List of common misconceptions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

History

    * The belief that gunpowder, even though it was a Chinese invention, was first used for war by the Europeans is a misconception. The Chinese used flame throwers and gunpowder arrows for military purposes from the 900s onward.
    * Paul Revere was not the only American colonist who rode to warn the Minute Men of the British before the battle of Lexington and Concord of the American Revolutionary War. The story of Paul Revere is largely based on the poem "Paul Revere's Ride", written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in 1860 (see Paul Revere's Ride).
    * Christopher Columbus's efforts to obtain support for his voyages were not hampered by a European belief in a flat Earth. In fact, sailors and navigators of the time knew that the Earth was spherical, but (correctly) disagreed with Columbus' estimates of the distance to the Indies (see Flat Earth). If the Americas did not exist, and Columbus had continued to the Indies (even putting aside the threat of mutiny he was under) he would have run out of supplies before reaching them at the rate he was travelling.
    * Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation did not immediately free all American slaves, just the ones in the area under revolt (i.e. the South). Since that area did not recognize his authority, only some slaves were immediately freed by the Emancipation Proclamation, with most slaves freed as Confederate territory came under Union control. It took the thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to free slaves in the few Union slave states.
    * Napoleon Bonaparte was not especially short. After his death in 1821, the French emperor's height was recorded as 5 feet 2 inches in French feet. This corresponds to 5 feet 6.5 inches in Imperial (British) feet, or 1.686 metres, making him slightly taller than an average Frenchman of the 19th century. The metric system was introduced during his lifetime, so it was natural that he would be measured in feet and inches for much of his life. A French inch was 2.71 centimetres, an Imperial inch is 2.54 centimetres. In addition to this miscalculation, his nickname, "le petit caporal", adds to the confusion, as non-francophones mistakenly take petit literally as meaning "small"; in fact, it is an affectionate term reflecting on his camaraderie with ordinary soldiers. He also surrounded himself with soldiers, his elite guard, who were always six feet tall or more.
    * During World War II, King Christian X of Denmark did not thwart Nazi attempts to identify Jews by wearing a yellow star himself. Jews in Denmark were never forced to wear the Star of David. The Danish government did help most Jews flee the country before the end of the war.
    * Italian dictator Benito Mussolini did not make the trains run on time. Much of the repair work had been performed before Mussolini and the Fascists came to power in 1922. Accounts from the era also suggest that the Italian railways' legendary adherence to timetables was more myth than reality.
    * It is believed that the phrase "Qu'ils mangent de la brioche." ("Let them eat cake.") was not said by Marie Antoinette, but by another noble (a princess in another country, at another time). An argument to support this theory is that the brioche had not been invented at the time of the French Revolution. Also, Jean-Jacques Rousseau recounts the anecdote (with "pastry" in place of "cake") in the 6th book of his 'Confessions' three years before Marie Antoinette joined the court at Versailles in 1770.
    * The German crowd witnessing John F. Kennedy's speech in Berlin in 1963 did not mistake Ich bin ein Berliner to mean "I am a jelly doughnut". The pastry is known as a Berliner only in some parts of Germany, but not in Berlin.

Food origins

    * French fries probably originated in Belgium. The name comes from the cooking term "to french" which means to cut food into strips, hence they are "frenched and fried".
    * American-style French dressing neither originated, nor has been popular, in France. UK-style French Dressing (a mix of vinegar and olive oil), while popular in France, is more correctly referred to as Vinaigrette.
    * Danish pastries do not come from Denmark but Austria. In Denmark they are known as "wienerbr›d" ("Vienna bread").


