"Wrong Knowing."

"Wrong knowing" is an idea Isaac Asimov presented in his last memoir, "I, Asimov." It means that one learns the "wrong" thing, or fact; or rather a false one. I mentioned a country's legends in another post. Asimov speculated when one learns the true information, one forgets the "wrong knowledge."

This last might be true, but it's not complete. Sometimes one remembers.

One of my earliest memories is of a model of the Solar System at the Museo de Historia Natural in Chapultepec. It was flat on a large wall, with the Sun a large orange (!) acrylic hemisphere illuminated with an internal lamp, and the planets positioned as hemispheres at various distances. The background was black, speckled with tiny lighted pinpoints representing stars.

I don't know when this was, but until I reached the second grade, I was absolutely certain the stars orbited the Sun. Hey, the Sun was stuck on the wall with the stars. naturally they were all part of the same thing, right? What don't recall is how I learned different. What I read, saw, heard or was told and where or in what context.

There's some other "wrong knowledge" I held for a while, but the Solar System is the one which sticks most in my mind. Two I care to mention are: 1) airplanes fly in straight lines only, so they must line up before taking off in order to reach their destination (I was six at the time I recall saying it), and 2) In order for outdoor electric lights to work, it must be raining (at 8). I've no idea what got that last one into my mind. The other two kind of make sense given the information at the time.

Oh, a last one. Until high school, I was sure Rome had started as an empire and only later on had become a Republic. But that's easily explained by 1) a lousy ancient history curriculum, and 2) recent history when empires and monarchies have fallen to make way for republics.

Speaking of legends, and to give the Wizard some Spanish practice, here's two legends briefly summarized in a Les Luthiers act:

"... La leyenda del hijo de un pastor Protestante, que en las noches de Luna llena se convertía al Budismo. O la leyenda del perro de un convento de Carmelitas, que en las noches de Luna llena se convertía en hombre."

Those are easy. If I can find the script for the "legend" their song is based in, I'll post that description.

I do recall the title. It was first called "La Bella y Graciosa Moza marchose a lavar la ropa," but the composer felt the length of the title to be inappropriate. So he changed it to: "La Bella y Graciosa Moza marchose a lavar la ropa, la mojo en el arroyuelo y cantando la lavó, la frotó sobre una piedra, la colgó de un abedul."