------- Forwarded Message
Subject: Kid's Schoolroom Answers...
Thoughts on Science.
The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were
gleaned from essays, exams, and classroom discussions. Most were
from 5th and 6thgraders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that
the most interesting information comes from children, for they
tell all they know, and then stop.
Question: What is horsepower?
Answer: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes
to drag ahorse 500 feet in one second.
You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how
close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it, you got hit.
So, never mind.
Talc is found in rocks and on babies.
The law of gravity says, "No fair jumping without
coming down."
When they broke open molecules, they found they were
stuffed with atoms. But, when they broke open atoms, they found
them stuffed with explosions.
When people run around and around in circles, we say
they are crazy. But, when planets do it, we say they are orbiting.
Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.
While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its
distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.
Someday we may discover how to make magnets that can
point in any direction.
South America has cold summers and hot winters, but
somehow they still manage.
Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still
knows how to change into a sun in the daytime.
Water freezes at 32 degrees and boils at 212 degrees.
There are 180 degrees between freezing and boiling because there are
180 degrees between North and South.
A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind
which way it wants to go.
There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters
are yet to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever.
There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center
of the Earth because of so much population stomping around up there
these days.
Lime is a green tasting rock.
Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while
others preferred to be oil.
Genetics explain why you look like your father or if
you don't, why you should.
Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them
know we know they're there.
Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help
make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.
We say the cause of perfume disappearing is
evaporation. Evaporation
gets blamed for a lot of things we forgot to put the
top on.
To most people, solutions mean finding the answers.
But to chemists,
solutions are things that are still all mixed up.
In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we
find there are
twice as many H's as O's.
Clouds are high flying fogs. I'm not sure how the
clouds get formed. But, the clouds know how to do it, so that is the
important thing.
Clouds just keep circling the earth around and around
and around. There is not much else to do.
Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a
drop, it does.
Humidity is the experience of looking for air and
finding water. We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown
when we breathe.
Rain is often known as soft water, oppositely known as
hail.
Rain is saved up in cloud banks.
In some rocks, you can find the fossil footprints of
fishes.
Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's
tongue will kill the stongest man.
A blizzard is when it snows sideways.
A hurricane is a breeze of bigly size.
A monsoon is a French gentleman.
Thunder is a rich source of loudness.
Isotherms and isobars even more important than their
names sound.
It is so hot in some places, that the people there have
to live in other places.
The wind is like the air, only pushier.
------- End of Forwarded Message