Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Supermassive

That's a drawing of Owen and me in the rain near a ramp by a building outside a cave above planet Earth and to the right of a black hole.  

Owen saves his hardest questions for me when we're in the car, and lately he's stuck on black holes: what causes them, what they look like, where to find one.  All the physics I could muster from that one astronomy class I took in college wasn't cutting it with him, so we had fun today watching a few Discovery and Science Channel videos.  This one had the best visuals, and Owen seemed fascinated even though I know it had to be mostly over his head.  

What didn't escape him is that black holes eat stuff.  Which means I then found myself assuring him that it wasn't like we were going to take a wrong left turn on the way to the grocery store and end up down a black hole.  And that conversation led us to this cool site when I got stumped trying to convey the enormousness of the universe.  Their way of showing it is much more effective than me lowering my voice 4 octaves and saying REALLY REALLY REALLY BIG, don't you think?

Owen did too.

Look how cute he is.


Okay, one quick side story and I'm out of here.

Once we finished talking about black holes, Owen wanted to draw one.  His first attempt isn't the one you see at the top of the post.  He started out using regular letter-sized paper before declaring himself creatively challenged by its small size.  So I went on a hunt for our roll of butcher paper.

I looked in his playroom behind the door where it once was.

Then I checked the basement.

Then I looked in my craft closet.

Then I opened the small cupboard at the foot of the stairs.  But before I got a good look inside, one of the vintage bottles I was storing in there rolled out and shattered on the tile floor.

So I cussed at myself, quit looking for the butcher paper and went to the guest closet to get the vacuum cleaner.

And guess what was sitting right there beside the vacuum cleaner?

3 comments:

Rebecca Davenport said...

This second link just blew my mind and now I feel small and stupid. LOL Sorry about your vintage glass. :( xoxo

Jennifer said...

I was okay with the video until Asia and Earth were in the same screen. Then they lost me. And the rest was completely foreign. Owen is definitely smarter than Aunt Jenny if he was able to comprehend that! :) And he sure thinks about things way more complex than I do. I can talk for 30 minutes about Taylor Swift's relationships. Now I feel worthless. Ugh.

Anonymous said...

I loved the video. You find the neatest sites.