First, he explains inertia in a wonderfully clear manner.

But, even better to me, is the way his father answered his questions. It made the young Richard run back to his wagon to observe for himself what his father had said.



This is the way to be with your own young scientist… “No pressure.  Just lovely, interesting discussions.”

All you need is a plastic cup, a button of any size, and some waxed dental floss.

Step one is to pull off about three feet of floss and cut it free.

Step two is to tie the floss to the button.

Step three is to poke a hole in the bottom of the cup and put the floss through so the button is on the inside of the cup.

Done!

Well, almost.  You might want to tie another button to the free end of the floss to keep it from pulling out.

Now to give it a try!

Hold the cup in one hand, pinch the floss with your other thumb and forefinger, and run them down the floss.

You’ll hear a loud squawk as you do!

As your fingers move down the floss, the wax makes them catch along the way in many tiny starts and stops, making the floss vibrate.

The cup acts as an amplifier, like an old horn speaker from the early radios, making the vibrations surprisingly loud.

I’m sure your young scientist will love it.

From here, of course, you can take another two cups, two more buttons, and some heavy thread to make the old string telephones that we all had as a kid.

Explain how, when the string is pulled snug between cups across the room, talking into one cup sends the vibrations of your voice along the string.  In the same way that the squawker works, the other cup makes those vibrations loud enough to hear again.

But do try the squawker cup first. It really will make them smile.

If you do, tell us about it below.  We’d love to hear about it!

And, yes, an old metal coffee can and waxed string will make a great squawker, too!

How-to videos are valuable for showing us that a lot of thought, imagination, and science skills have to be used together to bring us all the things we have today.

I love watching things like this!

Simple to do, all you need is a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) and a comb. No need to screw the lamp into a light socket, you just hold the lamp in your hand.

Go into a dark room and let your eyes get used to the dark for a minute or so.

Hold the lamp at the solid plastic base and run the comb through your hair to charge it with static electricity.

As you bring the comb close, the lamp will flicker and flash.  Charge your comb again and do it some more. You can let the comb touch the glass and see how the light flashes change.

Hold the lamp base with your thumb and middle and ring fingers, leaving your index finger free.  Charge your comb, run it over the lamp, and watch the glow following your comb.

Now, tap your index finger against the glass and watch it flash again as you discharge it.

Cool!

Rubbing the comb through your hair generates thousands of volts of static electricity.  This is enough voltage to energize the lamp and make the phosphor glow.

You can safely do this again and again as long as you want.

Just another fun thing to try with your young scientist!

You can read more about the Cassini mission here and more about the making of this video into an IMAX film here.

5.6k Saturn Cassini Photographic Animation from stephen v2 on Vimeo.

This is a good way to show your young scientist the meaning of the word, “awesome” in the true sense of the word as this does inspire awe.

Would you like to see things when it’s totally dark?  This strange trick for your eyes only lasts a few moments, but it’s fun to do. Try it by yourself or with a brother or sister (or even Mom or Dad!)  It’s a trick that I learned when I was a young boy and I’m happy to share it with you!

First of all, you need to find a room with a door you can close, so it can be totally dark.  No night lights or glowing clocks! Make sure the room has a lamp with a regular light bulb in it. This is important!

The trick won’t work with a fluorescent bulb because you have to be able to flick the light on and off in a split-second. A wall switch will work best, a pull-chain is okay, and a turn-button lamp switch is the slowest.

If you have one of those super-bright flashlights, give it a try.

Once you know what to look for, you can experiment to find the best way to make a bright flash of light.

When it’s night, go into your bedroom and look around.   Pull out your nightlight and turn your clock face down on a towel.  Close the door and switch out the light.   If the room is totally dark, everything’s okay.  If you see any light at all, turn the light back on, fix the problem, and turn the light off again.

Stay in the dark for about five minutes to let your eyes adjust to no light. This is where having a little company helps.

Now, get ready! Look across the dark room at something you know is there and stare at it.

Keep staring at it in the dark and flash the light ON and then immediately OFF.

Like a flash from a camera, you’ll see the bright room, then darkness again.  Keep on staring without moving your eyes! In a moment, the room will seem to glow as the after-image from the flash registers in your brain!

If you can keep your eyes motionless, the effect will last several seconds as it slowly fades away. Give your eyes a minute or two to recover and try it again.

This is very cool and you can have a lot of fun with it. Hold your hand a foot in front of your face when you flash. It’s very weird to move your hand after the flash and still see it frozen in front of you!

Give it a try and let me know how it works for you. Have fun! 

The trick is that it gets so thick, so fast, that six folds are usually the limit.

You can try it yourself with a dollar bill, a sheet of printer paper, or even a double sheet of newspaper!  Fold it in half, turn it sideways, and fold it again.

In each case, you’ll find seven times is about as far as you can get by hand without hurting yourself.

Of course, if you use a huge sheet of very thin paper, you can get a few more folds out of it.  The current  record is 12 folds using long tissue paper.

But the real point behind this trick is showing how doubling something again and again can lead to very big numbers very quickly.

You don’t have to use the word exponential yet, if your young scientist is working on addition right now, but even the youngest can see what’s happening.

Fold in half once, you have two layers.

Fold in half again and you have four layers.

One more time and suddenly you have eight layers!  It does go quick.

Then 16, 32, and maybe 64 layers thick in only seven folds.  Phew!

I remember a brain-teaser that I saw way back when I was a young scientist of maybe twelve years. It went something like this…

A college professor, who was very rich, had fallen into a river and was drowning.  Two students jumped in after him and, working together, they pulled him to safety.

The professor was very grateful and offered each of the men their choice of a reward.

He would give them a check for one million dollars right now or give them one penny now and double that amount each day for 30 days.

One student spoke up immediately and said, “You are very generous, sir.  I will take the one million dollars now, please.”

As the professor wrote out a soggy check, the other student had time to think a bit.

He said, “Sir, you are very generous to offer a penny doubled each day for a month and I will choose that.”

The professor smiled and said, “My boy, you are very bright and will go far in this world. Here is your penny.  See me tomorrow for two.”

…..

If you’d enjoy using a calculator to work it out yourself, you’ll be amazed how much it adds up to.

If you’re on the go and want to see it done for you, look here.

In any event, grab a sheet of paper and see how many times you can fold it in half!

We usually think of a cloud as a big fluffy white thing that floats along as a more-or-less “solid” object. Here we can see that they really appear and disappear, forming and vanishing and re-forming many times over a period of time.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oUsSdYwP_c

When the weather’s nice, take some time out with your young scientist to lie back and watch the clouds go by. It’s a good way to observe a part of nature as well as enjoy a little unexpected beauty.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOMiowrff0Y

www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qhh2rwIeuo