In the Dark

Yesterday evening I joined in a bit of fun on Twitter posting dubious science facts which you can find by looking for the hashtag #dubioussciencefacts if you’re a person who tweets. The idea was to come up with amusing, misleading or just silly statements about science, with as thin a veneer of truth as possible.

The 140-character limit on Twitter makes this kind of game quite challenging, but also quite enjoyable to join in. Anyway, for those of you who don’t tweet, I thought I’d post ten examples of my own creation along with an invitation to contribute your own through the comments box by way of audience participation. Please try to keep your contributions shorter than 140 characters…

Here are my ten:

1. Galileo is a much more famous scientist than his co-workers Figaro and Magnifico
2. If the Earth were the size of a golf ball, Jupiter would be as big as Colin Montgomery
3. It is possible for a spaceship to boldly go faster than light, but only if it uses a split infinitive drive
4. Organic chemistry is a lot tastier than normal chemistry but also much more expensive
5. Parity is an important concept in particle physics: PhD students get the same salaries as professors in that field
6. Galaxies appear to have a flattened shape because they are usually observed using Cinemascopes
7. Dyson spheres are sources of vacuum energy
8. The Earth’s rotation means that it will soon have to leave the Solar System in order to throw up
9. The Coriolis Effect is called the Siloiroc Effect in the Southern Hemisphere
10. Physics used to be called “natural philosophy”, which means it is philosophy without any bits of fruit in it

This entry was posted on August 22, 2012 at 3:28 pm and is filed under The Universe and Stuff with tags dubious science facts, Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.