A kids view of science. Your view in fact.

[weemadando]

What things, as a kid, could you just not wrap your head around.

It took me ages to realise why cars on the road going 100km/h weren't all going along right next to each other - because, after all, if we're all going the same speed, shouldn't we all be next to each other in a big group?

[Gandalf]

If I were in a car, or another moving enclosed space, why didn't everything in the car keep going backwards like they do outside?

[Hawkwings]

the concept of distance. Sure, "7,000 miles" sounds like a lot, but that's only a trip on an airplane after all.

[Master of Ossus]

I had problems with Xenon's Paradox (actually a slightly modified version: If I go halfway to the other side of the room, and then half of that distance, and then half of that distance then I'll keep getting closer but never actually arrive).

[Zero]

How young are we talking? As a very small kid, I couldn't wrap my head around gravity, and why I wasn't just as likely to fall up as down. Scary when there aint a roof over your head...

I also couldn't understand what propertied held clouds up in the air, and before my first plane flight, I always wondered what kinds of objects they were.

[weemadando]

I remember when I was young wondering why planes didn't crash into clouds...

[Haruko]

For many years as a child I wondered why those structures that store water are raised several feet.

[Akaramu Shinja]

I could never understand how thrusters on spaceships worked, I pictured this idea that they had nothing to push off of in space, and thus couldn't possibly move.

[Quadlok]

When I was young, as in 3 or 4, I didn't understand that internal combustion engines actually required a constant supply of fuel. This might have more to do with my dad's habit of not refilling the tank until it is virtually empty, and his tendency to make comments to the effect that we were running on fumes.

[Akaramu Shinja]

Oh, these two crack my family up whenever it's brought up.

- I use to think they built gas stations on naturally occuring gasoline, and once expressed my wonder as to what they do when they run out. Much amusement ensued.

- I use to think Primates were called Primeapes.

Ah the joys of being so young.

[J]

I used to think that in space everything would float up, like gravity in reverse. This impression was reinforced by TV footage of the space shuttle flying upside down which I thought was to keep the astronauts grounded on the shuttle. The concept of zero-G was too much for me, I thought everything had to either go up or down.

[Zero]

I used to think that in space everything would float up, like gravity in reverse. This impression was reinforced by TV footage of the space shuttle flying upside down which I thought was to keep the astronauts grounded on the shuttle. The concept of zero-G was too much for me, I thought everything had to either go up or down.

Well, technically, they're in free-fall, so they're still falling...

[Flagg]

I couldn't figure out why people in the southern hemisphere and on the equater didn;t fall off the planet into space. I finally had it explained to me when I was 8 or 9 though. But before then it just baffled the hell out of me.

[darthdavid]

I couldn't figure out why people in the southern hemisphere and on the equater didn;t fall off the planet into space. I finally had it explained to me when I was 8 or 9 though. But before then it just baffled the hell out of me.

I had a similar one. I wondered what it was like for everyone down there who was upside down.

[18-Till-I-Die]

As a child, until i was about 5, i figured we all must live up at the 'top' of the world because if we lived at the 'bottom' we'd all fall out into space. I was set straight in a very harsh but clear way by my mom at about 5-6.

"What'a you mean fall out?" she said, "*tsk* That's stupid. Gravity...makes them stick to the ground, like...when you throw a ball up and it falls back down. Well the same thing."

It took me a few hours i remember of thinking and throwing up a basketball in the air to finally get it. AH! Eureka, this 'gravity' must keep us on the Earth weather on the 'top' or 'bottom', like it pulls my ball back to the ground.

True story.

[Embracer Of Darkness]

I remember watching the Roadrunner cartoon as a child, and as we all know, most of the time it resulted in Wile E Cyote flying straight down into canyons standing on a piece of cliff that broke away from the top.

I always wondered why Wile E Cyote didn't just make a little jump at the bottom to offset the inertia, thank God I never tried putting that theory into practise.

[wilfulton]

This one has bugged me since childhood (and still does)

If you're on a spaceship going 2 mph slower than the speed of light, and you get up from the head and walk toward the front of the ship at 3 mph, what would happen?

