Earth science
• Mount Everest (pictured) 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.
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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.
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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 (scientists in 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[56][57][58] are unfounded. The number and intensity of earthquakes varies from year to year but there is no increasing trend. Earth's iron-rich inner core is not liquid (like the outer core) but solid, due to the temperature-pressure conditions at the center of the Earth.
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Linguistics
• Eskimos do not have a large number of words for snow. The Eskimo language being studied had four unrelated root words, but because it is a Polysynthetic
language, in which sentences are formed by compounding words, one can use these roots to create an infinite number of "words" about snow. By comparison, English has many unrelated root words for snow as well: snow, sleet, powder, flurry, drift, blizzard.
Religion
• Albert Einstein did not believe in God in a "personal" sense and discounted the existence of a creator. Einstein was, in fact, a rationalistic pantheist and follower of Baruch Spinoza. 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." The phrase "separation of church and state" does not occur in the U.S. Constitution. It was first used in a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association of Connecticut, reassuring them that religious minorities (such as Baptists) would be protected under the Bill of Rights. His expression "wall of separation between church and state" was a description of the intended effect of the First Amendment's Establishment and Free Exercise provisions, not a quotation therefrom.
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Adolf Hitler was not an atheist as many suppose. He was raised Catholic and believed in a "Positive Christianity", which reinvented Jesus as an opponent of the Jews. A more in depth analysis can be found at the article Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs.
Judaism and 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 tree" (that is, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil), and neither the fruit nor the tree is identified as belonging to a known species. In Middle English, "apple" was a generic term for all fruit, other than berries but including nuts, as late as the 17th century.[63] However, also in continental European art from that period representing the Fall of Man the fruit is often depicted as an apple. In the book of Genesis, the serpent in the Garden of Eden is not explicitly identified as being Satan. Additionally, Satan is never explicitly given the name "Lucifer" ("light bearer") in the Bible. That name comes from the Vulgate (Latin)
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translation of a prophecy in Isaiah 14:12, which some Christians interpret as referring to the fall of Satan from heaven. Lucifer is actually one of many demons claimed to be the devil. Others include Ba'al, Lilith, Mephistopheles, Beelzebub, Belphegor, Belial and Lucifuge Rofocale • Genesis does not state that there were only two of every animal aboard Noah's Ark. In fact, it states that there were to be seven pairs of every clean animal, and two pairs of every unclean animal. 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.[64] Further, the Jewish term for these ten ideas is "Aseret HaDibrot," which more accurately translates as "ten statements" or even simply "ten items." "Ten Commandments" would be, in Hebrew, "Aseret HaMitzvot" (in fact, traditional Jews believe there are a total of 613 Mitzvot (literally,
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"commandments") found throughout the Torah, although some are only applicable in the days the Holy Temple stands in Jerusalem.) Therefore, there is no problem with the wording "I am the Lord your God" not being a "commandment" to do or avoid any specific behavior. 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 Bible doesn't mention three wise men or kings, it mentions "wise men" and that they brought three different gifts – gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which were considered at the time the only three gifts suitable for a king. Wise men at the time were essentially astrologers or fortune tellers, and probably traveled in groups for safety. 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.
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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 recognised 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 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 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.
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Hinduism
• • • Hinduism is not one distinct religion, but was considered to be so since at least 1323 AD, as attested by South Indian and Kashmiri texts, and increasingly so during the British rule. Since the end of the 18th century the word has been used as an umbrella term for most of the religious, spiritual, and philosophical traditions of the sub-continent, excluding the distinct religions of Sikhism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Despite this, many traditions considered "Hindu" today draw their validity from core texts called the Vedas, though in various degrees; some traditions assert that their own texts supersede the Vedas. The traditions that
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reject the Vedas are considered nastika (heterodox), as opposed to astika (orthodox). (See Astika and Nastika) • • • Shiva is neither female nor an ice deity. Shiva is one of the three main male gods of the current Hindu beliefs and is supposed to be "the destroyer" (along with Vishnu "the preserver " and Brahma "the creator" of the Universe). Shiva does, however, have an androgynous form known as Ardhanarishvara. This form of Shiva is split into male and female halves on a central axis, the right male half bearing traits of Shiva, the left female half bearing those of his consort Parvati or Shakti. Throughout most traditions, the Bhagavad Gita does not equal the Bible in scriptural authority. It is considered Smriti (that which is remembered) which is a class of scripture lower in rank than 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 be pantheistic or panentheistic, or be distinctly henotheistic or monotheistic.
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Islam
• It's a popular misconception that Muslims believe that Martyrs are awarded 72 virgins in heaven. Nowhere in the Qu'ran is that stated. The misconception most likely stems from a Hadith that's been attributed to Muhammad via an unreliable chain of narrators, stating:
"It was mentioned by Daraj Ibn Abi Hatim, that Abu al-Haytham 'Adullah Ibn Wahb narrated from Abu Sa'id al-Khudhri, who heard the Prophet Muhammad PBUH saying, 'The smallest reward for the people of Heaven is an abode where there are eighty thousand servants and seventy-two houri, over which stands a dome decorated with pearls, aquamarine and ruby, as wide as the distance from al-Jabiyyah to San'a.[72] • The Niqāb veil (and by extension, Burqa) is not considered by most[73] Islamic scholars to be obligatory, but rather a voluntary show of piety, and is never mentioned specifically in the Qu'ran. What is, on the other hand, instructed in the Qu'ran to women is that "...they should not display their beauty and ornaments except what (must ordinarily) appear thereof; that they should draw their veils
over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to..."
Technology
Inventions
• 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.
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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 Guglielmo Marconi invent the radio, a patent which was filed before him by Nikola Tesla, a claim that was ratified by the US Supreme Court in 1943 in Tesla's favour.
Computing
• 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. The clock rate of a CPU is not a good measure of its performance. Performance is affected by many things, especially the design of the CPU's instruction pipelines, branch prediction, memory subsystem, and caches; the number of cores; and the ability of software to take advantage of a given CPU architecture's features.
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Gaming
• Pong was not the first video game. In fact, Tennis for Two, created in 1958, was one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display. The first commercially sold coin-operated video game, Computer Space, was created in 1971 by the future founders of Atari. Fearing that Computer Space had
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not been popular because of its complexity, Nolan Bushnell and Allan Alcorn created Pong in 1972 after Bushnell had seen a similar game at a trade show.
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. Humanflown gliders and kites had been flown far earlier. The Wright brothers did fly the first heavier-than-air craft capable of controlled and sustained powered flight.
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The United States Interstate Highway System was not designed with airplane landings in mind. A common urban legend states that one out of every five (or ten) miles of highway must be straight and flat to allow emergency (or military) airplane landings, but this is not the case. Toilet waste is not dumped overboard in aircraft. All waste is collected in tanks which are emptied on the ground by special toilet waste vehicles. Vacuum is used to allow the toilet to be flushed with less water and because plumbing cannot rely on gravity alone in an aircraft in motion.
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Other
• There is no reliable scientific evidence that installing "security lighting" in outdoor areas actually deters crime; it may actually make crime easier. For instance, a burglar who is forced to use a flashlight is more easily spotted than one who can see by existing light