substances ' hardness , rather of actually testing it using a tangible specimen . That makes the breakthrough a bit theoretical .
But another contender was published in the January 2013 issue of the journalNature . In the simplest full term , researchers contract boron nitride molecule to form " ultrahard nanotwinned cubic B nitride . " They simply re - organize the particles like an onion plant , or a flaky rose , or those little Russian dolls that conform to inside one another , as the team explain toWired .
As a result , await womanhood everywhere to start asking for ultrahard nanotwinned cubic boron nitride engagement rings . Because those really are forever .
THEN : Witches in Salem were burned at the stake
NOW : They were in reality hang
Even if you did n’t record Arthur Miller ’s " The Crucible " in high school , you probably read somewhere that the townspeople of Salem burned crone at the stake .
But that never happened , concord toRichard Trask , a town archivist for Danvers ( formerly get laid as Salem Village . ) He also chaired the Salem Village Witchcraft Tercentennial Committee from 1990 to 1992 and wrote a book detail the meter point called " Salem Village Witch Hysteria . "
At the time of the trials , New England still followed English law , which listed witchery as a felony punishable by hang — not burning at the stake , Trask said . In Europe , however , the church labeled witchcraft heterodoxy and did tie up suspected practitioners and illuminate them on fire . you may see where the confusion started .
THEN : Israelite slave build the pyramids
NOW : Egyptians workers built the pyramids themselves
Even motion picture like " The Prince Of Egypt " perpetuate the thought that slave built the pyramids . Although many call up the Bible say us they did , the book does n’t mention the fib specifically .
" No Jews built the pyramid because Jews did n’t exist at the geological period when the pyramids were build , " Mazar told the AP .
late archaeological finds in reality show that Egyptians built the Pyramid themselves . Workers were inscribe from poor family in the magnetic north and south but were extremely well-thought-of , earn crypts near the pyramid and even right cookery for burial .
Slaves would n’t have been treated so honorably .
THEN : fold up a piece of paper more than seven time is mathematically unimaginable .
Shutterstock
NOW : The record stand up at 13 .
Whether in art class or science , this rumor definitely spread among the masses . ButBritney Gallivan , a California gamey school scholar , did n’t bite .
She , with some volunteer , bought a behemoth , $ 85 paradiddle of toilet paper and proceeded to blow everyone ’s mind by folding it a surprising 11 clip . She realized everyone else who tried had been alternating fold directions , and even germinate an equation , based on the heaviness and width of the specific paper , explaining why you should n’t .
Gallivan was a keynote talker at the 2006 National Council of Teachers of Mathematics conventionality . She graduated from the University of California , Berkeley with a level in Environmental Science in 2007 . And since then , she ’s appeared on MythBusters .
In 2012 , scholarly person at St. Mark ’s School in Southborough , Massachusetts , break Gallivan ’s record , folding paper 13 time .
THEN : The Great Wall Of China is the only man - made bodily structure seeable from space .
NOW : Many human beings - made place are seeable from space .
Technically , this was n’t ever a solid " accuracy " — just a fact third - graders ubiquitously included in their class reputation and diorama presentations . In fact , rumors that you may see the landmark , not only from a starship , but all the fashion from the moon , date back as far as 1938 .
In 2003 though , the first Chinese astronaut finally shatter the myth .
The company responsible , a man namedYang Liwei , allow in he could n’t see the Great Wall from infinite , according toNASA .
Other pic surfaced here and there . The consensus became that you could , indeed , catch glimpses of the Wall but only under the right weather condition ( snow on the structure ) or with a zoom - capable camera . you could also see the lights of large cities — and major roadways and bridges and airports and dams and reservoirs .
The moon factoid , however , is totally incorrect .
" The only thing you may see from the Moon is a beautiful arena , mostly bloodless , some blue and patches of sensationalistic , and every once in a while some immature botany , " Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean tell apart NASA . " No man - made object is visible at this scale . "
To further clear up , citizenry probably mean these structures are visible from artificial satellite orbiting Earth — but that ’s not actual space .
THEN : Five ( or three ) kingdom of classification exist .
Flickr / Tony Higsett
NOW : There might be as many as eight kingdom .
Depending when you grow up , your middle schoolhouse scientific discipline teacher in all probability lectured about three main kingdom of aliveness — animals , plant , and bacteria ( monera ) — or five , including fungi and protist , too .
Either way , we ’ve expanded our categorisation of life since then .
The more species we encounter and analyze , the more complex labeling life becomes . In increase to the five kingdoms above , we now bang of archaea , antecedently throw under monera . Archaea superficially wait like other one - celled organisms called eubacteria , but they ’re whole different .
Even larger systems be which further divide eubacterium into two more kingdoms or separate chromista from all the other protist .
In the U.S. , however , we stick with six : plants , brute , protists , fungi , archaebacteria , and eubacteria .
Christina Sterbenz contributed to a old variation of this report
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