

Google Science Fair 2012 - Mitt
http://www.google.com/events/sciencefair/

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Tim-Boss
"How can we turn garbage into energy?" Burn it.

"Why do cats purr?" Evolved basic social actions, display of
affection/assuagement.

"Is it better to boil or bake?" Boil water, bake cake (or get bake).

"Can robots change their mind?" Only if they were programmed with algorithms
that enabled them to.

"Why do some things bounce?" Newtonian laws of conservation of momentum,
angular momentum and energy.

"Why do spinning balls curve?" The spin of the ball forces air around it in
the direction of spin, coupled with a forward motion this produces a
difference in air pressures on either side of the ball causing it to 'curve' a
path through the air.

I can't help but feel the kids time would be better spent aiming their
question at wikipedia instead of another thinly disguised Google Co. marketing
site! ;)

~~~
nostrademons
The point of science is never the answers, it's the process you use to arrive
at the answers.

Yes, you can search Wikipedia for answers to any of the answers to the
questions you list. That's not the point. If you do that, you'll be completely
lost when you need an answer for a question than _nobody_ , anywhere, has ever
investigated before.

I wish this point was drilled into kid's head in elementary school. It's not
what you know, it's what you do when you find something you _don't_ know.

(Aside from that, all of the questions you list have much deeper answers than
the ones you give. "Can robots change their mind? Only if they were programmed
with algorithms that enabled them to" is false in the era of machine learning,
or tautological if you count machine learning as "an algorithm that enabled
them to." "Why do some things bounce? Newtonian laws of conservation of
momentum, angular momentum, and energy" ignores the vast field of material
science, and questions like why does rubber bounce while clay does not, and
why does silicone not bounce very much yet if you add boric acid to it (making
Silly Putty [tm]), it bounces a lot?)

