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Treebeard's Stumper |
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Treebeard's Stumper |
Pothole on the Road
All at once it's the winter season, and I have chores to do, like fixing that
bad pothole in my road. Even the name "pothole" is a
stumper! Sometimes a road just is in bad shape, but
sometimes a pothole suddenly appears in a perfectly good road,
like a gopher made a wrong turn. I understand how
these "axle busters" are formed by frost heaving in
colder climates, but why do we get them here in central California?
Why are some roads worse than others? Why are potholes
usually round, though we always drive across them in
the same direction? (I'm sure it's not the gophers!)
November 14, 2003
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Step 1 - Cracks in the road. Note there is already a roundness to the cracks. (This is East Camino Cielo, my road home.) | Step 2 - More cracks, and they now penetrate the asphalt. A few chunks are missing, but the gaps are not round. |
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Step 3 - A proper round pothole, though it's not yet an "axle buster". It's in the middle of the road, so it gets traffic in both directions. | Step 4 - The pothole that ate the road! (This is Manzanita Lane at Paradise.) |
I reckon the real stumper is why these potholes are usually more-or-less round, at least in stage 3. Cars always drive across them (in both directions up here in the mountains!), so why aren't they usually much longer than wide? What other natural processes is this related to?
Send your answers to Treebeard at mkummel@rain.org
Lacrosse Sticks
November 7, 2003Lacrosse is an exciting team sport that I never got to play as a kid. Art is teaching the basics in his P.E. classes. I find it interesting how different the sticks are. Some lacrosse sticks are short (40-42") with a small pocket to catch and throw the ball. Others are long (52-72") with a small pocket. One stick is short with a very large pocket. Why are there different sticks? If short and long are good, would shorter and longer be better? Where does lacrosse come from, and when was the first game (or a related game *hint*) played near Santa Barbara?
Dunn Middle School students modeling the three basic kinds of (men's) lacross sticks. The men's game is a contact sport and special protective gear is required, including helmet, gloves, and arm and shoulder pads. It's an expensive outfit. The women's game is less physical and has different rules and equipment. For example, women's sticks are all short and have a shallower pocket. We're just learning the basics of passing and ball handling, without getting rough.
We use a crowbar to magnify force over a small distance. Lacrosse sticks reduce force to magnify distance and speed. A stick with a longer "lever arm" will throw the ball farther, but a player can't maneuver it as fast. That's physics. The longer and slower sticks are also too big a target. Form follows function, so the long sticks are defense sticks and the shorter ones are attack sticks. The goalie stick is short for speed with a bigger head for maximum catching area. The local Chumash played the related game shinny with wooden sticks and ball!
Notes:
Goldilocks had to search for the right porridge that wasn't too cold or too hot. So in sports (and life!) we often have to find a balance between not enough and too much. You can't throw a ping-pong ball very far because it's too light, and you can't throw a lead ball very far because it's too heavy. But in between the extremes there is a ball that's just the right size and weight to throw. Similarly, there is a right length for a lacrosse stick.
(It's my son's birthday and I have no more time today. I'll get back to this as soon as I can!)
I post a stumper in the Dunn Middle School Friday Newsnote most every week during school that involves science, natural history, math, and/or logic. Stumpers can be tricky, but they are usually solvable with just your wits or a Web search. We don’t usually spend class time on these stumpers. They are for family fun and mental exercise, not a grade.
These stumpers are written for kids and families at Dunn Middle School. The students are in grades 6-8. Some of these stumpers are my own, some are classics, some come from books, and some are from rec.puzzles and other sources on the Net. I'm usually limited to about 10 lines of text in one column (of two) for both stumper and answer, so space is tight. But I have more room here on the Web which I've been using more and more. Sometimes I spend more time on questions than answers, or I'm late with extended answers because of school and family commitments. I'm trying to make time for my new Treebeard's Photos page at fotolog. Life is full. I do the best I can!
I don’t always know the answer, so please help me with both answers and new problems! Send email to mkummel@rain.org for a fast response. I'll give credit, unless you ask me not to.
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