 Science

    * While in a low orbit (an altitude of about 185 km), a viewer of good eyesight can see portions of the Great Wall of China (pictured here in a satellite image) from space, but it is not unique in that regard. From such a height, a multitude of land features and man-made objects are visible, including: highways, ships in the sea, dams, railroads, cities, fields of crops, airports, and even some individual buildings. As to the claim that it is the only man-made object visible from the Moon, this is completely false. None of the Apollo astronauts reported seeing any man-made object from the Moon, and certainly not the Great Wall. One thing that must be remembered is that the Great Wall, while massive, is comparatively thin, generally no thicker than 10 feet when viewing from above.
    * The phrase "dark side of the Moon" does not imply that only one side of the moon receives sunlight. It refers to the side of the moon away from Earth, where radio transmissions from Earth are blocked by the intervening mass of the Moon (making it "dark" to line-of-sight communications). Since the Moon is in a tidally locked orbit , it always keeps the same face, or side, toward the Earth, and therefore the far side is never visible from Earth (see also tidal acceleration for a more quantitative description of the Earth-Moon system). Once per synodic month, the near side of the Moon is indeed largely illuminated by the Sun, and the far side is literally "dark". At this time, we are able to see most of the area of the near side, resulting in a full moon. Likewise, once per synodic month the far side of the moon is so illuminated, leaving the near side dark, resulting in a new moon.
    * The gravity of a black hole is slightly weaker than, not stronger than, the gravity of the star which formed it (at distances greater than the star's radius). Isaac Newton's laws of gravitation state that, for an object with a spherically symmetric distribution of mass, two things affect how much gravitational force is felt by an observer: the mass of the object and the distance between the observer and the object's center of mass. A black hole has slightly less mass than the star which formed it, because when a star becomes a supernova, some of the star's mass is converted into energy according to Einstein's equation E = mcý, and a great deal of the star's mass is returned to the interstellar medium. Only when a distance of (slightly less than) the star's original radius is passed does the force of gravity become greater. The event horizon is usually much smaller than the original star's radius. As such, black holes are not similar to "cosmic vacuum cleaners". Objects can settle into stable orbits around them just as they would around any other mass in space, including stars.
    * When a meteor lands on Earth (after which it is termed a meteorite), it is not usually hot. Small meteorites are not hot when they fall to Earth - in fact, many are found with frost on them. A meteorite has been in the near-absolute zero temperature of space, so the interior of it is very cold. A meteor's great speed is enough to melt its outside layer, but any molten material will be quickly blown off (ablated), and the interior of the meteor does not have time to heat up because rocks are poor conductors of heat. Also, atmospheric drag can slow small meteors to terminal velocity by the time they hit the ground, giving them time to cool down.
    * The North Star, Polaris, is not the brightest star in the northern hemisphere night sky. This honor is held by Sirius, with an apparent magnitude of -1.47 (Polaris in comparison is 1.97, barely making the top-50 brightest stars list). Its importance lies in its proximity to the north celestial pole, meaning its location in the sky currently marks North.
    * Seasons are not caused by Earth being closer to the sun in summer than in winter. Rather, they are caused by Earth's tilted axis. In July, during Northern Hemisphere summer, Earth actually reaches its furthest distance from the sun, but the northern part of the planet is tilted towards the sun, giving longer days and more direct sunlight; in winter, it is tilted away. The seasons are reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, which is tilted towards the sun in January and away from the sun in July. The tropics do not have substantial seasonal variation in sunlight.
    * The Lunar phases are not caused by the Earth's shadow (lunar eclipses, by contrast, are). Instead, as the Moon orbits Earth, we see its illuminated half from differing angles in relation to the Sun.

 Health

    * Different tastes can be detected on all parts of the tongue, contrary to the popular belief that specific tastes correspond to specific sites on the tongue. The original "tongue map" was based on a mistranslation by a Harvard psychologist of a German paper that was written in 1901. Sensitivity to all tastes occurs across the whole tongue and indeed in other regions of the mouth where there are taste buds (epiglottis, soft palate).
    * People do not use only ten percent of their brains. This myth is thought by some to have emerged after the discovery of glial cells in the brain, or it could have been the result of some other misunderstood or misinterpreted legitimate scientific findings, or even been the result of speculation by self-help gurus.
    * There is no evidence supporting the claim that reading in poor light causes vision to deteriorate.
    * Shaving does not cause hair to grow back thicker or coarser.
    * Hair and fingernails do not continue to grow after a person dies. Rather, the skin dries and shrinks away from the bases of hairs and nails, giving the appearance of growth.

