Common analogies that are completely wrong

[bascule]

I've often seen pictures of nuclear power plants used as analogies for both how much humans are polluting and how much carbon we put into the air. I believe this is because cooling towers look like giant chimneys and the water vapor coming out of them looks like billowing smoke. I think this helps bring about a negative image of nuclear power in general.

 

What other analogies do you see people draw which are completely incorrect?

[Elthelred]

I've recently started to hate it every time I read or hear someone say

"The Universe is big" or "really big" or whatever.

 

Compared to what?

 

Compared to other universes? The universe is big compared to human sized objects but then we are huge compared to electrons.

 

The universe contains everything we know about thus far. It's neither big

nor small.

[Gilded]

I sometimes scoff at radioactive things portrayed as glowing green. It's a common misconception, and is perhaps most famously featured in opening sequence of The Simpsons (the nuclear fuel rod). The green glow of radium watches for example is from chemiluminescence of the sulfide paint materials, not the radium itself.

 

If you throw something very radioactive in water it might seem to glow blue due to Cherenkov radiation. If something is really radioactive it might be hot enough to emit blackbody radiation in the visible spectrum (just like lava) but that wouldn't be green light either.

[Elthelred]

Agree with your point. Having said that, the Simpsons is still a tv show.

 

It is one of the very few that care about getting science 'right' in the show

although, again, it can't be perfect.

 

This is a bit off-topic, but I also hate films or tv messing around with historical facts. It's not hard to check, and I don't care really, but it really

****s me off for some reason.

[Gilded]

Agree with your point. Having said that, the Simpsons is still a tv show.

 

It is one of the very few that care about getting science 'right' in the show

although, again, it can't be perfect.

 

Yes perhaps it wasn't the "fairest" example, I suppose it's one of those things the writers tend to do to get the point across as most radioactive material has a very boring appearance. All sorts of acids and poisonous liquids are often portrayed as being green as well even though many of them are colorless.

[ydoaPs]

It's a common misconception, and is perhaps most famously featured in opening sequence of The Simpsons (the nuclear fuel rod).

 

Uranium is a metal and it looks like one. It's roughly the same colour as steel.

[iNow]

It irks me when people think that all diabetes is from being fat. I can't tell you the number of times where I've told someone I'm diabetic and their knee-jerk response is, "but you're not fat."

[Gilded]

Uranium is a metal and it looks like one. It's roughly the same colour as steel.

 

Indeed. And plutonium looks pretty much the same. And neither of them glow green. My chemistry teacher once said that if you're asked what a certain element looks like and you can't remember your best bet is "gray and metallic", which of course is a statistically sound guess.

[YT2095]

actually Uranium salts DO look the exact same green as shown on these cartoons etc... and will indeed glow under UV light.

here:

[Gilded]

actually Uranium salts DO look the exact same green as shown on these cartoons etc... and will indeed glow under UV light.

here:

 

Fluorescence is a purely optical property of molecules and doesn't really have anything to do with nuclear activity though. It's just the material absorbing light in the higher part of the spectrum (UV) and emitting in the visible spectrum. If you point a UV light at a rod of plutonium it will not fluoresce like many non-radioactive minerals would. It's worth noting that the mechanism is the same though but in radioluminescence it's the alpha collisions exciting the electrons rather than ultraviolet photons. To summarize a bit, a green glow doesn't equal radioactivity and radioactivity doesn't equal a green glow.

[Dudde]

I tend to hate the misconception that all tech support personell are smart and nerdy.

This is a cool thread about uranium and plutonium though, please continue.

[Psycho]

I tend to hate the misconception that all tech support personell are smart and nerdy.

Since when was that the case, I always though the "mis"conception was that they were all idiots reading a useless script because they don't know what they are talking about or how to fix the problem.

 

Mine would be the misconception that people who work in a massive shop will have any idea if you have the item they want even if they work in a completely different department of the shop.

[Dudde]

Since when was that the case, I always though the "mis"conception was that they were all idiots reading a useless script because they don't know what they are talking about or how to fix the problem.

 

I hear that a lot about OCONUS (outside the continental US) agents, which again is completely bogus.

