Getting Started

CUT IT OUT: We haven't started sewing yet, but we did get started on Annabelle's new dress. We talked about first you have to figure out which pieces you need by reading the directions. Once you have found all those pieces, you read the directions to know how to lay them out and cut them out. 

It was Annabelle's first time pinning a pattern piece to a fabric and it didn't take her long to stick herself. In fact, on the very first pin she poked her index finger.  Poor girl.

But in pretty short order we got all the pieces cut out. Tomorrow, the real fun starts - sewing!

CONNECTING THE DOTS: We enjoyed a couple more Einstein lessons today. One of them was all about that famous formula E=MC². Our ears perked up when the professor started off by talking about kinetic energy and its equation, 1/2mv², and moved on to rotational invariance and the conservation of angular momentum. We remembered that from our "How Things Work" physic class of a couple of months ago! 

Today we also learned about what Einstein called his "happiest thought." He had always been bothered by the fact that his special theory of relativity applied to things of constant velocity motion and it didn't address gravitational issues. However, in 1907, two years after he published his special theory paper, Einstein had a thought experiment (or gedankenexperiment, in German) involving an elevator. He realized that if a person falls freely, they won't feel their own weight. It's like gravity doesn't exist. That led to his 'happiest thought,' that a gravitational field is equal to an accelerated frame of reference, which, in effected opened things up for him, allowing him to bring in the accelerated frame of reference and tie in gravity, as well, leading to his general theory of relativity.

It was interesting learning that a clock at the bottom of an elevator runs slower than a clock on top of an elevator thanks to gravitational time dilation. Who knew?! :)

PRIME TIME SCIENCE: This evening we watched an interesting hour-long show on the Discovery Channel called "Outrageous Acts of Science." The show is a countdown format, showing its top 20 clips of people doing extraordinary things. Tonight's theme was human guinea pigs.  It featured a series of video shorts, most pulled right from YouTube fame. Like, a BMX rider on a treadmill. Apparently riding the bike isn't the problem, it's trying to stop that is tricky. ... 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XknEvdUN6lE

Physicists, mathematicians and other experts were interviewed, describing the science between what was seen in the shorts, like this video of a man in Bangledesh managing to stack 22 bricks on his head. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8HyTyTbS5A

The fact that he was tossing the bricks in a parabolic arc was key to his success.

We also learned about the sport of 'blobbing' (looks like fun!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2b8s4VxD60