The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exam, and classroom discussions. Most were from 5th and 6th graders. They illustrate Mark Twain's contention that the 'most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.'

• Question: What is one horsepower?
  Answer: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a dead horse 500 feet in one second.
• You can listen to thunder after lightning and tell how close you came to getting hit. If you don't hear it you got hit, so never mind.
• The law of gravity says no fair jumping up without coming back down.
• Rainbows are just to look at, not to really understand.
• South America has cold summers and hot winters, but somehow they still manage.
• Most books now say our sun is a star. But it still knows how to change back into a sun in the daytime.
• A vibration is a motion that cannot make up its mind which way it wants to go.
• Many dead animals in the past changed to fossils while others preferred to be oil.
• Genetics explain why you look like your father and if you don't why you should.
• Vacuums are nothings. We only mention them to let them know we know they're there.