Others?

Why is my cat laying in the middle of the road like that? New word, "dead." Ironically, his name was Stupid.

Why can't you just point the needle on the gas gauge to the F mark and go on forever? New word, "GAS-O-LINE" The subject of much frustration to this day.

(here's a good one) If instead of stopping the wheels from turning, you just deploy a stand out the bottom of the car (so the wheels are not touching the roadway) you'll stop instantly. New word "inertia." Yes, I seriously thought that.

Why can't I eat all my candy now? New word "RE-GURG-I-TATE" (you'll see this again).

Why can't I have that toy? New word "Dollar." Learned that one quick.

If there's no gravity in space, then why are the Star Trek guys standing on the floor like there was? New concept, "Because it was filmed on Earth." As you may have guessed, that is as in "Terra Firma."


Money may not grow on trees, but all your goodies grow on your parents.
No comment.

[Duckie]

This one has bugged me since childhood (and still does)

If you're on a spaceship going 2 mph slower than the speed of light, and you get up from the head and walk toward the front of the ship at 3 mph, what would happen?
.

Just to make sure I understand this one too, since you're moving at c-2mph, and the ship is moving at an equal speed, your relative velocity from your frame of reference is thus 0 and moving at 3 mph, while from an outside point of view would change the sped to c+1, it is in essence 0+3 (3) mph to you. Right?
A similar concept would be two ships approaching eachother at .75c. To each one, they are standing still and the other ship is approaching at 1.5c, right?

[Master of Ossus]

This one has bugged me since childhood (and still does)

If you're on a spaceship going 2 mph slower than the speed of light, and you get up from the head and walk toward the front of the ship at 3 mph, what would happen?

Because of the time-distortion you would undergo at such velocities, the concept of you being able to walk at 3 mph is purely relative. You would NOT be able to walk fast enough to go beyond the speed of light.

[SpacedTeddyBear]

I had always wondered why whenever I stuck my hand out the window of a moving car, my hand would be either pushed up or down. This was before my parents yelled at me and told me to pull my hand back inside the car.

[Adrian Laguna]

I sitll can't equate the numbers in a measurement to the real world. It's hard to explain, but I'll try. If you tell me you are going at 75mph I have a pretty good idea of how fast you are going. If you say that you are going at 120kph I'm confused unless I do a little math. Now this is where things get wierd: Any distance in kilometers I can grasp and imagine (sort of), however with out the math any distance in miles might as well be in smoots (cookie for the reference). Now how does it follow that knowing how much is an hour and how long is kilometer I cannot grasp km/h? Or that knowing how fast is a m/h I don't know how long is mile? Because I work on small scales, speed I judge on how fast the landscape passes by or how how much time an object takes to enter and exit my field of vision. Another example: Farenheit temperatures, anything between 70 and 100 I understand, as well as between ~10 and 38. However all numbers in the 40s, 50s, and 60s are meaningless unless I convert them to Celcius.

It really annoys me that I have to go an extra length, and do more effort, in order to do the numbers-real world connection. All the answers in the Science or Math exam might be correct, but I have no fucking clue what do they all mean in reguards to the real world.



NOTE to anyone reading this (written after 5 minute break)

If you don't understand a word of what I just wrote just purge it from your mind and pretend it never happened. Also, don't quote me on anything written above. I could feel a lot of emotion pouring out which essentially equals exaggeration and unnecessary melodrama. Indeed the whole dammed thing could have simply been: "I've always had a problem equating mathematical measurements with the real world."

[wolveraptor]

I used to think you could swim through space like water until 5th grade. Everytime the guy floated away into the horrors of the infinite beyond, I was like, "Why doesn't he swim back?"

100% true.

[HemlockGrey]

I had a very hard time grasping the beneficial aspects of pain.

[Guardsman Bass]

I thought I would explode if my spacesuit tore in space.

I also had a hard time grasping inertia.

[Pcm979]

The first time I saw a half moon, I thought it was broken.