Am I as smart as a 5th grader?

[Nightshift]

While tucking her in, my 10 year old daughter (5th grade) asked me what space was made of tonight, I said, "Nothing. its a void, its empty, nothing there" to which she replied, "No Dad, that cant be right", "why not darling?", "If it was nothing then the planets would all touch, therefore it must be something."

I kissed her good night and left the room.

Anyone else want to have a stab at a response to that?

Dennis.

[Octane]

Dennis,

Buy her a Dobsonian for Christmas. :)

Regards,
Humayun

[mcross]

I like her logic! :thumbsup:

[Ric]

I'd say dark matter but explaining that might be a feat on its own.:lol:

The Dob might be a better idea.:thumbsup:

[xelasnave]

Dennis your daughter is very clever... she may care to read the thread on nothing .... and she is so right there is indeed something..it is everything or rather a part of everything that there is and was flying in all directions from everywhere so that all those particles creat a universal push or pressure the source of all energy manifesting as all the forces via various interactions with matter or indeed itself .... yes there is something there..

As an exercise for the imagination consider a cube of the remotest space such that hubble could analyse all the light that reached that point... a hubble sitting within such a cube would determine there was not any point of the visable universe that did not bath that cube with billions of photons from every conceivable direction... imagine each photon is the size of a grain of sand and visualise how they would all fly hiterer and thither at the speed of ..er well light:D

AND there is no where you can go where the universe doth not deliver billions of photons from everywhere...I feel she must have grasped such

Encourage her by telling her what a wonderfully profound inteligence she has.:thumbsup:

alex:):):)

[xelasnave]

One can add other stuff that may be flying about...there are many particles and the whole electromagnetic spectrum...I think of space as not empty in any way whatsoever..it is full of stuff..absolutely jamed packed with stuff.... and even the dark matter and the dark energy things point to this..space is not empty ...in my book it is space that pushes matter (atoms together) it is space that effects matter not matter that effects space...

alex

[BerrieK]

What a clever girl. It may help to explain that the universe consists of 4% matter that is composed of atoms, 22% dark matter and 74% dark energy. 5th graders love percentages! You could explain that the dark energy and matter is what lies between all the gasses and solids in the universe...to a 10 year old this could simply mean stars, planets, moons and nebulae. The explanation for the 'dark' may simply be an energy and a matter that are affected by or effect gravity....if she does not know what gravity is you could simply explain it as an attraction between us and the earth that stops us from flying away!

My nine year old daughter and 6 year old son are fascinated by the composition of the universe and I really enjoy trying to explain my very basic knowledge to them in kiddy terms.

Or yup, the dob sounds good! Let her see it for herslef.

[Jen]

:lol::lol::lol:
yep she's a thinker alright :thumbsup: keep her keen ;)