Our math and science crazy has waxed and waned over the past
four years, but recently the crazy has hit an all time high. Math conversations are commonplace, we
founded a science club, and They Might Be Giant’s Here Comes Science blasts on our radio. But is there really any other rational follow-up reaction
watching one’s daughter energetic interaction with an electrostatic generator?
The catalyst in our escalated interest in all things science
was a visit to the University of Wisconsin’s L.R. Ingersoll Physics Museum (No.
14). Whoa buddy – was it
cool! The girls pulled pullies and
created miniature earthquakes.
They explored the laws of motion with Newton’s cradles and a Foucault’s
pendulum. They explored additive
color mixing and subtractive color mixing before moving on to atomic
spectroscopy.
And we barely touched the surface! We have yet to play with the display illustrating Lenz’s law. Nor have we played with Eddy currents. I just know Adeline s going to have a ball with their sound pipes and the oscillating transverse wave display. The museum has computers set up for chaos demonstrations, Lissajous curve demonstrations, and a Fourier spectrum to see the sound waves of speech. There are displays on cosmic rays, a spirograph, and a plasma tube. So much for doing. So many fun things for doing!
