Cinderella
Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young girl known as Cinderella enslaved by her evil stepmother. Cinderella, who was actually very bright and loved thinking about physics, cooked and cleaned all day.
One rainy day, a messenger of the prince came to the house of Cinderella's evil stepmother. Cinderella didn't hear the messenger arrive because she was too busy staring out the window, thinking about lightning.
"Lightning is really plasma," she thought. "I see the lightning before I hear the thunder because light travels way faster than sound." She had stopped sweeping.
"Get the door, you lazy girl!" yelled the evil stepmother.
Cinderella led the messenger up the stairs to the evil stepmother who sat in the second-story kitchen sipping her tea. "Get back to sweeping," said the stepmother, watching Cinderella coming up the stairs.
Cinderella, who was not always as nice as she appeared, plodded down the stairs and picked up the broom. She dreamt of her stepmother falling off the second story. She knew the rate of acceleration of a falling object due to gravity was 9.8m/s/s. If her mother fell the 10 meters between the balcony and the ground, it would take her approximately 1.5 seconds to hit the tile with a loud thud.
Cinderella, now humming a funeral march, returned to her sweeping.
Later that day, Cinderella was summoned by her stepmother.
Her stepmother said something important, which Cinderella missed because she was watching the pen her stepmother banged against the kitchen table. Cinderella knew the pen was being used as a third-class lever. The only words Cinderella heard were "ball" and "prince." As she exited through the second-class lever, Cinderella dreamt of dancing with the prince, but received a rude awakening when she nearly fell down the stairs.
The evening of the ball, Cinderella watched while her stepmother and stepsisters rode away in a shining carriage. Cinderella wished they would take a wrong turn and end up splattered against the bottom of a ditch. She knew even if her evil relatives died, she still wouldn't ever get to the ball, and she cried.
Suddenly, Cinderella's fairy godmother appeared. "Child, why do you cry?" asked the fairy godmother.
"I wish my stepmother and stepsisters were dead," said Cinderella.
"How about you just go to the ball instead," said Cinderella's fairy godmother.
"Ok," Cinderella said and the fairy godmother turned a pumpkin into a carriage, some mice into horses, and Cinderella's rags into a beautiful gown.
Cinderella looked out the window at the thermometer, thought something very nasty about her stepmother for buying a thermometer that only showed Fahrenheit, and converted to Celsius. Since the thermometer read 14°F, Cinderella converted that to -10°C and asked her fairy godmother for a jacket.
"At midnight, the carriage will be a pumpkin again, the horses will be mice, the dress will be rags, and only the glass slippers will still be glass slippers," said Cinderella's fairy godmother, helping Cinderella into the carriage before giving the horses a good slap, sending Cinderella off to the palace.
About a minute into the ride, Cinderella realized she was going too slowly. She had been traveling at 10 km per hour and still had 15 km to go and only 4 hours to midnight. Since the ball started in 30 minutes, Cinderella had to go 30 km per hour to arrive in time. She got out of the carriage, detached one of the horses, and rode the rest of the way, still arriving 10 minutes late because of the time she wasted separating the horse and the carriage.
At the ball, the prince only danced with Cinderella. No one recognized her because she wore a beautiful dress and never told anyone, including the prince, her name.
The clock struck midnight and Cinderella ran home, entering the back door only slightly before her stepmother and stepsisters entered through the second-class lever that was the front door. The only sign Cinderella had ever left the house was a glass slipper she left stuck in the mud on her run home.
The prince had fallen in love with Cinderella and searched the kingdom for the foot that fit the slipper. At the evil stepmother's house, he saw three girls, all with feet too big to fit into the slipper. On his way out, he saw Cinderella starring at out the window and demanded to see her. Cinderella's foot fit the slipper and she married the prince. The evil stepmother, having never cleaned up a mess, slipped on a banana peel outside the kitchen, falling from the second story to the tile below, accelerating at a rate of 9.8 m/s/s.
Back To Mr. Brügge's World