I had a student mention in a paper that the force of gravity was less the farther you were from the earth (not untrue) which is part of Newton's Universal Law of Gravitation. That's not bad. However, she went on to say that Newton thought of this while looking at the Moon and noticing that it didn't fall into the Earth - implying that gravity doesn't work in space. She explained that Newton saw that the apple was affected by gravity, but the moon was not, and this gave rise to the inverse square law.
It was horrifying. More horrifying is that she probably found that crap off some sort of educational sight.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2008-01-10 01:33 am (UTC)It was horrifying. More horrifying is that she probably found that crap off some sort of educational sight.