~The Catch-All Drawer~
Wednesday, December 24, 2003
Merry Christmas
"So here is my amended greeting to you," Jason writes.
"Please accept with no obligation, explicit or implied, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, non-judgmental, tolerance embracing, inclusivity enhancing, equality seeking, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious/secular persuasion of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice any religious and/or secular traditions."
Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Wednesday, December 24, 2003 (0) comments
Thursday, December 18, 2003
BEN FRANKLIN'S KITE WAS STRUCK BY LIGHTNING?
Many people believe that Ben Franklin's kite was hit by a lightning bolt, and think that this was how he proved that lightning was electrical. A number of books and even some encyclopedias say the same thing. They are wrong. When lightning strikes a kite, the spreading electric currents in the ground can kill anyone standing nearby, to say nothing of the person holding the string! So what did Franklin actually do? He showed that a kite would collect a tiny bit of electric charge out of the sky during a thunderstorm. Electric leakage through the air caused his kite and string to become electrified and so the hairs on the twine stood outwards. Twine is slightly conductive, so the imbalanced charge spread to all parts of the kite string. Franklin used the twine to electrify a metal key, and tiny sparks could then be drawn from the key. (He used a metal object because sparks cannot be directly drawn from the twine, it's not conductive enough.) This suggested that some stormclouds carry strong electrical net-charge. It IMPLIED that lightning was just a large electric spark.
The common belief that Franklin easily survived a lightning strike is not just wrong, it is dangerous: it may convince kids that it's OK to duplicate the kite experiment as long as they "protect" themselves by holding a silk ribbon. Make no mistake, Franklin's experiment was extremely dangerous, and if lightning had actually hit his kite, he certainly would have been killed.
This is a clip from a science misconceptions thing that goes on and on - sort of a remedial tutorial for science teachers, nitpicking the faulty analogies that we were taught in good faith in school.
Tossed in by: R.G.B.
. . . Thursday, December 18, 2003 (0) comments
Thursday, December 11, 2003
Fun, but addictive
Tossed in by: PDQ
. . . Thursday, December 11, 2003 (0) comments
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
Tired of Lorem Ipsum?
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Tossed in by: PDQ
. . . Wednesday, December 10, 2003 (0) comments
Monday, December 01, 2003
