Isaac Newton, Physics & SuperHeroes!

….I can’t believe I waited so long to post this blog.  For some of you who seem in awe at how I am pulling academic rabbits out of my hat.  I will let you in on my secret.  Do any of you remember what it was like cramming the night before an exam?  Well, that’s what I do with library books and internet sites before a heady park day.   And now that it has been over a month since I created this day – I can barely remember ONE, let alone all three of Newton’s Laws.

But with the pictures and activities, plus the links to the sites that inspired me (and hopefully it will inspire YOU too) it will come back to me.

So first off, Einstein believes Issaac Newton (1642 – 1727) to be the most amazing scientist the  WORLD has ever had.  That’s saying alot, don’t you think?  Isaac did a bit more than get inspired by an apple landing on his head.  His 79 years holds quite a few ups and downs.  He was completely consumed with his work and pretty much created the science we call Physics (which didn’t even get named for a couple hundred years).    But almost all of his original ideas came during his 23rd year, that  he spent in seclusion reading, observing and contemplating (often forgetting to eat and drink) on his family farm while the bubonic plague was running rampant in London – the city where he was already a prominent figure at Oxford Universities.  Newton spent the next 50 years polishing his year of ideas up and presenting them to the public.

So what exactly did he do that impressed Einstein and the English aristocracy to knight him?  First off he invented a new telescope (reflecting telescope improving upon the existing refracting telescope) that boldly improved astronomy. Then he proved that ROYGBV (rainbow of colors) existed in our sunlight.  And he is the guy that INVENTED calculus.  Yup, you can get mad at him – he was the one.  But for the first time with Calculus, humankind had a way to predict where ANYTHING in motion might land.  Which is how he properly connected WHY planets orbit the sun and why things fall down in our atmosphere or in truth, towards the center of our planet (which was when the apple fell on his head at his family farm).

Isaac Newton readily admitted, that  ““If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.“  If he hadn’t learned about what men and women had invented and discovered before him by reading books and attending lectures, he would have NEVER been able to invent and discover what he did.  IMPORTANT side note for Adults too!  Don’t stop learning!  EVER!!!

But for our Mudpies & Butterflies parkday we were going to play around with the simple three laws he gave us to understand motion.  Otherwise known as Newton’s 3 laws of motion.

Newton age 46

1st Law of Motion. Law of Inertia. Anything still will stay still (unless pushed).  And anything moving will continue to move (unless another force stops it).

2nd Law of Motion. F= M times A. Force equals Mass times Acceleration. Simply stated, the heavier the ball, the harder we have to throw it.

3rd Law of Motion. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. (oh, remember that do you?) But what does it mean?

Well, who is stronger in this picture?  Each person was pushing into the other.  Some were tied (they were exerting the EQUAL amount of actions).  But when Kaitlyn pushed Ula back, her force was greater, but the reaction by moving backward was also a force – but that reaction equaled the two forces too).

Now, back to law one.  The Law of Inertia. Anything that holds still will stay still (unless pushed).  And anything moving will continue to move (unless another force stops it).  Here’s K in that middle moment…

Hmm.  Imagine that we threw a frisbee.  What keeps it from flying past the clouds and off into space? Because of FORCES. What forces do you know of? Gravity.  There is that apple visual again.  Others?  “pushing and pulling.”  Great – those are considered normal forces. Centrifugal force – what happens to the thing spinning around and around.
Now rub your hands together.  Faster.  Are your hands getting wet, warm or cold?  WARM because when molecules move really fast against each other – which is Friction, it makes them warm up.

What forces do Superheros have?  Jump tall buildings with a single bound.  Ooh, that’s a great one.  Today’s Superman flies, but originally, he only appeared to fly, because the gravity on his planet would have squooshed us weak humans. So Superman felt light as air in our gravity and could jump higher than a building.

Anyone remember Magneto?   His power was Magnetism. That is another force.

So what keeps our frisbee out of outerspace?  What forces are working on it to prove Newton’s First law.  That anything moving will just keep on moving unless a force acts out on it.  Gravity.  Okay and …. Friction.  That’s the right answer, but how does that work on a Frisbee?  What is in the air that the Frisbee is flying in?  Oxygen.  Yes and other atoms and molecules.  All of which do rub on it.

If we think about the skate boarder.  Why does he have to push his skateboard? The friction between his wheels and the sidewalk slow the motion down.  But not enough to make it less work than walking or just less fun.

And to put all the laws into Motion (sorry, couldn’t help myself with that pun) we made our own Motion machines.  With a popsicle stick, a round take-out container, the end of a packaging tube and some rubber bands we made our own vehicles.  Just like the cars you pull back on the floor a few times and let them go, our action vehicles bumped, rolled and kept breaking.

…………..But true to any scientist, we all took 2nd, 3rd and even 12th tries to modify and improve on our vehicles. For some the hold up was WHERE they had punched the hole in their containers. For others, they hadn’t weighted it enough.  And others had taped their rubberbands down.

But did we have fun?  And did we all get a bigger glimpse of another great  Inventor of our World?  That and some.   Understanding how great people of science and invention do not fit perfectly into molds is further validation for not expecting our children (or our parenting styles) to perform or achieve on a predetermined time line.  Instead of looking for something expected, find out when your child’s smile is the biggest, or  their concentration is the greatest.  There you will find the line they are drawing for themselves.