The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exams, and class room discussions; most were from fifth- and sixth-graders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that the "most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop."

Question: What is one horsepower?
Answer: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes
to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.

The theory of evolution was greatly objected to because
it made man think.

You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it you got hit, so never mind.

Talc is found in rocks and on babies.

The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming
   back down.

When they broke open molecules, they found they were
only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms,
they found them stuffed with explosions.

Clouds are high flying fogs.

When people run around and around in circles we say they are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.

To remove air from a flask, fill it with water, tip the water
out, and put the cork in quick before the air can get back
in.

The process of turning steam back into water again is called
conversation.

The Earth makes one resolution every 24 hours.

The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs.

Parallel lines never meet, unless you bend one or both of
them.

Algebraical symbols are used when you do not know what
you are talking about.

Geometry teaches us to bisex angles.

A circle is a line which meets its other end without ending.

 Rainbows are just to look at, not to really
  understand.

An example of animal breeding is the farmer who mated a
bull that gave a great deal of milk with a bull with good
meat.

We believe that the reptiles came from the amphibians by
spontaneous generation and study of rocks.

English sparrows and starlings eat the farmers grain and
soil his corpse.

By self-pollination, the farmer may get a flock of long-
haired sheep.

If conditions are not favorable, bacteria go into a period of
adolescence.

Vegetative propagation is the process by which one
individual manufactures another individual by accident.

A triangle which has an angle of 135º is called an obscene
triangle.

A person should take a bath once in the summer, and not quite so often in the winter.

The hookworm larvae enters the human body through the
soul.

When you haven't got enough iodine in your blood you get a
glacier.

It is a well-known fact that a deceased body harms the
mind.

Humans are more intelligent than beasts because the human
branes have more convulsions.

For fractures: to see if the limb is broken, wiggle it gently
back and forth.

Bar magnets have north and south poles, horseshoe magnets
have east and west poles.

When water freezes you can walk on it. That is what Christ
did long ago in wintertime.

For snakebites: bleed the wound and rape the victim in a
blanket for shock.

While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its distance
from the sun, it is really only centrificating.

Some day we may discover how to make magnets that can
point in any direction.

South America has cold summers and hot winters, but
somehow they still manage.

Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.

Water freezes at 32º and boils at 212º. There are 180º
between freezing and boiling because there are 180º
between north and south.

A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which
way it wants to go.

There are 26 vitamins in all, but some of the letters are yet
to be discovered. Finding them all means living forever.

There is a tremendous weight pushing down on the center of
the Earth because of so much population stomping around up
there these days.

Lime is a green-tasting rock.

Many dead animals of the past changed to fossils while
others preferred to be oil.

A fossil is an extinct animal. The older it is, the more
extinct it is.

Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you
don't why you should.

Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them
know we know they're there.

Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help
make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.

Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.

Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the organ of the
species.

Benjamin Franklin produced electricity by rubbing cats
backwards.

To prevent conception when having intercourse, the male
wears a condominium.

We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation.
Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget
to put the top on.

To most people solutions mean finding the answers. But to
chemists solutions are things that are still all mixed up.

I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know
how to do it, and that is the important thing.

Clouds just keep circling the Earth around and around. And
around. There is not much else to do.

Water vapor gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough
to be called a drop, it does.

When there is fog, you might as well not mind looking at it.

Humidity is the experience of looking for air and finding
water.

We keep track of the humidity in the air so we won't drown
when we breathe.

In making rain water, it takes everything from H to O.

When rainwater strikes forest fires, it heckstingwishes
them. Luckily it affects we of the humans unlike that.

Rain is often spoken of as soft water, oppositely known as
hail.

Rain is saved up in cloud banks.

In some rocks you can find the fossil footprints of fishes.

Cyanide is so poisonous that one drop of it on a dog's tongue
will kill the strongest man.

A blizzard is when it snows sideways.

A hurricane is a breeze of a bigly size.

A monsoon is a French gentleman.

A thunderstorm is like a shower, only more so.

Thunder is a rich source of loudness.

Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their
names sound.

It is so hot in some parts of the world that the people there
have to live other places.

The wind is like the air, only pushier.

Dew is formed on leaves when the sun shines down on them
and makes them perspire.

Question: In what ways are we dependent on the sun?
Answer: We can always depend on the sun for sunburn and
tidal waves.

Until it is decided whether tornadoes are typhoons or hurricanes, we must continue to call them tornadoes.

In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find
there are twice as many H's as O's.

Water is composed of two gins,
Oxygin and Hydrogin. Oxygin is pure gin.

Hydrogin is gin and water.

When you breath, you inspire. When you do not breath,
you expire.

H2O is hot water, and CO2 is cold water.

To collect fumes of sulfur, hold a deacon over a flame in a
test tube.

When you smell an odorless gas, it is probably carbon
monoxide.

Nitrogen is not found in Ireland because it is not found in a
free state.

Three kinds of blood vessels are arteries, vanes, and
caterpillars.

Blood flows down one leg and up the other.

The moon is a planet just like the earth, only it is  even deader.

Artificial insemination is when the farmer does it to the cow
instead of the bull.

A super-saturated solution is one that holds more than it can
hold.

Mushrooms always grow in damp places and so they look like
umbrellas.

The body consists of three parts-the brainium, the borax
and the abominable cavity. The brainium contains the brain,
the borax contains the heart and lungs, and the bominable
cavity contains the bowls, of which there are five - a, e, i, o
and u.

The pistol of a flower is its only protection against insects.

The alimentary canal is located in the northern part of Indiana.

The skeleton is what is left after the insides have been
taken out and the outsides have been taken off. The purpose
of the skeleton is something to hitch meat to.

The cuckoo bird does not lay his own eggs.

A permanent set of teeth consists of eight canines, eight
cupids, two molars, and eight cuspidors.

The tides are a fight between the Earth and the Moon. All
water tends towards the moon, because there is no water in
the moon, and nature abhors a vacuum. I forget where the
sun joins in this fight.

Equator: A managerie lion running around the Earth through
Africa.

Germinate: To become a naturalized German.

Liter: A nest of young puppies.

Magnet: Something you find crawling all over a dead cat.

Momentum: What you give a person when they are going
away.

Planet: A body of Earth surrounded by sky.

Rhubarb: A kind of celery gone bloodshot.

Vacuum: A large, empty space where the pope lives.

Before giving a blood transfusion, find out if the blood is
affirmative or negative.

To remove dust from the eye, pull the eye down over the
nose.

For a nosebleed: Put the nose much lower then the body until
the heart stops.

For drowning: Climb on top of the person and move up and
down to make Artificial perspiration.

For fainting: Rub the person's chest or, if a lady, rub her
arm above the hand instead. Or put the head between the
knees of the nearest medical doctor.

For dog bite: put the dog away for several days. If he has
not recovered, then kill it.

For asphyxiation: Apply artificial respiration until the
patient is dead.

To prevent contraception: wear a condominium.

For head cold: use an agonizer to spray the nose until it
drops in your throat.

To keep milk from turning sour: keep it in the cow.

© 2013 All rights reserved. Nancee Belshaw. All rights reserved.