Max Goes to the Space Station: A Science Adventure with Max the Dog

Max Goes to the Space Station: A Science Adventure with Max the Dog — page 3
Tori and her family had just arrived at the playground with Max Tori and her brother ran ahead Max could barely contain his excitement but he waited obediently until Tori’s dad gave him the OK Then Max raced to the merry-go-round where he began circling it and pushing it with his paws Soon it was spinning fast Tori and her brother held on tight Max hopped on and off sometimes riding and sometimes pushing it along faster Max and Newton The real Max really did love to play with merry-go-rounds and in doing so he demonstrated a dog’s ability to understand how motion works Max learned through experience that he could speed up the merry go-round only if he pushed both down and forward as he ran not if he pushed straight down We humans also learn through experience but we can do much more We can take our experiences and use them to discover laws of nature that allow us to understand how things work and to predict future events Among the most important laws of nature are the laws of motion and the law of gravity all published by Sir Isaac Newton in 1687 These laws can be applied not only to merry go-rounds but to all types of motion In fact scientists and engineers use these laws to figure out exactly how to get a spacecraft into orbit or beyond and to predict exactly where the spacecraft will be tomorrow next week or next year In case you were wondering The real Max never went down a slide and never went into space but he was once invited to perform his merry-go-round trick on David Letterman’s show Unfortunately the show crew was unable to set up a merry-go-round on stage so Max’s appearance was cancelled Watch a video of Max on a merry-go-round at www BigKidScience com maxvideo 6