August 11, 2008

The Scientist

Little L is our resident scientist. His passion is astronomy, and so far his goal in life is to build the first manned craft to Mars. He loves to get books from the library on astronomy and science experiments. Tonight he plans to stay up past 2 a.m. (if the sky clears), to see the meteor shower, Perseids, which is supposedly the most famous of meteor showers. He has been studying his constellation charts and reading up on the history of this meteor shower. To see his excitement, you’d think it was Christmas Eve!

The other day, as little L was digging around in our collection of science experiment books, Big L told him about an experiment he did in fourth grade:


The goal is to see how many pennies you can put in a completely full glass of water without breaking the surface tension, thus causing the water to spill over.


It is quite fascinating to watch the water level rise above the top of glass without the water spilling over.


Anxiously adding one more:


The tension was finally broken and water spilled after the 70th penny:


It is so fun to watch little L's enthusiasm. Before the experiment was over, this enthusiasm had drawn the whole family to watch the exciting conclusion.

Oh, we think his second goal in life is to be the next dog whisperer:


Jazz told him to stick with his first goal.

4 comments:

kacole said...

A kid after my own nerdy heart... 70 pennies is a lot!

Maybe he can ask jazz what makes her toot so much.

JAR said...

Little L is not happy with me comparing him to Caesar the dog whisperer. He equates that with us reminding him of "the leader" story. When I read your comment to him he said (although he was laughing a little), "See, I told you not to call me the dog whisperer!" He'll live.

joyfuljourney said...

Oh I love that geeky little "leader"!! It was quite exciting just following along, looking at the pictures. It makes me want to go in the kitchen and try it out myself! Guess that makes me a geek too!

The big brother at our house will love this experiment. As a matter of fact, so will the daddy. What a geeky, nerdy family!

joyfuljourney said...

Oh, and you must really be watching every penny you spend these days to have 70 pennies around YOUR house! It's not like you to allow 70 of anything accumulate around the house. :-)