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What's a silly thing you believed when you were little? (self.askbeehaw)

submitted 1 year ago by NoraReed to c/askbeehaw

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When I was a kid I thought the quarter machines at the laundromat literally transmuted your dollar bills into quarters. What's something silly you believed as a kid?

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[–] notsocrazy 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I thought that when a plane broke the sound barrier it was a part that broke on the plane that they had to fix everytime they landed.

[–] mermaldad 2 points 1 year ago

The sad part is that the phrase "broke the sound barrier", while common, is wrong. There is no sound barrier. There is an increase in drag around Mach 1. There is flutter, which can be destructive, but flutter can occur at any speed.

Unfortunately some early airplane designs failed near Mach 1, someone hypothesized a barrier, and the concept stuck around long after it was disproven.