Jet and Physics
Oct. 8th, 2009 04:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liralenThe other day, on the way home from something, we asked Jet, "What do you want for lunch?"
He answered, "A particle accelerator."
We both were like WOW! Huh... you want a grilled cheese sandwich with that?
His school is a science focus school, so he has extra science very Tuesday afternoon and Lego classes every Thursday afternoon, extra work and time at school; but he really loves it. They also had a book fair that included some books at his reading level plus a little that's all on physics and the periodic table. He's been reading them and finds that his favorite character is "inertia".
Probably because in Mythbusters there was an episode that included the plausibility of the Knightride scenerio of driving KITT onto a moving truck while driving at speed. The Mythbusters figured out that the car's inertia kept it from accelerating madly when it hit the ramp... it simply tends to go the speed it was going, even if the truck is doing all the work. But Jet really remembered that Inertia was KEY.
We also had the most interesting discussion of Schrödinger's Cat I've ever had with an eight-year-old. All right, that I've ever had with anyone outside of Caltech. *laughs* Chem 1 started with Schrödinger's Equation.
He answered, "A particle accelerator."
We both were like WOW! Huh... you want a grilled cheese sandwich with that?
His school is a science focus school, so he has extra science very Tuesday afternoon and Lego classes every Thursday afternoon, extra work and time at school; but he really loves it. They also had a book fair that included some books at his reading level plus a little that's all on physics and the periodic table. He's been reading them and finds that his favorite character is "inertia".
Probably because in Mythbusters there was an episode that included the plausibility of the Knightride scenerio of driving KITT onto a moving truck while driving at speed. The Mythbusters figured out that the car's inertia kept it from accelerating madly when it hit the ramp... it simply tends to go the speed it was going, even if the truck is doing all the work. But Jet really remembered that Inertia was KEY.
We also had the most interesting discussion of Schrödinger's Cat I've ever had with an eight-year-old. All right, that I've ever had with anyone outside of Caltech. *laughs* Chem 1 started with Schrödinger's Equation.
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Here Comes Science
Date: 2009-10-09 09:58 am (UTC)Has Jet seen/heard They Might Be Giants' recent DVD/CD "Here Comes Science"?
I give it bonus points for having an explanation of stars, followed immediately by another song pointing out the first one was wrong, here's a better explanation of stars. And a song on testing theories.
And here's a great Dresden Codak on The Problem with Schrodinger's Cat
Re: Here Comes Science
Date: 2009-10-09 08:04 pm (UTC)I'll have to look at that second link... I haven't seen a particle accelerator from Lego, yet...