On an average day, my daughter’s question-to-declarative sentence ratio clocks in at a healthy 5:1. In this section of the blog, I explore what happens when instead of saying “I don’t know,” I say “Let’s find out!”
When The Ten-Year-Old first asked how Galileo thermometers work many moons ago, Daddyo knew the answer right away. Galileo thermometers operate on the principle that the density of a liquid changes with temperature, and that lower density objects float in higher density liquids. At first we surmised that each glass bubble held a liquid with slightly different densities. But it turns out the actual answer is much simpler than that.
Last week, Daddyo introduced The Ten-Year-Old to the faux nutritional miracle that is cotton candy. He got her to try it by casting it as a scientific experiment: “Cotton Candy: Clothing fiber or food?”
Franklin D. Roosevelt was paralyzed from the waist down from the time he was 39, so used a wheelchair in private settings. He felt his disability was a disadvantage for his political career, however, so trained himself to walk using a cane and iron braces. Only 3 pictures of him in a wheelchair exist.
Our storm glass still isn’t back to normal. So I decided that this would be the week The Nine-Year-Old and I finally learned to use the Galileo thermometer Daddyo gave us all those years ago. Let’s start with the basics. What is a Galileo thermometer and how do you read it?
If you’re just joining us, yesterday we tried to reset our storm glass, with surprising results. 24 hours later, our storm glass is slowly returning to its old self.
Last week, we tested our storm glass to see whether the crystals were forming (or dissolving) in response to changes in temperature. Short answer: Yes. At the end of the experiment we were left with a thick and long-lasting collection of grainy crystals at the bottom of the glass. We needed to reset it. But how do you reset a storm glass?
Storm glasses are not very reliable weather predictors. According to a series of tests performed in Cecil Adam’s lab at the Straight Dope, storm glasses only correctly predict rain about half the time. Which got us wondering, if the storm glass isn’t reacting to changes in local weather conditions to make its predictions, what is it reacting to? How do storm glasses work, anyway?
Several months ago, my daughter and I purchased a storm glass from a local science museum. It’s been sitting in the office making the same prediction ever since (cloudy skies and snow). To be fair, it’s winter in Chicago. But the monotony of its prediction got us wondering: How does a storm glass work, anyway?
Yesterday, The Nine-Year-Old came home from science class bearing wild tales of hydrogen atoms with extra neutrons in them. I had forgotten that this was possible.…
Sometime last year, The Five-Year-Old discovered the highly informative children’s book series “The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot About That.” The books relay all kinds of fun facts about the natural world in a Seussian rhyme scheme. The lively presentation has convinced The Five-Year-Old that words that rhyme have some special connection, if only she can find it. Recently, my daughter realized that kitten rhymes with Britain. So naturally she wanted to know, “Mommyo, did kittens get their name in Britain?”
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