Topical Guide 800
Mark Dorset
Science: Experimentation
Reality, Real and Fictional
Projects, Practical and Impractical
At Home with the Glynns, Chapter 3:
I had thought of asking my mother for a few peas while she was cooking, before my father, the king of suspicion, came home, but when I rehearsed my asking her, I knew that she was sure to want the answer to a question beginning with why, and I knew it would be wise to be prepared with some sort of plausible answer.
The only answer I could think of that seemed likely to work involved using the peas in a science experiment, so I concocted one. It was based on the idea of feeding one group of pea plants on gibberellic acid (a metabolite of the fungus Gibberella fujikoroi) while leaving a second group undoped, as a control, and measuring the respiration of the plants to determine whether they processed carbon dioxide at different rates. I’ve always thought that if one is going to be prepared, one ought to be thoroughly prepared, so I imagined what it would be like to set the whole thing up in the cellar, under lights, and go through with it all, conduct the study, compile the results, make it appear legitimate. When I found myself making a mental list of the supplies I would need, I discovered that merely thinking it through was wearing me out. I abandoned that idea. It really did seem more than was required.
Peter abandons the idea of a scientific experiment involving peas, but I happen to know that Kraft, in high school, conducted the experiment that Peter claims to have “concocted,” following instructions in an installment of C. L. Strong’s “The Amateur Scientist,” a regular feature in Scientific American magazine. The article is available online, but only for people who are subscribers to Scientific American. I’d be willing to bet that it was illustrated by Roger Hayward, who illustrated many (all?) of Strong’s articles. Here is an example of his work for “The Amateur Scientist”:
See also:
Science: Big Questions TG 583
Projects, Practical and Impractical TG 367, TG 569, TG 615; Ideal or Real TG 443; Difficult TG 714; Fallout Shelter: Stocking It TG 797
[to be continued]
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