Friday, December 26, 2008

Laws of motion- through the eyes of a 7 year old.

Overambitious, I know, but i wanted to make my 7 year old brother realise that he knew Newton's laws of motion but just wasn't aware they were THE laws of motion. Actually, i had realised that i wasn't going to be Einstein so i decided to work on my brother.
"See, Aniv, heard of newton?" i asked eagerly.
"No." First hurdle.
"He was a the one who formulated the Laws of motion." i explained.
Polite puzzlement. I decided to change tactics.
"He discovered things." i said and that made sense to him so i proceeded.
"See, when i put a bar of chocolate on the table, where do you go to get it?" i asked.
"On the table of course!" i read in his eyes,'Someone tell this guy that he is talking like a moron!'
"Yes, it means that since no force acted on it, its still there. If another force acted on it, say your mum moved it, then it wouldn't be there any longer! That's Newton's first law."
His look clearly suggested a good many things but i didn't give up.I gave him a ball and asked him to throw it towards me, while i changed positions.
"So, when i'm close to you, you throw slowly but when i'm away you throw hard, why?" i demanded.
He looked as if now he was confident that it wasn't safe for him to remain anywhere close to me. I am not sure but i think i caught him muttering "Duh!"
"Its because of newton's 2nd law! you are using it but dont know that you are! geddit?" i asked eagerly."newton 2nd law states that "The rate of change of momentum..." i told him the law.
He looked as if Hebrew would have been a welcome change but i persevered.
"Lastly," i began triumphantly,"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, do you ever punch the wall?" i asked him, certain that this was one law he would understand.
"No, cause it hurts." he said briefly.
"That's because the wall hits you with equal force!" i explained glad that at last i was making some headway.
"These are Newton's laws of motion and he published them in 1600 something." i added.
"Ok." he said. I looked at him, dejected. I had hoped for some curiosity.
Then suddenly he unfolded all his ten fingers and began some intense calculation. I could almost see the desperation in his eyes because of lack of fingers. After a considerable time he looked up and said," So, Newton made these laws 400 years ago?" he asked. Finally, a question though one i did not expect. But still, a question!
"yeah, sometime during the 1600s.Why? i asked, puzzled.
" So, before he made these laws",Aniv began,"people used to keep something somewhere and look for it elsewhere? And they used to move around bumping and hitting the walls because they did not know the laws?" he asked, really interested.
I prefer to think he was just being dumb. If that was sarcasm then...well, that did do the trick because i gave up immediately.

5 comments:

Rara Avis said...

Wah hah haaa! Did this really happen? I guess I'm running out of adjectives to describe Aniv!!! It's such a pity that I had only one chat with him! Really, I feel almost HONOURED when I remember that he actually did acknowledge me as a friend on the last day of his stay, though he took a pretty long time.

And if you made this up, then kudos!!! Some sense of humour you've got, yeah! You are SO "not" funny!(We learnt that from Aniv, remember?)

Kiki said...

your brother is intelligent. seriously. a lot more than we are, mugging up those blighted laws and their effects! i had kinda similar experience trying to teach 5 year olds about prime numbers during the exhibiton. intensely funny, i assure you, but rather trying. cheers! :)

Dev said...

@ravis
well its based on facts but a large part of it is my imagination. I did have session with him regarding newton and he did look frightened.
@Kiki
:) we all learn newton's laws by the time we are three, we just dont know. After this experience, i am sure that we are not supposed to know.

Chandrajit Rudra said...

So, now I know. Before you learnt Probability even u used to play with balls and gals, since both were same 2 u????????

Chandrajit Rudra said...

Just like Aniv's logic......