 Biology

    * Warts on human skin are caused by viruses that are unique to humans (Human papillomavirus), and not by proximity to, or contact with, toads.
    * Koalas are not bears. They are not even placental mammals; they are marsupials. The giant panda, however, is a bear, while the red panda is closely related to raccoons.
    * Some bats use echolocation to navigate while flying in darkness. Bats are not blind, however. Their eyes are small and poorly developed, but they are still capable of sight, particularly long-range; and in fact can be severely disoriented by excessive light.
    * The claim that a duck's quack doesn't echo is false.
    * The notion that goldfish have a memory of only three seconds is completely false. They have been trained to navigate mazes and can recognize their owners after an exposure of a few months.
    * Lemmings do not engage in suicidal dives off cliffs when migrating. This misconception is due largely to the Disney film White Wilderness, which shot many of the "migration" scenes on a large turntable in a studio. Photographers later pushed the lemmings off a cliff using a broom.
    * Mammal blood is bright red or scarlet when oxygenated and a darker red when not oxygenated. It is never blue. Veins appear blue through the skin because of Rayleigh scattering, the same effect responsible for the blue sky.
    * The claim that individuals with a different number of chromosomes can never produce viable offspring is false - Przewalski's Horse, for example, can produce viable offspring with the common horse, despite a different number of chromosomes.
    * It is not true that earthworms can become two worms if you cut one in half. An earthworm can survive being vivisected, but only one half of the worm can survive. If one cuts the worm too close to the saddle (the fat pink section where all of the worm's vital organs are located) then the worm may die.

