The Three Little Pigs
There once were three little pigs: Einstein, Newton, and
their sister, Curie. They lived with their parents. These pigs
dreamed of becoming scientists, but unfortunately, their parents
didn't want this. They wanted Einstein to become a doctor, Newton to
become a lawyer, and Curie to become a psychologist. When Einstein,
Newton, and Curie graduated from high school, they decided to move
out and build houses for themselves. Their parents did not approve of
this idea, though, so they hired a wolf to stop the pigs from
building their houses. Little did Mom and Dad know, the wolf actually
wanted to eat the pigs!
The first pig, Einstein, set off to build his house. On his way to get a property license, he ran into a man with a bundle of straw. His parents had brought him up as a nice pig, so he asked, "May I help you carry that straw?"
"Why, thank you," the man responded.
"Hey," Einstein said with a grin, "maybe we could use this straw to find the acceleration of gravity!"
"That sounds like fun!" the man said. "Are you a scientist too?"
"I'd like to be," answered the pig.
"But how do we do it?" the man wondered.
"We can use the straw to build a house, and then we can drop the straw off the roof and time it falling!" Einstein replied.
Together, the man and the pig built a house of straw so they could use it to perform their experiment. After 35 trials of dropping bundles of straw off the roof, Einstein and his new friend decided that was enough. Using the equation Einstein had learned in 8th grade science class, they found the acceleration of gravity. Because Einstein was so experienced with science experiments, their answer, 9.8 m/s/s, was correct!
"Wow," the man beamed. "That was fun! Since you taught me how to find the acceleration of gravity, you can keep this house if you want to!"
"Gee, thanks!" said Einstein. "Well, I'd better go get a property license so I can live here. See you later!" Proud of his accomplishment, he marched to town to get a license.
When he got home, Einstein was very tired. He was going to go straight to bed. But just as he was dozing off, there was a knock at the door.
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in!" someone shouted.
"Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!" Einstein barked back, annoyed that his nap had been interrupted.
"If you don't let me in, I'll drive my car into your house!" the visitor threatened.
"Interestingly enough," Einstein began, "that is a very good lesson on momentum---" But he didn't have time to finish before a huge SUV drove right through his wall!
Angrily, the wolf leaped out of his car and glared at the pig. "That's what you get!" he snarled, and he drove off with out another word. Einstein had no choice but to go to his brother, Newton's, house.
Meanwhile, Newton, the second pig, was going to get some building materials, when a man with a wheelbarrow full of sticks appeared.
"Hey!" Newton cried. "I'm going to build a house. Could I buy those sticks from you?"
"I'll make a deal," the man said. "If you can find the density of this stick in ten minutes, I'll give them all to you for free."
"Deal!" Newton answered, holding out his hand to shake on it.
Luckily, Newton knew that density equals mass divided by volume. He pulled out his handy beaker, which he took everywhere (just in case), and quickly rigged a triple-beam balance out of some sticks. Working as fast as he could, he found the mass of the stick. He scribbled it down in his scientist's notebook, then found the volume of the stick using his beaker and 40 mL of water from his water bottle. He divided the average mass of the stick by the average volume, and came up with his answer. Showing the answer and the data to the man, Newton waited anxiously, hoping he had gotten it right.
After a few seconds, the man looked up. "That is correct," he said, shocked.
Happily, Newton lifted the handle of the wheelbarrow and began dragging it behind him. "Thanks!" he called over his shoulder, silently praising himself for his scientific knowledge.
He used his sticks to build a house, and had just settled down for supper when Einstein appeared at the window.
"Newton, the wolf broke down my house, and I need somewhere to stay!" Einstein said. "Can I stay with you?"
"I guess," Newton replied.
"Thanks! I'm really tired; I'm going to go take a nap," Einstein said, yawning.
Newton watched his brother leave the room, then took a bite of his dinner. Suddenly, he heard a knock at his door.
"Yes?" he cried, not getting up.
"Little pig, little pig, let me come in!" shouted the wolf at his door.
"Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin!" Newton yelled back. "I'm eating dinner!"
"If you don't let me in, I'll drive my car through the wall of your house!" snarled the wolf.
