Kids' Science Theories

The beguiling ideas about science quoted here were gleaned from essays, exams, 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."
Q: What is one horsepower? A: One horsepower is the amount of energy it takes to drag a horse 500 feet in one second.
You can listen to thunder after lightening and tell how close you came.
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.
Lime is a green-tasting rock.
Some oxygen molecules help fires burn while others help make water, so sometimes it's brother against brother.
We say the cause of perfume disappearing is evaporation.
Evaporation gets blamed for a lot of things people forget to put the top on.
In looking at a drop of water under a microscope, we find there are twice as many H's as O's.
I am not sure how clouds get formed. But the clouds know how to do it, and that is the important thing.
Water vapour gets together in a cloud. When it is big enough to be called a drop, it does.
Thunder is a rich source of loudness.
Isotherms and isobars are even more important than their names sound.
It is so hot in some places that the people there have to live in other places.