 Physics

    * The Coriolis effect does not determine the direction of rotation of water draining from sinks, bathtubs, or flushing toilets. The influence of the Coriolis effect on motions over such small distances and such short times is very small. Only motions on spatial scales of many kilometers (miles) and time scales of many minutes or hours, such as long-range missiles, weather systems, and ocean currents, are appreciably affected by the Coriolis force (for a small-scale system which can detect the Coriolis force, see Foucault pendulum). Most containers of water are not initially still; in order for the Coriolis effect to have a chance of prevailing, the rotation of the water relative to the container must be less than its rotation with the Earth. Even at the North or South Poles, where the effect is strongest, the movement of water in a tub would have to be slower than one rotation in 24 hours. Then, unless careful precautions are taken, the torque produced by flow over the geometry of the tub overwhelms the tiny Coriolis force. Most toilets inject water into the bowl at an angle, and will flush in the corresponding direction anywhere in the world: the resulting spin of the water in the bowl is fast enough to complete a rotation in seconds-tens of thousands of times too fast to be overcome by the Coriolis effect.
    * It is not true that air takes the same time to travel above and below an aircraft's wing. This misconception is widespread among textbooks and reference books, and even appears in pilot training materials. If this were truly the case, there would be no lift generated by the wings and the plane wouldn't fly. Airplanes fly because air (both above and below the wing) is deflected downward.
    * Airplanes flying long distances between two places usually take less time flying west-to-east than east-to-west, not because of the earth's rotation directly, but because airlines tend to profit from natural air currents called jet streams.
    * Many textbooks state that electricity within wires flows at nearly (or even exactly) the speed of light, which can give the impression that electrons themselves move almost instantly through a circuit. The drift velocity of the charges (electrons) in a typical current-carrying wire is on the order of centimeters per hour (much slower than a snail) rather than hundreds of millions of meters per second (the speed of light). The random thermal motions of the electrons are much faster than the drift velocity, but still much slower than light, and with no tendency to occur in any particular direction. Where the electric current is visible, as in electrophoresis, the slow movement of brightly colored charge carriers can be seen directly. It is the electrical energy or signal which travels almost at the speed of light. Imagine a hose which is full of water and connected to a closed faucet. When the faucet is turned on, water begins coming out of the other end of the hose almost immediately; the speed of the pressure wave which starts the water in the hose moving is analogous to the speed of the electrical signal. But it takes much longer for the water entering the hose at the faucet to transit the entire hose; the water itself, analogous to the electrons in a current-carrying wire, moves along the hose much more slowly than does the information that the faucet has been opened. In alternating current, as used in wall outlets, the direction of current alternates rapidly (50 or 60 times per second), and in this case, the electrons stay in about the same place the entire time (on the filament inside a light bulb for instance), while vibrating back and forth over a very small distance.
    * The blue color of lakes and oceans is not only a reflection of the blue sky. Water looks blue because water is blue; the water molecules do absorb some light, and they absorb red frequencies more than blue. The effect is small, so the blue color only becomes obvious when observing layers of water many meters (or more) thick. (This effect is noticeable to a lesser amount in white-painted swimming pools.) In salt water or mineral-laden fresh water, the color of dissolved minerals can also be seen. Sky-reflection does play a role, but it is not the only factor.
    * The Earth's North Magnetic Pole is not a north magnetic pole, but rather a south magnetic pole. Since a compass needle is a magnet whose "North" end has standard north polarity, and since magnetic poles are attracted to their opposites, the compass needle points to the magnetic south pole of the Earth's magnetic field. Therefore, the Arctic pole is a south-type pole, while the Antarctic pole is a north-type pole. (However, the poles have flipped in the past, with the last reversal being the Brunhes-Matuyama reversal of 780,000 years ago.) Earth also has a more complicated magnetic field than one might get from a simple dipole. The earth has a strong overall dipole on which is superposed on a weaker quadrupole, as well as higher-order magnetic moments. Not only have the magnetic poles moved to opposite geographic poles in the past, but they also drift around more or less randomly, presumably because of the movements of the molten nickel-iron alloy in the Earth's core.
    * Due to Archimedes's principle, the melting of glaciers contributes far more to raising sea level than the melting of sea ice or floating icebergs. The predicted threat of rising sea levels due to global warming is mainly due to the detachment or melting of inland ice, such as that on Greenland and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet in Antarctica, the melting of glaciers, and the thermal expansion of seawater. Melting of sea ice in the Arctic makes only a tiny contribution, by lowering the global average salinity (and therefore the density) of seawater.
    * The melting of Antarctic ice is not predicted to be the largest cause of rising sea levels in the near future. While complete melting of the Antarctic ice sheet would be the largest of all potential contributions to sea level change, the likelihood of total melting is extremely small. Antarctica may even help offset rising sea level by accumulating more snow. At worst, the partial melting of Antarctic ice is predicted to be only the fourth-largest potential contribution to sea level rise by the year 2100 (?170 to +20mm), after thermal expansion of the world's oceans (+110 to +430mm), melting glaciers (+10 to +230mm), and melting Greenland ice (?20 to +90mm).
    * A Crookes radiometer or "light-mill"  does not turn by radiation pressure. In fact, it turns in the opposite direction from what one would expect due to radiation pressure. The correct explanation is essentially that molecules of gas in the partial vacuum inside rebound from the vanes of the radiometer, transmitting a different force depending on the temperature of the gas (rebounding more forcefully from the black, hotter side of the vanes).
    * Introductory science courses often teach that the period of a pendulum is independent of its amplitude, and students often mistakenly believe that is precisely true. It is only approximately true, and only for small amplitudes, for which a pendulum approximates simple harmonic motion.
    * It is not true that a nozzle (or a person's thumb) on the end of a garden hose makes the water squirt farther because the same amount of water gets forced through a smaller opening. The rate of flow of water through the hose is not a set constant; in fact, putting one's thumb over the end of the hose reduces the rate of flow. The thing that is constant is the water pressure at the source. When water is flowing, the pressure decreases the farther from the source one gets due to friction between the water and the pipes it's flowing through. The faster the water moves through the pipe, the greater is the friction that cuts down pressure at the output end. A thumb over the end of the hose decreases the flow rate and therefore the friction, so the pressure goes up and the water squirts farther.
    * It is not true that a difference between light and sound is that light travels in straight lines while sound travels around corners; both waves propagate in much the same way. Instead, the difference is between ears and eyes: because human vision allows us to pinpoint the source of light entering the eye, while ears cannot accurately pinpoint the source of a sound, much more of the available information is lost when light scatters around a corner than when sound does.

