So the other day, some of the "adult" folks who play on the Minecraft server that my son and I play on noticed some of Connor's builds. Specifically, they noted the "redstone" creations he made - machines with pistons basically - which he frequently loves to invent. Some are quite elaborate, actually. All of them are above my head.
One of the adults, who I suspect is secretly an engineer, is something of a master at the art of redstone mechanisms. I suspect her to be an engineer because, when she still proceeded under the assumption that Connor's builds were done by an adult, she gave little tips on how to improve them. She suggested he google "quasi connectivity" and continued on babbling about "rising monostable circuits". That sounds like engineer speak to me. I laughed and laughed, and informed her that he couldn't likely even spell "google". He's only 6 after all. Well, almost 7.
After the shock among the general public of the server subsided, it was generally agreed upon that Connor was quite smart and quite advanced for his age.
I wasn't about to disagree.
I will shamelessly and selfishly concede that he gets it from his father. After all, I used to be smart too! A nerd, if you will. I actually was awarded the Bank of America Award in Science in high school. I graduated in the top 10 in my class. Not the top 10 percent mind you, but the top 10 people. Granted, it was a relatively small high school graduating class. But still. I gave all that up, by and by, because...well, I suppose because I just wasn't inspired anymore. Maybe I was tired of it. I don't know.
In any case, the other night Connor fell asleep with tablet in hand as he was reading books about kitties on Epic. As the picture clearly illustrates. He's taken to reading more, which is a good thing. He was already pretty sharp in math. Today he was struggling a bit with double-digit addition. 24+13 and so on. He's only in First Grade after all. Meanwhile, in class, they slowly plod along working out the mental processes behind determining the answer to 5+1.
Science remains, at present, still a bit of mystery in the scope of his interests. Sometimes he asks lots of questions, like tonight in which I was interrogated about the phases of moon and their relation to the position and movement of the earth and sun.
I guess I need to brush up on my astronomy. Maybe I can find the paper I wrote in college on Seyfert Galaxies. Not that that would help much, but at least it would be in the right discipline.
Usually though, his thoughts are on more typical six-year-old topics. Farts, mostly. His inquisitive mind came up yesterday with this delightful mind twister: does the smell from farts follow you? Well. I don't know about that. They sure seem to. Sometimes.
I suppose I should have applied the scientific method on this one. Would have been a good way to exercise my mind again, after all these years. The problem was as stated. The background research...I imagine would be difficult. I don't imagine there's been lots of scholarly work done on flatulence. Excepting of course in the case of cows and methane production. The hypothesis is as simple as: Yes. Yes it does. As far as experimentation and recording and analyzing data...well, does anyone really want to go into that much detail on this topic?
I think perhaps this should be left to Connor to figure out. Or maybe such scientific dealings can wait until he's a little older...and picks a slightly more appropriate topic. We didn't get that far on this question, unfortunately, as he suddenly had a "loosy goosy" toot, and our attention was directed elsewhere. On second thought, maybe that was his Step 4 in action. He was attempting experimentation in order to prove his hypothesis and find an answer to his problem.
I guess he tried too hard. So much for The Scientific Method.
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