Foster's was crazy packed this afternoon. I met Pants there around 1 and we stayed for a couple of hours. We talked about whether or not hollow objects were stronger than solid objects. She first asserted "Hollow objects are stronger than solid objects" which raised my eyebrows so she quickly qualified it with "for their weight." This is probably true, I'm not sure, but I'll believe it. But Pants didn't stop there. She pulled out the trump card for all scientific debates: she invoked Mr. Wizard. "That's old school Mr. Wizard right there." End of argument. Case closed. Whabam bizzach, shut that up!
Except I remembered that epsiode of Mr. Wizard. He had a kid come on and they watched a metal dowel bend under successively heavier weights. He had two dowels of the same diameter, one hollow one and one solid. The hollow one bent more under the strain. The child was suprised, I guess because "hollow" is such a cool word and why wouldn't an object described by a cool adjective be better than the object without that adjective?
I recounted that episode to her, admitting that the two bars were of unequal weight. She relented: in fact, she didn't remember whether or not there was a Mr. Wizard episode about hollow objects.
We reminisced about TV science and I was reminded about how Bill Nye used to be part of that Seattle-based sketch commedy show that was on Commedy Central back in the early 90's. I couldn't remember its name. Google helped me out: Almost Live!
I loved that show.
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