The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were collected 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."

 -       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.

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

 -       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.

 -       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.

 * Our new teacher told us all about fossils.  Before she came to our
   class, I didn't know what a fossil looked like.

 * Pavlov studied the salvation of dogs.

 * A molecule is so small that it can't be seen by the naked observer.

 * In biology today, we digested a frog.

 * To prevent head colds, use an agonizer to spray into you nose until
   it drops down into you throat.


 BIRDS AND BEASTS

 The bird I am going to write about is the Owl.  The owl cannot see at all in
 the day and is blind as a bat at night.  I do not know much about the owl so I
 will go on to the Beast which I am going to choose.
 It is the Cow.  The Cow is a mammal and it is tame.   It has six sides:
 right, left, fore, back, upper, and below.  At the back it has a tail in
 which is hanging a bush.  With this it sends the flies away so they do not fall in the milk.

 The head is for the purpose of growing horns and so the mouth can be
 somewhere.  They are to butt with.  The mouth is to moo with.

 Under the cow hangs the milk.  It is arranged for milking.  When the people
 milk the cow the milk comes and there is never any end to the supply. How the
 cow does it I have not learned, but it makes more and more.

 The man cow is called the ox.  It is not a mammal.  The cow does not eat much
 but what it eats twice it eats twice, so it gets enough.  When it is hungry it
 moos and when it doesn't say anything it is because its insides is full of 
 grass.

 The cow has a fine sense of smell and you can smell it far away.  That is the
 reason for the fresh air in the country.