Junior Dr. Science

The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exams, and classroom discussions. Most were from 5th and 6th graders.

• Question: What is one horsepower? Answer : One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
• You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came.
• The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.
• When they broke open molecules, they found they were only 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. 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 back 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 and 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.
• Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.
• We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation. Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget 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 am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and 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 strongest man.
• A blizzard is when it snows sideways.
• A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size.
• A monsoon is a French gentleman.
• Thunder is a rich source of loudness.
• Isotherms and isobars are 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.