Learning Zone
           

There are so many things in this world to discover! Here are some subjects that fascinate Professor Pennypickle:

Earthquakes & Tsunamis
Perhaps you heard about a powerful 7.9 earthquake that hit Peru. Or maybe you know that several years ago, South Asia  experienced a massive earthquake - 9.0 on the Richter scale (you can see the Professor's version of a Richter scale in his Pantry at Pennypickle's Workshop). Seismologists use a Richter scale to express the magnitude of seismic energy released by each earthquake.

Tsunamis are large waves that are generated by earthquakes under the ocean floor.

Earthquakes and tsunamis originate where two tectonic plates move toward one another. When one plate slips under another one, an earthquake can be triggered. The motion creates "swelling" in the ocean, pushing waves outward with enormous energy, creating a tsunami. (See the Major Tectonic Plates of the World.)

If you are concerned that this could happen in Southern California, well, the likelihood is slim, since the earthquake faults and landslide potential off the So. CA coastline would not have the power to generate a large tsunami. Also, the faults here (transform faults, the most common type of fault in California) generally move horizontally (side to side) and not vertically (up and down). A vertical motion is what allows the sea floor to drop and create the swelling energy that produces tsunamis. There is, however, a chance that a small tsunami could potentially be created in the Palos Verdes Peninsula and the Santa Barbara Channel, but it would not reach far inland, where Temecula is located.

For more information about earthquakes, see:
www.fema.gov/kids/quake.htm

For more information about tsunamis, see:
http://cwis.usc.edu/dept/tsunamis

Magnetic Forces
The Professor loves magnets! (You can tell...there are a lot in the gift shop.) Do you know what makes a magnet work?

At this time, there are four basic forces that are known: gravity, electromagnetism, weak, strong. What creates these forces? There is speculation among particle physicists that these forces are the result of photons that are exchanged between particles. This exchange is what creates a repulsion or attraction between various particles, giving us the forces we call gravity, magnetism, and others that hold the protons together in the center of the atom.

Got that? Yeah, it's complicated.

An easier way to put it is this:
all magnets have two ends, usually marked "north" and "south," and that magnets attract things made of steel or iron. There is a fundamental law of all magnets: Opposites attract and likes repel. So, if you have two bar magnets with their ends marked "north" and "south," the north end of one magnet will attract the south end of the other. On the other hand, the north end of one magnet will repel the north end of the other (and similarly, south will repel south).

A magnet can be made to stick to objects which contain magnetic material such as iron, even if that object is not a magnet. But a magnet cannot be made to stick to materials which are plastic, or cotton, or any other material, such as wood, which is not magnetic.

All you really need to know is that magnets are fun to play with!

Wheels and More Wheels
Did you get a bicycle for Christmas? Do you know what a unicycle is?

Of course, it's obvious that a bicycle has two wheels (bi- means two)...so a unicycle has one wheel (because uni- means one) and a tricycle has three wheels (can you guess what tri- means??!!).

The Professor adores wheeled objects, and you'll find wheels to help you spin on the Time Machine in his Library at Pennypickle's Workshop.

Sometimes, unicycles are for sale in the gift shop.

    More Learning!