> 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."
> 
> Q:      What is one horsepower?
> A:      One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a
>         horse 500 feet in one second.
> 
>  -       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.
> 
>  -       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.
> 
>  -       When people run around and around in circles we say they
>         are crazy. When planets do it we say they are orbiting.
> 
>  -       While the earth seems to be knowingly keeping its
>         distance from the sun, it is really only centrificating.
> 
>  -       Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows
>         how to change back into a sun in the daytime.
> 
>  -       A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind
>         which way it wants to go.
> 
>  -       Many dead animals of the past changed to fossils, others
>         preferred to be oil.
> 
>  -       Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them
>         know we know they're there.
> 
>  -       Some people can tell what time it is by looking at the
>         sun. But I have never been able to make out the numbers.
> 
>  -       We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation.
>         Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget
>         to put the top on.
> 
>  -       I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know
>         how to do it, and that is the important thing.
> 
>  -       Rain is saved up in cloud banks.

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