 Evolution
    * In biology the word evolution describes the changes that occur in populations of living organisms over time. Describing these changes does not address the origin of life: for that, see abiogenesis. The two are commonly and mistakenly conflated. Biological evolution likewise says nothing about cosmology, the Big Bang, or where the universe, galaxy, solar system, or Earth came from.
    * The word "theory" in "the theory of evolution" does not imply doubt in mainstream science about the validity of this theory; the words "theory" and "hypothesis" are not the same in a scientific context (see Evolution as theory and fact). A scientific theory is a set of principles which, via logical deduction, explains the observations in nature. The same logical deductions can be made to predict observations before they are made. The theory describing how evolution occurs is a "theory" in the same sense as the theory of gravity or the theory of relativity.
    * Evolution by natural selection is not an entirely random process; the random results of mutation are filtered by the non-random process of natural selection and other non-random mechanisms. On the other hand, some evolutionary changes result from genetic drift, and are entirely random.
    * Humans did not evolve from chimpanzees or any other modern ape; instead they share a common ancestor (possibly Sahelanthropus tchadensis) that existed around 7 million years ago in the late Miocene epoch. However, the genuses Ardipithecus and Orrorin are alternative candidates for this common ancestor.
    * The process of evolution is not necessarily slow. Millions of years are not required to see evolution, or even to see speciation in action. Indeed, it has been observed multiple times under both controlled laboratory conditions and in nature.
    * Evolution does not happen within a single organism: a chimpanzee cannot be born a chimpanzee and turn into a different species within its lifetime. Evolution deals with changes to the gene pool of a population, which accumulate only over generations. Similarly, organisms cannot pass on acquired traits to their offspring; a bodybuilder's children are not born with more muscles (but see epigenetics).
    * Evolution is not a progression from "lower" to "higher", and evolution does not require an increase in complexity (see Evolution of complexity). A population can evolve to become simpler, and have a smaller genome - often called "devolution", but that is a misnomer.
    * The theory of evolution does posit "transitional forms"... but not "endpoint forms". That is, every animal, plant, fossil that exists, is an example of a transitional form. Evolution is an eternal and continuous process. (See also List of transitional fossils.)
    * The claim that "almost all mutations are harmful" is false. In fact, most mutations have no noticeable effect. One study gives the average number of mutations that arise in a human conception to be around 128, with an average number of harmful mutations per conception of 1.3.
    * The claim that evolution is not scientific since it cannot be experimentally refuted is invalid. Any number of discoveries could potentially refute the theory of evolution - for example the discovery of a contemporary mammal fossil in ancient rock strata.
    * The claim that evolution makes no meaningful predictions is not true - for example the discovery of the relationship between chromosome 2 and chimpanzee chromosomes at the end of the completion of the human and chimp genome projects was predicted, and makes no sense except as evidence of a common ancestor.

 Earth science

    * Mount Everest is, indisputably, the highest point of land above sea level (8850 meters / 29035 feet) which, according to traditional measurements, means that it is the tallest mountain in the world. Given certain definitions, however, this can be challenged. One alternative method of measurement is the base-summit height. When this is applied, Mauna Kea (a dormant volcano in Hawaii) turns out to be much higher at 10,314 meters (33,480 feet). This takes into account Mauna Kea's base on the ocean floor, some 6000 meters below sea level. Its height above sea level is only 4,208 meters (13,796 feet). If the base-summit height is measured from land only, Mount Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain in the world, meaning it does not belong to a mountain range or chain, measured from its base (at ground level) to the summit at 5,896 meters (19,344 feet). Another alternative method is to work out the furthest point of land as measured from the centre of the earth. Chimborazo, a volcano in Ecuador, takes this honor, because the Earth "bulges" at the equator. This peak is 2,100 meters "taller" than Everest.
    * The Sahara is the world's largest hot desert, but it is not the world's largest desert (arid land). Antarctica has almost no liquid precipitation (rain) and little or no vegetation. Almost no animal life exists in its interior at all (scientific research stations and nesting snow petrels are about the only exceptions). It is land that lacks liquid water available for plants and animals to use. This is sufficient to qualify it as a desert, and it is larger than the Sahara.
    * Claims that the number and intensity of earthquakes are increasing are unfounded. The number and intensity of earthquakes varies from year to year but there is no increasing trend.

 Religion

    * Albert Einstein did not believe in God in a "personal" sense. Many people misinterpreted his words in public, to which Einstein himself responded by saying: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." 

