Friday, August 7

"I Asked You First !!!!!"

I picked up Angel after school yesterday. She wanted to know if I brought the old pickup. I laughed and said, "Not this time." When her mother was in high school, she used to hate me coming to pick her up in the rattle-trap and would tell me to park far away so her friends wouldn't see her get in it.

Anyway, Angel parks herself in the backseat of the car and proceeds with the small talk for awhile. Then she wanted to ask me a question - something she'd learned in Language Arts, she said. This should be interesting, I thought. "If you have a snowman, how long will he take to melt?"

What?! First of all, I said this really wasn't a Language Arts question: it was more like a physics/science/math question. She agreed. Next, I told her, we need some more information before I can answer, like what is the size of the snowman and what is the temperature outside. That will get us closer to the rate of evaporation. She offered, "Two pounds" for the snowman and 100 degrees outside. That helped, but still left me guessing for a rate of evaporation.

I posed a hypothetical rate of 1 oz. per minute. Just guessing here. Then I said, "Suppose the rate of evaporation is 1 oz. per minute. You have 2 pounds of snowman. 1 pound equals 16 ozs., so 2 pounds would be 32 ozs. So if it evaporates at 1 oz. per minute, and you have 32 ozs., how many minutes would it take to completely disappear?"

I heard a big sigh from the backseat right before she said, "Why is it everytime I ask someone a question, they end up asking ME to answer it? My mom does the same thing!"

A bit shocked and humbled, there was nothing for me to do at that point than tell her the answer: "32 minutes - about a half an hour." She was okay with that, I guess.

She didn't ask me anything else for the rest of the trip. Smart kid!

1 comment:

  1. LOL Davy!! What is the rate of evaporation for an ice cube on the kitchen floor when the air conditioning is set for 82 degrees?

    The snowman answer: it takes longer than the snow around it. If you put a snowball in the freezer, it will stay about a year. :)

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