Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources Physics/Science resources

So when the little'un asks
"There is a man in space near a space station. Since there is no gravity in space (must be deep space away from planetary influences I guess) what happens when the man pushes on the space station? can he move it?"

Now where can I find out answers to this sort of question.

Or

"Dad, if a cardboard box gets too near the sun, will it burn up?"
"Of course it will son, it's so hot"
"But dad, you can't have a fire where there is no oxygen, and there is no oxygen in space, so what happens to the box" !!!!


there must be some (online?) science resource to help us out?

Great questions! I usually google stuff like this, but you have rethink the questions a bit...
'burn without oxygen' gets lots of results, cornell seems good: http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=242

That one about the astronaut is tough, I found this, but only after changing my search phrase a few times... still doesn't answer the specific question, too! http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=44358

I know you probably aren't asking for specific answers for the individual questions, but it is possible to find the answers (or find out that no one knows yet) and for now I haven't found anything that beats google. A set of encyclopedias might keep the kid busy, but will likely result in more, not fewer questions.

(We have different sorts of questions around here; recently asked where words like 'bad' or 'good' came from and how those particular sounds came to be used, instead of others.)

chris1234 - Thanks.
This Cornell site more than meets our needs.

have you seen this site for etymology:
http://www.etymonline.com/

Raddy,

Just to answer your first question,

Yes, the man does move the space station when he pushes on it, just as the space station moves the man. The difference is that the space station has so much more mass (not weight - which is dependent on gravity) than the man that the man moves a lot more than the station does. This is an example of Newton's law "For every action force there is an equal but opposite reaction force." The action would be the force the man puts on the station, and the reaction force would be the same size but from the station to the man.
Hope that helps,
Kerry

Kerry
Thanks for that. Hard for a non-scientist to even start to understand the questions let alone grapple with a solutions.

Things have got clearer since we discovered "Ureka!", but it just raises more questions - which is how it should be

Thanks Raddy, yes we have used that one (etymonline) but for 'bad' it sounded like they didn't really have an answer - 'good' has much more traceable roots, apparently. (Great site, great info, nonetheless!)
Kind of exciting, really:
Bad - 1203, mystery word, no apparent relatives in other languages...
I was interested to see they say Farsi has essentially the same word (same sound/same meaning) and the dating of 'bad' in english is around the time of the crusades, so that just has me wondering, but it sounds like linguists call it a pure coincidence.

Raddy, I'm not sure if this would answer what little one asked above but most recently DD6 has been letting me know that the books she has are not interesting, so I took her to the book store and let her pick out anything she wanted, she picked The Usborne Internet-Linked Science Encyclopedia. This has so many answers with details on many subjects and after you read the page you can link to the internet www.usborne-quicklinks.com give the page # like 174(space exploration) and it gives you more information, so far it's a hit in our house. good luck

Skylersmommy - thanks for that. I will pick up a copy.

Chris1234 - reminds me. The name for beer in Polish sounds like Peevo and in Chinese is Peejow. Now surely there can't be any links in those languages - can there? (spent soemtime in both places - beer in both places was great! :-))