Musings

Mood: Happy
Listening to: Bach

Gravity  - what is it? - we do not know - but we can see that most things fall to earth.

Earth is a huge rock. With hot liquid rock in the middle.
We now know by careful experiments that all things are attracted to each other.

When you spin a rock on a cord and swing it around your head  the cord keeps it from flying away.  When you let go it flies in a straight line.

The moon is another rock;  it flies around the earth - gravity is the force that keeps it from flying away.  Just like the cord.

Other Planets.

All the nearby planets fly around the sun - as the earth does.
Gravity is the force  that stops then from flying away.


Get some magnets  - this is another force - but it operates between certain materials.  For example:  iron, nickel and some other elements. Also steel.  What is an element?

Steel is iron with a little  carbon and other elements mixed in.

Get some magnets and play with them  - can you pick  up a coin with a magnet?

Does the force work through a sheet of paper, plastic, a sheet of steel?

Put an empty  plastic bottle in the freezer. What happens? Why?

Maybe you have questions? Ask them?

Next:  Swings -  where did the energy go?