"Yeah, yeah," Newton answered sarcastically.
"I warned you," said the wolf, then Newton heard him tromping back down the driveway.
A moment later, Newton was startled by a huge roaring sound as the wolf's truck broke through the stick wall. Einstein entered, rubbing his eyes. "What was that?" he asked. When he saw the wolf's car, he said, "Oh, no, the wolf broke your house down, too! That's ok---we can stay with Curie."
So the two pigs set off to go find their sister.
While Einstein and Newton had been out building houses, Curie had been searching for the perfect material to build her house with. I know, she thought. I can build my house out of bricks! So, she walked in search of a place where she could buy some bricks.
After she had been walking for a while, Curie saw a man loading his car with bricks.
"What are you doing?" she asked curiously.
"Well," the man replied, "I'm just taking these bricks to the dump. I just remodeled my house, and I have so many bricks that I don't know what to do with them!"
"I'll take the bricks," Curie said.
"Hmm...Only for a price," the man responded.
"How much do you want?" Curie asked, digging into her pockets.
"I have no need for money," said the man. "What I'd really like is to know how to find the specific heat of an object."
"Why?" Curie wondered.
"For my job. I work with melted metal, and I need to know how long it stays hot before I can touch it again," he said.
"Okay!" she agreed, reaching into her suitcase and pulling out a beaker, a calorimeter, an electric scale, and a thermometer. "This will be fun!"
And so she set to work, showing the man how to find specific heat. She gave him the equation, but the man didn't have a calculator!
"I'll give you these bricks," he proposed, "if you'll give me your calculator."
Curie hesitated. Her calculator was her prized possession! Finally she agreed and pulled out her calculator, giving it one last loving look. The man took it from her and offered to drive the bricks for her to wherever she needed.
"Thanks," Curie said, hopping into the car and showing the man where she planned to build her house. Once they got there, he helped unload them and then drove off.
Curie began building her house, and, wiping her forehead, she finally finished. She looked at her house proudly, then went inside to start unpacking her suitcase. She heard the front door open and went to see who was there.
"Wow!" she squealed when she saw her two brothers in the doorway. "What are you guys doing here?"
"The big, bad wolf drove his car over our houses!" Newton said. "Can we stay here?"
"Sure," Curie replied. "I just finished building it!" She started to tell her brothers of how she had taught the man how to find specific heat and had given up her calculator to get some bricks when there was a knock at the door.
"Little pigs, little pigs, let me come in!" the wolf shouted through the bricks.
"Not by the hair on our chinny-chin-chins!" the pigs called back.
"You're asking for it!" yelled the wolf. "I will drive my car right over your house!"
"Don't be so sure!" argued Curie. "Unless you are going at a very high speed and your car has an unusually large mass, due to momentum, you will not be able to break through my brick wall because bricks have a high mass!" she explained.
Ignoring Curie, the wolf hopped into his car, which was parked about 2 meters from the wall of the house, and stepped on the gas. Because he was so close to the house, he didn't have enough time to accelerate, so his car hit the wall at a speed of 5 miles per hour, and left only a small dent in the side of the house.
A moment later, the wolf rapped on the door again. When the pigs didn't answer, the wolf tried the doorknob. In the excitement, Curie had forgotten to lock her door. The wolf stepped into the house.
"Why didn't that work?" he asked, puzzled.
"Why should we tell you?" the pigs squealed back.
"Because," the wolf began, "if you don't, I'll eat you!"
"Okay, okay!" Curie said, and again she explained that momentum was a relationship between mass and velocity.
"Wow," the wolf admitted. "That it very interesting. What else do you know about science?"
Excitedly, the pigs began throwing out scientific facts. The wolf was so enthralled that he completely forgot about his desire to eat the pigs.
"Hey!" Einstein cried. "Let's do an experiment!"
Newton and Curie dashed out of the room and reappeared a moment later with four white lab coats and a box full of scientific equipment. The four animals got to work on their experiment, which involved friction, and together they performed experiment after experiment and made many scientific discoveries. They won the Nobel prize a year later.
The three pigs lived happily ever after in their brick house, and the wolf built a house of stone next door. Einstein, Newton, and Curie never spoke to their parents again.