This is the web site that accompanies my book HEAVENLY ERRORS: Misconceptions about the real nature of the universe. Misconceptions about science are deep-seated beliefs that are inconsistent with accepted scientific beliefs. In the book I explore several a variety of misconceptions in detail, as well as their origins, why we develop them, how to avoid them in the future, and how to get rid of old ones (which is the hard part).
Over the past decade, my students at the University of Maine have helped me identify over 1700 misconceptions and other common incorrect beliefs that people have. Not all incorrect beliefs are misconceptions. Many are superficial memorization of incorrect data, such as the number of moons orbiting Jupiter or the order of the planets from the Sun.
Including just the list of all these 1700 misconceptions and other common incorrect beliefs in the book would have added fifty pages to it. Explaining the correct science for all of them would have taken another five hundred pages or so, which would have made it unrealistically long. So, I have put the list on the web. I and several co-workers are searching down sites with the correct science and putting hot links to these sites.
If, after browsing this site, you know of other misconceptions or other incorrect beliefs about the physical nature of the cosmos in general that aren't here yet, please send them to me and I will add them. Send these and any other comments you have to me at GALAXY@MAINE.EDU.