 Christianity

    * Nowhere in the Bible is the fruit eaten by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden referred to as an apple. The fruit is called the "Fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" and not identified as a known species. In middle English, however, apple was a generic term for all fruit, other than berries but including nuts, as late as the 17th century.
    * The organization of the Ten Commandments is not consistent from one religion to another, or even among Christians (see this chart for example). In addition, besides the Ethical Decalogue repeated in Exodus 20:2-17 and Deuteronomy 5:6-21, there is a different set of ten commandments, the Ritual Decalogue, in Exodus.
    * The term immaculate conception does not refer to Jesus's conception by the Virgin Mary (see Virgin Birth of Jesus), but rather to the Roman Catholic teaching that Mary herself was conceived without the stain of Original Sin. (See also Blessed Virgin Mary.)
    * The number of Biblical Magi who visited Jesus is never specified, only that they carried three gifts. Additionally, they are never referred to as "kings".
    * Nowhere in the Bible is Mary Magdalene ever referred to as a prostitute. Before her seeing the risen Jesus, the only other mention besides the listing of her name is the mentioning in Luke 8:2 that she had been possessed by seven demons.
    * The word "prodigal" in the parable of the Prodigal Son does not mean one who travels (or, alternatively, one who travels and then returns). "Prodigal" means "characterized by a profuse or wasteful expenditure". The Prodigal Son of the story wasted all of the money he obtained from his father and had to work as a lowly pig-tender until he finally recognized that even his father's servants lived better than he and went back to his father.
    * The canon of the New Testament was not selected by Constantine at the First Council of Nicaea. Constantine did not personally have a vote on the council, and the canon had been settled to a large degree-by common consent rather than conciliar decree-from the early second century. Furthermore, the council did not consider the matter of canon in its proceedings. (See Development of the New Testament canon.)
    * The New Testament was not routinely altered by scribes and priests through the centuries. Spelling errors and other copyist mistakes exist in all of the extant manuscripts, but there are only a very few examples of what modern philologists and textual critics believe are intentional alterations (e.g., the Pericope Adulterae). Noted New Testament textual critic Bart D. Ehrman states:

    "It would be a mistake. . .to assume that the only changes being made were by copyists with a personal stake in the wording of the text. In fact, most of the changes found in our early Christian manuscripts have nothing to do with theology or ideology. Far and and away the [sic] most changes are the result of mistakes, pure and simple-slips of the pen, accidental omissions, inadvertent additions, misspelled words, blunders of one sort or another."

 Hinduism

    * Hinduism is not one distinct religion, but came to be under the British who, confused about the intracacies of Indian philosophy, used the word as an umbrella term for all the religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions of the sub-continent. This excludes the distinct dharmic religions of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Despite this, all traditions considered "Hindu" today draw their validity from four core scriptures called the Vedas. Those traditions that reject the Vedas are considered nastika (heterodox), as opposed to astika (orthodox). (See Astika and Nastika)
    * Hindus do not worship cows. However, they are venerated and are considered sacred, as life givers and as a symbol of compassion to all animals. Additionally, there is no scripture to support the worship of cows. 
    * Shiva is not female. He is traditionally represented as a male.
    * Throughout most traditions, the Bhagavad Gita does not equal the Bible in scriptural authority. It is considered Smriti (what is remembered) which is a class of scripture below Shruti (what is heard), containing the Vedas. The Bhagavad Gita, though, is considered the most popular.
    * Hinduism is considered a family of religions and as such has no concept of God universal to all astika sects. Hinduism is thus not strictly polytheistic across all sampradyas (traditions), but can at the same time be pantheistic or panentheistic, or be distinctly henotheistic or monotheistic.


Technology

    * Thomas Crapper did not invent the flush toilet, Thomas Edison did not invent the light bulb, and Henry Ford did not invent the automobile or the internal combustion engine. In all three cases, their contributions were in the area of improving and popularizing the devices in question. For example, Ford introduced the assembly line, and used it to bring the cost of automobiles into reach of many more people, and Thomas Edison refined the internal gases and filaments, making a bulb last longer. Neither did Marconi invent the radio, a patent which was filed before him by Nikola Tesla, a Serbian American engineer, and a claim that was ratified by the US Supreme Court in 1943 in Tesla's favour.
    * ENIAC was not the first digital computer. Rather, it was the first general-purpose all-electronic computer. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) and the Colossus computer were digital electronic computers but were not general-purpose, being designed for only particular applications. The Z3 was digital and general-purpose but was partly electromechanical rather than electronic. Also, ENIAC did not use binary arithmetic, as the above three did (and as modern computers do); it used decimal.

Transportation

    * The ship Mary Celeste was not called Marie Celeste. In fact Marie Celeste was the spelling used by Arthur Conan Doyle in a story based on the incident.
    * The first heavier-than-air craft was not flown by the Wright brothers. Rather they were the first to fly a human in an aircraft that was controlled, powered, and sustained. Human flown Gliders and kites had been flown far earlier.