Teacher: When wood burns, oxygen combines with the carbon and thus there is a net loss of weight, though the mass remains the same.

Me: But doesn’t oxygen have weight?

T: Does the air feel heavy to you?

M: If oxygen had no weight, it would escape the earth’s gravity and we would exhale ourselves to death (I was, and still am, a fan of Jonny Hart’s B.C. and that’s where I stole that line).

T: Are you saying I am wrong?

M: Yes.

T: Take this note to the office.

Now, to be fair, she was teaching chemistry, but her degree was in physics, though she also had a generalized secondary teaching certification in science. I went and talke to the vice-principal. His jaw hit the floor. The next day, she apologized in class and said she had done some quick research and, lo and behold, Billy was right.

I still majored in history, though.

I agree with you that even something that is intuitively obvious should be checked. I ran across another study (don’t remember where) which said that the biggest problem with cell-phone use while driving was NOT THE CELL PHONE! It was carrying on a conversation with someone outside the vehicle that was the primary distractant.