My physics teacher actually told me that. The class in which he teaches is part of the Minnesota Transfer Curriculum, which is a previously agreed upon selected group of classes which is transferable to most Minnesota colleges including the University of Minnesota where I will finish up my chemical engineering degree. If you are right, and we are being taught nonsense, then we are in for a host of falling bridges and buildings and all kinds of apoctalyptical craziness once my class graduates with their respective degrees in three years time!
My physics book even says something similar! Here, read this: "When a cord (or a rope, cable, or other such object) is attached to a body and pulled taut, the cord pulls on the body with a force T directed away from the body and along the cord. The force is often called a tension force because the cord is said to be in a state of tension (or to be under tension), which means that it is being pulled taut. The tension in the cord is the magnitude T of the force on the body. For example, if the force on the body from the cord has magnitude T = 50 N, the tension in the cord is 50 N."
And with the publisher, Wiley, such a popular and well respected name (
http://gov.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-306226.html) imagine all the people in the world that are reading this!
Watch out! Here comes the apocalypse!
(Please don't take offense, I just felt like trying to be funny.

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