They lied to us in physics class

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

While wiring two light bulbs to one line, we created an impossible, unexplainable physical anomaly.

It began when Kimi wanted to create an electrical line from which she could hang two bulbs, put them in paper stars, and thus prettify her apartment. Sounds simple, yes? So she went to Home Depot, where she was helped by a deaf man. They wrote back and forth furiously on his pad of paper (his main mode of communication) as she tried to explain her situation. It became very complicated when she mentioned she wanted TWO bulbs on the same line. That took another couple pages and about another hour. Needless to say, by the time she got back home with the raw electrical cord, to bulb sockets and a plug, she had only a vague idea of what she had to do.

Here’s the basic idea

That’s where the rest of us come in. We (Daryl, Yuko, Lori, Merv, Susan and I) were there as moral support and Subject Matter Experts (but really, we were just pretending). So she wired it up, stuck both bulbs onto the cord in order to create a series circuit, and plugged the whole thing in. The result: only the first bulb on the line lit up. Oh. We figured it was just because one of the contacts was loose or something...until she switched the bulbs and the second bulb lit up.

From that point on, it became a matter of plugging it in again and again, trying combinations of bulbs to see which one would turn on. It was CRAZY. There was no logic whatsoever to which one turned on. We even made bets on which one would light: both, first one, second one, neither. We caught this strange phenomenon on video.

Conclusion 1: Energy is a liquid, much like the energy found Energon Cubes in the Transformers’ universe.

Conclusion 2: Bulbs head the call of Kimi when she commands them to light.

Conclusion 3: Physics sure is a screwy thing.

1. it sure was screwy!  i still haven’t figured it out!

   btw, i can’t watch the video - youtube says it’s put on private… can you make it public?

   Posted by kimi  on  08/16  at  01:08 AM

2. Ok, the vid’s fixed. You should be able to watch now!

   Posted by kat  on  08/16  at  11:01 PM

3. you guys probably should have wired it in a parallel circut instead of a series. that would have fixed that problem

   Posted by Ryan Moore  on  09/28  at  10:02 PM