Friday 16 April 2010

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"kaminari" 雷 which means both thunder AND lightning.  And this is completely true; they aren't distinct terms like they are in English.  I asked once while I was in Japan, what's the word for just the sound component- "kaminari"...  So then I asked about the light component- "kaminari"...  Then I asked how they would talk about each part separately- "Don't they always happen together?"...  Which I suppose, in a profound way, is very true.

I even asked is "kami" was lightning and "nari" was thunder...  I was just met with an incredulous look most likely reserved for people butchering another's mother tongue...  It was worth a try at least =P...

Regardless, this week in my Science 9 class, we learned about static electricity and one of the classes included various demos with the Van de Graaff generator.  It was a blast with lots of neat demos that involved this mystical, invisible force that could move things.

Even better was when we got the charges to jump between students, shocking them with what is basically lightning.


The crowning acheivement, however, was when I managed to jump a spark between my finger and a bunsen burner to get the gas to ignite.  I told the class I'd only try 3 times (it's not really that fun to have sparks coarsing through your body so often) and, lo and behold, it lit on the 3rd try.

And who says science isn't fun? =P...

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