"We all live in a black hole": 8 scientific myths you shouldn't believe

Myth 1. Chicken soup helps with colds

People with a cold traditionally drink chicken broth. This food is believed to help you recover faster.

Many pseudo-scientific articles on the Internet extol the medicinal properties of broth and claim that in it contains a bunch of vitamins, antioxidants and other difficult-to-pronounce substances that will get rid of colds faster and more effective than any pill.

Soup, of course, is tasty and easily digestible food, which is important for a weakened body. In addition, liquid food improves hydration - this is also beneficial. However, there is no conclusive evidenceChicken Soup / Drugs.com the fact that this dish directly cures colds - rather, it has a placebo effectT. O. Lipman. The chicken soup paradigm and nutrition support: Rethinking terminology / Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition.

True, one old studyEffects of drinking hot water, cold water, and chicken soup on nasal mucus velocity and nasal airflow resistance / Chest has somehow shown that eating warm chicken soup helps to thin the contents of the nose, so that congestion recedes and it becomes easier to breathe. But this is due to the temperature, not the composition of the dish. You can just as well use beef broth or fish broth in general - the main thing is that it is hot. And delicious, of course.

Myth 2. The more ass a woman has, the smarter she is.

In 2013, an article appeared on the Elite Daily websiteHere's some good health news for people with big butts / Elite Daily citing research from the University of Oxford. It argued that ladies with large rounded buttocks have increased intelligence and more resistant to chronic diseases than thin women (later added that men are also concerns). Fat deposits in the thighs are also said to reduce the risk of diabetes and heart disease.

The article spread all over the Internet and gained some popularity. That's just the opinion that women with big priests smarter and healthier, is not true. And to understand this, it is enough to take a closer look at the survey work.Gluteofemoral Body Fat as a Determinant of Metabolic Health / Nature Oxford University and Churchill Hospital, which was referred to by the press.

This is the very studyDo Studies Show That Women with Big Butts are Smarter and Healthier? / Snopes was called "Gluteofemoral Fat as a Determinant of Metabolic Health," and it says nothing about the smartness of shaped girls. The work was about hormonal balance, not intellect, and all the conclusions connected with the mind, the journalists simply came up with, as is often the case.

Myth 3. The Earth has a uranium core

In April 2015, geologists from the University of Oxford developed a theoryR. W. Carlson. A new recipe for Earth formation / Nature that the uranium content in the Earth's core is several billionths higher than previously thought. This would explain well the temperature fluctuations in the geosphere of our planet, because uranium is a natural source of heat.

The media picked up on this theory and began to issue loud headlines stating that the earth's core is composed of radioactive uranium.

But this is not trueD. C. Rubie. Formation of Earth's Core / University of Bayreuth. The core of the Earth is a sphere with a radius of approximately 3,500 kilometers, consisting of an alloy of iron and nickel. It also contains lighter elements such as silicon, sulfur and carbon. Uranus in the core, of course, is also present, but it is extremely small.

Myth 4. The universe is black

If you ask any person what color space is, the answer is most likely "Black!" Indeed, it is enough to look up at night to replace that the Universe, if you do not take into account the stars that come across here and there, is absolutely dark.

But in reality, we see the sky as black simply because our eyes are unable to capture all the light that reaches us from distant stars. Our organs of vision simply lack sensitivity. After all, a person needs eyes in order to examine the situation on Earth, and not to catch cosmic radiation - for this to the telescope Hubble.

Black is not a color, but a lack of color.

If our eyes were truly keen, we would see the milky white night sky. This color is called "space latte", it was discoveredWhat color is the universe? / Live Sciense in January 2002, astronomers Ivan Baldry and Carl Glazebrook of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. To do this, they had to analyze the spectrum of 200,000 of the brightest galaxies within 2 billion light years around Of the earth.

Myth 5. Wolves howl at the moon

This is also not trueWolves: Fact and Fiction / National Geographic. In fact, they just have a form of communication like this. With the help of howling, they inform each other about their location, warn about other predators and indicate where prey is. In addition, choral singing helps these animals to strengthen the bond between the members of the pack.

