My first blog post- yay!! 😆
The Experimentation Process-
Tubes of Mystery… sounds like something you would find in Harry Potter right? Anyway, when I walked into my Physics class for the very first time this year, I was given one of these “Tubes of Mystery” (oooooh ahhhhhh) – a piece of PVC pipe with four knotted ropes hanging out of it, but with the openings on the top and bottom sealed with duct tape. I had never seen anything like it before, so when my awesome Physics teacher (Mr. Battaglia) allowed us a few minutes to observe the tube, I just stared at it in awe as I played with the ropes, pulling one out and watching the rest pull in at the same time, over and over and over. I was confused at first on the pattern of how the ropes worked, but almost immediately after I figured it out, I needed to know how it worked inside. Though I wanted to jump to conclusions, Mr. Battaglia explained that observations are crucial to discovering an answer to a question. So I, along with the team I was working with, quickly jotted down some observations, and they included:
- When one string is pulled out, the rest are pulled in at the same time.
- If you pull out two ropes that are not diagonal to each other, the tube can slide on the rope either vertically or horizontally, depending on which ropes you pulled.
- The tube slid smoother horizontally than vertically.
Using these observations, we eagerly started sketching ideas of what we thought was going on inside the Tubes of Mystery. I found that each idea we had led the next, so we generally had a range of complex and simple versions of the same idea. We called them “theories,” and that’s where we went wrong, besides the fact that our ideas may or may not have been a replica of what was happening inside of our Tube of Mystery. Mr. Battaglia told us that theories were “practically scientific laws, but just had to be proven,” so from there we brainstormed other words we could use to replace “theory” and decided on “idea.” It ended up being a wonderful learning lesson for us and the entire class. We were able to present our ideas and hear what ideas other groups had come up with.
Pro Tip: Never use the word “theory” to describe an “idea” 😉
Finally came the day when we got to test our ideas! The whole room was buzzing with excitement as we attempted to make (hopefully) mini replicas of the Tubes of Mystery. Our group split up to work one on one, and we each took an idea to test. In the end, we came up with tubes that were almost there, but just had one detail that made them incorrect. The tube I made totally failed, but I wasn’t sad, because I didn’t result with a mini replica of a Tube of Mystery, but instead a lovely friend named Fred John Styles, who to me, was just as good as finding out how the Tubes of Mystery worked. I was excited for my classmates that did figure it out, but for me and Fred, sometimes its good to have somethings that are undiscovered… it’s the spice of life, right?
Conclusions
Even if I had found a way for a tube to work like the Tubes of Mystery, it wouldn’t really be an exact replica would it? Maybe. But not without opening up the Tubes of Mystery and observing what’s inside. Does it really matter though what is inside of the tube? No! If we figured out another way of making a Tube of Mystery then, yay us! If we have our own method, we can replicate that and it doesn’t matter how the original works, because if they work the same, our newly discovered method is just as good as the original. Tubes of Mystery- ha! We figured you out! Not so mysterious are ya now…
Sadie's Science Blog 😄🔬 