The Science of Christmas

I wonder if today's kids learn as much from the holidays as my generation did when we were kids?

As OSHA, the EPA, and the PC Gestapo continue their quest to remove all physical and emotional dangers from the world, I would guess that we're losing many fabulous opportunities for holiday accoutrements to serve as environmental teaching aids. The other day I mentioned the magical bubble lights that beautified my family's Christmas tree each year -- you can't even buy stuff like that anymore. Though they sparked childhood imagination and gave parents precious opportunities to explain physics and fluid dynamics to their wonderstruck offspring, they've disappeared in favor of crummy little LEDs that don't even have enough wattage to leave a mark on your skin.

Sigh.

Here is a short list of applied science that was visible at my childhood home during December:

• Convection Currents—We had this really cool little candle holder that had trumpeting cherubs suspended on a fan-bladed carousel assembly. As the warmth from the candles heated up the air the rising draft would spin the carousel, sending the cherubs into the path of little brass bells that would ring in a cheerful rhythm as the circling cherubs struck them. Of course, we experimented to see how many candles it took to set them moving -- and what would happen if you shoved a whole bunch of extra candles under the fan blades. We learned that with enough hot air rising, you could set that sucker spinning so fast that the cherubs would fly off and crash onto the tabletop. Lesson: Fire + Crashing Cherubs = Fun with Science



• Electrical Circuitry—Helping my dad hang the outdoor lights gave me my first exposure to series vs. parallel circuitry. Back in those days, light strings were wired in series, which meant that if any single bulb went out, the entire string would no longer light up. Therefore, you'd have to screw a new bulb into each socket, one at a time, in trial-and-error fashion until the lights came back on again. Then came the real challenge -- remembering to immediately throw away the burnt-out bulb so you wouldn't end up trying to put in back in to replace the next one that burnt out. Lesson: Don't buy series-wired light sets.
  
  We also enjoyed watching the electric meter on the back of the house during this process. When the lights were out, the meter wheel would turn at a barely discernable pace, but when the house lit up, it spun like a top. Lesson: If you want to have any of your college fund left, turn out the dang lights at 10pm!
  
  The outdoor lights on the house were powered by an extension cord that ran down to an outlet that was hidden behind the juniper bushes. To turn them on, you had to wriggle behind the bushes and bend over to insert the plug into the outlet. If it had snowed, you'd get snow all over yourself, and would probably be standing in either snow or mud, and the cord prongs would be all wet, as well. Dad, being an electrical engineer, was very good about warning us to be careful when completing the circuit on damp nights. Tempting as it may be to run outside in your pajamas and bare feet to deal with the lights, it probably wasn't a very good idea. Lesson: Perhaps some of the OSHA warnings and building codes aren't really so ridiculous after all.
  
  And one final note regarding electricity. Herbie discovered that you could get a good head buzz by taking a 9-volt walkie-talkie battery and putting both terminals on your tongue to complete the circuit through your lengual flesh. Lesson: Herbie is an idiot.



• Friction—Both the hanging and de-hanging of the outdoor Christmas lights required lessons in gravitational physics. The mounting system was a series of big ol' nails pounded into the home's eaves at approximately 1-meter intervals. These nails remained in place year-round, and when it came time to string the lights, it was simply a matter of prying the twisted wires far enough apart to slip them over these nails. The problem was that the eaves were about 3 meters off the ground, and could not be reached without mechanical assistance. In the early years, the bushes were small enough that a ladder could be used, resulting in many lessons about center of gravity placement, friction coefficients of muddy shoes on icy rungs, and the fact that those small bushes were not anywhere near as soft as they looked when you fell into them. But in the later years, we found that it was easier to climb up on the roof, slide over to the edge on your belly, and install the lights from above. Lesson: Put the lights up before it snows.



