5 Random Facts You Learned in School That Are No Longer True

Have you ever considered that some of the random school facts we know may actually no longer be true?

A lot of things have changed since we were in school, but you would not think that some random school facts that you still remember would end up being false, right? The sad truth is that a lot of those random school facts that we may still believe to be true may actually have been debunked in the last few years. And some of these facts are not small ones like folding a paper in half, but rather scientific facts about our solar system, our bodies, or even what we know about animal species!

A lot of discoveries have been made in the last few years that debunk some of the school facts we know, and as much as we would like for some of them to not have changed because it does feel weird to have some of these facts change, we cannot argue with science. In order to see if you know the true and correct random school facts or if you still believe a lie, keep reading these surprising facts that have been debunked over the last few years!

Did you know that any of the facts on our lists have changed in the last decade? Let us know which one and how you found out in the comments below!

1. There are either 8 or 13 planets in the solar system!

Do you remember the saying that helped us all remember all the planets in our solar system back in 6th grade? It was easy to remember “Mary’s violet eyes make John stay up nights plenty”, for all nine planets in the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, and it was also easy to teach our kids about this mnemonic, no matter what world you used at the end for Pluto.

Unfortunately, back in the 1990s, scientists discovered the Kuiper Belt, which is a region shaped like a doughnut near Neptune that is full of comets, asteroids, and icy objects, and they took away Pluto’s title as the planet. However, that was not the first time a planet got demoted to an Object, as it happened before to Ceres, which orbits Jupiter and Mars. They gave it planethood after realizing that it could be an asteroid.

What makes these random school facts hilarious is that back in 2006, both Pluto and Ceres got new titles as Dwarf Planets, which makes them smaller planets but still planets. They were not the only ones that got this distinction, which makes our solar system have 8 or 13 planets, depending on whether or not you count the dwarf planets.

2. The lightbulb was not invented by Thomas Edison.

Or at least, he did not do it by himself. A lot of the random school facts we remember from school are about this or that scientist or inventor that made a cool discovery; however, history and scientific evidence have shown us time and time again that in some cases it was not just one person that worked on the invention, and sometimes the ones credited with “the first” invention are actually not one of the first ones.

In the case of the lightbulb, it was more of a class effort, if we can call it that, as a group of scientists worked towards the goal of creating the lightbulb. The first ever light achieved through electricity was made by a man named Humphry Davy in 1802, and another inventor, Joseph Wilson Swan, made the first working prototype of a light bulb with carbonized paper filaments in 1860.

Edison, despite being credited with the invention of the first lightbulb, only managed to eliminate the technical problems the first types of bulbs had, which made them more practical and inexpensive to produce. Live Science credits his version of the light bulb as “the first practical and inexpensive” version, but not as the first ever one, since that would be a lie. This is one of those random school facts that is hard to swallow now.

3. Liquid, solid, and gas are not the only states.

Yes, this is another one of those facts that are hard to imagine not being true since they are universal, right? It turns out that science has proven us wrong, and besides the three that we all know about, liquid, solid, and gas, there is another fourth state called plasma. This one is not achievable naturally on Earth, but it exists beyond our known atmosphere, and it may just be the most common state in the universe!

Plasma is created when an atom is given a lot of energy, which makes the electrons depart from its nucleus and react with another nucleus. Plasma is, as a result, made out of highly charged particles with a high kinetic energy count! Neon, which is a gas, is coerced into the state of plasma in order to make the glowing signs we are used to seeing all around us. Likewise, stars are actually huge balls of plasma!

It turns out that a random school fact is that the state of the matter counts up to four now, not the three we knew of. We will not add the lab-made state called Bose-Einstein condensate since it is not sure if this can exist in nature without any interference from outside forces. And this may all change since researchers all over the world are looking into more states, so who knows how many we may come to know soon?

If you want to understand our world better and get the science behind it, we recommend that you read The Evolution of Everything: The Patterns and Causes of Big History, which you can get on Amazon for as little as $29.60 on sale!

4. Left brain vs Right brain is a myth.

We all remember this old random school fact that told us that the brain is split into two parts: the left side, which is more analytical, calculated, and logical, and the right side, which is in charge of creativity, artistic nature, and spontaneous tasks. This led a lot of us to think about whether we are more left-brained or right-brained since there seemed to be an inclination that all of us were bound to have.

As it turns out, brain lateralizations, as they are called in a more scientific way, have caused a lot of controversy over the years since they were introduced. While it can be easy to take this as a fact and think that people who are more creative and have an artistic inclination are right-brained and those who are more analytical and calculated are left-brained, this has been debunked.

Different parts of the brain have different purposes, and these have been studied over time in people who have had strokes or brain injuries, and it seems like brain lateralization cannot really stand on its own two feet. The part of the brain that is responsible for language has been thought to be located on the left side of the brain; however, language neurons can be spread in both parts, or they can be located on the right side of the brain for left-handed people!

Not to mention, visual cues are processed by the back of the brain, so we do not know what to say about this random school fact, besides the fact that you should take it with a grain of salt and wait to see what research tells us about it.

5. Dinosaurs are not actually extinct.

Maybe the wildest school fact that has been debunked is the fact that dinosaurs are extinct. We all know that 65 million years ago, these creatures roamed the Earth, but they have not all disappeared. Scientists have found dinosaur genes in a few animals that are still among us. Hummingbirds, pigeons, seagulls, and bluejays are the birds that share some common DNA with the ones found in dinosaur fossils.

Paleontologists have discovered that dinosaurs still have some relatives in today’s day and age since these birds have evolved from them, which makes them just as much a dinosaur as the triceratops or T. rex!

And while this is one of the facts that blow minds, it does nothing to lessen the visual impact of the idea that they were not fully reptiles and that dinosaurs may have been covered in feathers. But we’ll save that one for another time!

If these have surprised you, then you should make sure to check out these facts about artificial intelligence that are going to shock you with their discoveries!