It really ticks me off when people say "well at least I didn't get transferred to India":doh:

 

and I never really expect people in stores to know if and where a product is, just ask them to point me in the direction they'd be if they had them!

[YT2095]

Fluorescence is a purely optical property of molecules and doesn't really have anything to do with nuclear activity though. It's just the material absorbing light in the higher part of the spectrum (UV) and emitting in the visible spectrum. If you point a UV light at a rod of plutonium it will not fluoresce like many non-radioactive minerals would. It's worth noting that the mechanism is the same though but in radioluminescence it's the alpha collisions exciting the electrons rather than ultraviolet photons. To summarize a bit, a green glow doesn't equal radioactivity and radioactivity doesn't equal a green glow.

 

erm... I`m not in disagreement with you, I`m simply offering a possible Reason some associate that color with such materials, nothing more.

[john5746]

What other analogies do you see people draw which are completely incorrect?

 

A painting needs a painter, therefore the universe requires a creator.

[Gilded]

erm... I`m not in disagreement with you, I`m simply offering a possible Reason some associate that color with such materials, nothing more.

 

Yes I thought as much, I just elaborated on it since didn't think of that type of fluorescence as an especially good example as it is exhibited by so many materials when under UV light. But yeah I suppose some people might make that connection when they don't know that it's actually the UV that's causing it, rather than somehow highlighting an existing phenomenon that has something to do with the radioactivity of uranium.

[MedGen]

It irks me when people think that all diabetes is from being fat. I can't tell you the number of times where I've told someone I'm diabetic and their knee-jerk response is, "but you're not fat."

 

That might be because most people don't the difference between type 1 and type 2 diabetes, I agree though it is a common misconception and must be freaking annoying.

 

I get a little peeved when DNA is portrayed as being like a computer, seriously it's about as much like a computer as I am the Queen of freaking England.

[ydoaPs]

Another thing I hate(not an analogy, but just annoying) is the extremely common confusion of critical and supercritical. Criticality is good; it means the neutron population is stable. In a critical reactor, the net neutron population is neither increasing(supercritical) nor decreasing(subcritical).

 

actually Uranium salts DO look the exact same green as shown on these cartoons etc... and will indeed glow under UV light.

here:

 

Uranium salts aren't used as fuel; uranium oxides are!

[Sisyphus]

I've recently started to hate it every time I read or hear someone say

"The Universe is big" or "really big" or whatever.

 

Compared to what?

 

Well, by definition, compared to anything else...

[mrsemmapeel]

I hate the way that Hollywood films nearly always portray the British as eccentrics with some kind of freakish generic accent that sounds like we're news readers from the 1950's and we don't all live in London. Actually you can apply this to any character in a film that isn't American, they have a stereotype for every country.

[ajb]

Indeed Mrsemmapeel, Americans must think we live in Victorian London!

[Gilded]

Indeed Mrsemmapeel, Americans must think we live in Victorian London!

 

Jolly good old chum, top notch! Tally ho! (????)

[mrsemmapeel]

Jolly good old chum, top notch! Tally ho! (????)

 

:doh:It's not just the Americans then

[the tree]

Indeed Mrsemmapeel, Americans must think we live in Victorian London!

But... I do live in Victorian London...

[Phi for All]

To be fair, if you're going to do things like wear funny pants, hunt foxes and say, "Tally ho!", then you should be prepared to have that image used against you. Americans make more films than anyone and filmmakers need stereotypes so they don't have to explain every little detail. Sometimes they need a little old lady from London who lives next door because someone has to be home at 4pm to hear the gunshot and everyone knows little old London ladies will be having tea then....

 

We Yanks have our share of stereotypes amongst ourselves. We never show a college professor with a Brooklyn accent, while it's practically mandatory for a fireman to have one, even if he's from Seattle. There are farmers in every state but in the movies farmers are all from Iowa or Kansas circa 1950. Oilmen are all from Texas, period.

 

I live for the day I hear someone say, "Excuse me", I turn around and it's Robert De Niro. After hours of exhaustive rehearsal, I think I can honestly say I will have the presence of mind to respond, "You talkin' to me?"