But wolves howl day and night, and in cloudy weather, and in clear - according to the situation. And for them it does not matter at all whether there is in the sky moon. In principle, it does not affect their behavior in any way.

Myth 6. Substance is 99% void

On various pseudo-scientific sites, you can find the statement that the substance from which everything around us (and ourselves) is made consists of 99% of emptiness. The logic of reasoning is as follows: in an atom, which has a size of about 1 angstrom (10⁻¹⁰m), electrons revolve around a nucleus, the size of which is 100,000 times smaller (10⁻¹⁵m). This means that the atom consists of emptiness.

This funny conclusion would make sense if the so-called planetary model of the atom, which we all studied in school, were correct. It was proposed by Niels Bohr in 1913. But since then, science has made many discoveries.If atoms are mostly empty space, why do objects look and feel solid? / The Conversation, so you can forget about the orbiting balls. Modern quantum the theory presents the atom as a "probabilistic cloud" of electrons, smeared in space.

If you want a simple model, think of it as a flock of frenzied thrushes. Yes, that's a great analogy.

So there is no emptiness in matter - at any point there is a nonzero probabilityWe disassemble a popular myth: "Substance is 99% empty" / Sudo Null find an electron.

Myth 7. The universe is just a very large black hole.

Trying to explain how space, physicists have created many impressive theories. According to one of these, our Universe is locatedS. Carroll. The Universe is Not a Black Hole inside a huge black hole, or - as such objects were called earlier - a collapsar. There is even a certain logic in this.

Watch out for the handles. Observed massThe main parameters of the Metagalaxy / Astronet The Universe, or Metagalaxy, - somewhere 10⁵³ kg, and its radiusDiameter of the observable universe / Wolfram Alpha - 46 billion light years. If there were a black hole of exactly the same mass, its Schwarzschild radius (consider the size) would be equal toS. Carroll. The Universe is Not a Black Hole the same 46 billion light years.

Coincidence? Indian theoretical physicist Raj Patria and British mathematician Irwin Goode did not think so, so they assumed that the universe is an incredibly massive collapsar.

A black hole is a region of space-time that nothing can leave, not even light. Can light leave the universe? No! We're in a hole.

Moreover, in other similar objects, their own metagalaxies can also theoretically exist, only here get inside and we will not be able to see.

The theory is funny. But they invented it back in the days when people were just beginning to guess about the expansion of space. Now we know for sure that it is expanding, not contracting into a singularity, so it is completely incorrect to compare the Metagalaxy with collapsars.S. Carroll. The Universe is Not a Black Hole.

The cosmology of a black hole may have been good in 1972, but since then, mankind has learned a little more about the device.P. T. Landsberg, Mass Scales and the Cosmological Coincidences / Annalen der Physik space. So don't worry: the universe is not a black hole.

Myth 8. Apple slices turn brown due to oxidation of iron in them

If you cut off a slice of apple and forget to eat it right away, you will later see that it has darkened. There is a widespread everyday explanation of this phenomenon. Apples are very healthy because they contain a lot gland, So? And in the air it oxidizes, that is, it rusts! Consequently, the slice turns brown because it becomes rusty.

Only this is not true. In fact, apples, of course, have iron (humans have it, for that matter). But there is clearly not enough of it for the fruit to rust.

Darkening of the apple occurs because organic substances called "flobaphenes" are formed from the polyphenols contained in the pulp of the fruit in the air.A. WITH. Ratushny, V. AND. Khlebnikov, B. A. Baranov. Physicochemical processes occurring in food products during their culinary processing / Technology of public catering products. They are found not only in these fruits. It is the flobaphenes that give the brownish color of potato skins and tree bark. And they have nothing to do with rust.

By the way, flobafens are edible, so even stale apple slices can be eaten without any harm to health. By the way, there isArctic Apples: A fresh new take on genetic engineering / Harvard Universitygenetically modified Arctic apple variety, the flesh of which does not darken on contact with air.