Larkin, Finn and I recently spent a few days at the coast. Jim was the very noble Adult On Call each morning. He reported this conversation, which began with some request from Finn. Jim replied that he would do it "later."
Finn: How much later?
Jim: In five years.
Finn: But I'll be... [counting] 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11-- eleven years old! And you'll be dead!"
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
It's the End of the World As We Know It...
Last night, instead of proceeding to bed time as usual, we tried to destroy the earth:
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth
Larkin and Finn really wanted to explode it into lots of bits which would drift off into space as you would expect from sci-fi cartoon explosions. The best we could do was cause the whole planet to melt and re-solidify as a result of a direct hit from a fast moving chunk of iron the size of Asia.
It would be nice if there were visuals to go along with the results, but we had a lot of fun reading about the theoretical destruction we were wreaking and tweaking all the variables. Also discussed metric vs. english measurements and I made a first attempt at describing the meaning behind Joules, Megatons and (the kids' favorite) Megatons of TNT.
http://www.purdue.edu/impactearth
Larkin and Finn really wanted to explode it into lots of bits which would drift off into space as you would expect from sci-fi cartoon explosions. The best we could do was cause the whole planet to melt and re-solidify as a result of a direct hit from a fast moving chunk of iron the size of Asia.
It would be nice if there were visuals to go along with the results, but we had a lot of fun reading about the theoretical destruction we were wreaking and tweaking all the variables. Also discussed metric vs. english measurements and I made a first attempt at describing the meaning behind Joules, Megatons and (the kids' favorite) Megatons of TNT.
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