• Entropy—We had this funky "Santa Clause in a Throne" statuette that was an artistic representation of that whole "Omniscient Arbiter of Goodness" vibe. I'm not exactly sure what it was made of, but part of it accumulated this funky green crust on it over the years, similar to the way that copper Capitol domes corrode. And if that semi-creepy Christmas icon was enough to teach the lesson of the inevitable systemic advancement of chaos, there was the annual ritual of polishing the silver prior to the big Christmas meal. This "good" silverware was kept in a fancy box with felt padding, and between holiday meals, it acquired a brownish patina that had to be removed with vigorous rubbing and caustic chemicals. Lesson: When you grow up, buy stainless steel silverware. Supplementary (vocabulary) lesson: Learn the meanings of "tarnish", "patina", "caustic", and coincidentally "gravy ladle".



• Pressure & Thermal State Transition—Holidays were just about the only time the mysterious "pressure cooker" made its appearance in the kitchen. To this day, I'm not sure what was cooked in there, but I did finally come to understand the purpose of the device. By clamping the lid on tightly, you create a sealed chamber, in which water boils, steam accumulates, and pressure builds. As pressure increases, it takes more energy to boil water, so the temperature inside could rise above the nominal boiling point of 100°C. This makes whatever you've immersed in the hot water cook faster. It's good science, but it can be pretty scary to a little kid, as the pressure relief valve on top sputters and whistles as it releases just enough steam to keep things from blowing up. You can't look inside, either, cuz the lid is locked on. Lesson: Turkey, mashed potatoes, pie, and cinnamon rolls can be cooked without a pressure cooker, therefore, let's avoid stuff that might explode and sling giblets all over the kitchen, OK?



• Photosensitive Emulsion—I will always be eternally grateful that my dad had a movie camera with which to document our holiday get-togethers. Those memories are precious. (It's too bad he never took a cinematography class, though, cuz let's face it, his composition and shot selection left much to be desired.) Each Christmas morning, us kids would gather in the parental bedroom and wait nervously while Dad set up the lights to film our procession over to the piano bench to see what Santa brought. (We had no chimney, so the piano seemed a logical place to hang the stockings. Santa didn't seem to mind.) The 8mm film my dad used was not well-suited for indoor filming, so he supplemented the ambient light was these two giant airport-runway floodlights mounted on a handheld crossbar. When the living room lit up like the surface of Mercury, we'd know it was time to march out into the living room.
  
  Of course, we'd smile and look into the camera, which meant that we also looked into the Kleig lights, and were subsequently blinded for several critical minutes as we fumbled around, trying to discern what Santa had left through tactile senses alone. At the time the lights were annoying, but in retrospect, it added one of those little unique touches to our holiday traditions that will be remembered throughout our lives. Anyway, it was a big rite of passage for me when my dad finally let me see inside the camera, and taught me how to load and unload the film. We had to do it in the dark (or nearly so), and then put the roll immediately into a can and seal it up with tape to ensure that no more light got in. But even the brief transition from camera to can created a bit of overexposure, which explained why each reel we got back from processing had a big flare in the film during the first and last seconds of the movie. I think it's kinda too bad that today's kids take video for granted, and never have that sense of wonder and awe at seeing their actions documented for posterity. Oh well, I sure had fun with it. Lesson: When recording family events, spend more time on the people than on the packages and piles of wrapping paper. Oh, and don't set the 40-million-candlepower light bar down on anything flammable.

Those are just some of the thought-provoking experiences and opportunities I was exposed to during the holidays of my youth. I suppose that today's kids learn lessons, too (such as how to use the TV remote control, or how to log into Amazon's return policy web page, etc), but I suspect they're missing some of those great and enriching experiences that can only be achieved by close contact with electric, themal, and chemical reactions.

Oh well. All I know is that I'd recommmend that each of you gather the young and old together and talk about what you might learn from the holidays that you can't get from the rest of the year. Not just in terms of stuff that burns, sizzles, or explodes, but also in terms of what Christmas really means, and how those meanings can influence the people we turn out to be. You'll be glad you did.

Have a great day, my friends!