Story · ages 6–8 · a strip a week

The Muddles

Every week a Muddle has a wrong idea, the kind lots of sensible people have had. A friend tries a fair test. Then the last speech bubble is empty, and that one is yours: what would you tell them?

Your bubble stays on this device. Nothing is sent anywhere. The Muddles are never laughed at; you are their friend.

Strip 1

Heavy Falls First

  1. 1

    Muddle stands on the climbing frame with a big stone and a little pebble.

    Muddle The big stone is heavy. It will land first!

  2. 2

    Beto holds up two water bottles, the same shape. One is full. One is empty.

    Beto Same shape. One full, one empty. Drop them together?

    Muddle The full one wins. Easy.

  3. 3

    Both bottles hit the grass at the same moment. Thump. Just one thump.

    Muddle One thump? Do it again!

    Beto Again. Same.

  4. 4

    Muddle scratches a feathery head and looks at the two bottles.

    Muddle But heavy things are stronger. Why didn't it win?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Heavy things feel as if they pull harder, and a feather does fall slowly.

Try it: With a grown-up, drop a full and an empty plastic bottle from the same height onto grass. Listen for one thump or two.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

A heavy thing and a light thing of the same shape fall together. Air slows down light, wide things like feathers.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • The Greek thinker Aristotle taught, about 2,300 years ago, that heavier things fall faster. Many people believed it for nearly two thousand years. Source
  • In 1586 Simon Stevin and a friend dropped two lead balls, one ten times heavier than the other, from a church tower in Delft. They landed together. Source

Stretched

  • Galileo dropped two balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa to prove it. What we simplified: The only account comes from one of his students, written many years later. Galileo did do careful experiments with balls rolling down slopes.

Made up

  • Muddle, Beto and the climbing frame are made up. The bottle test is real; try it.

Strip 2

The Sun Goes Round

  1. 1

    Morning. Dreamer points at the Sun peeping over the print shop.

    Dreamer Look! The Sun gets up over there.

  2. 2

    Evening. The Sun sinks behind the trees on the other side of the Green.

    Dreamer And it goes down over there. It goes round us!

  3. 3

    Lan spins slowly on the spot, arms out. Dreamer spins too.

    Lan Watch the trees while you spin. What do they do?

    Dreamer Whoa! The trees are going round and round!

  4. 4

    Dreamer sits on the grass, a bit dizzy, looking up at the sky.

    Dreamer Wait. Are the trees moving, or am I?

That was a reasonable thing to think. It really does look as if the Sun moves across the sky, and you cannot feel the Earth turning.

Try it: Sit on a spinning chair with a grown-up turning it slowly. Watch a lamp: does the lamp move, or do you?

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

The Earth spins round once every day. Turning towards the Sun is morning; turning away is evening.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • For more than a thousand years, most astronomers taught that the Sun and the planets go round the Earth. Source
  • In 1543 Nicolaus Copernicus published a book saying that the Earth spins and goes round the Sun. Source
  • The Earth spins once a day, which is why the Sun seems to rise and set. Source

Stretched

  • Before Copernicus, everyone thought the Earth was flat. What we simplified: Educated people had known the Earth is round since ancient Greece. The old picture had a round Earth in the middle.

Made up

  • Dreamer, Lan and the spinning game on the Green are made up.

Strip 3

Plants Eat Soil

  1. 1

    Muddle spoons soil round a tiny seedling in a pot.

    Muddle Plants eat soil. That's how they get big!

  2. 2

    Inkling puts the pot of soil on the kitchen scales before the seed goes in.

    Inkling Let's weigh the soil first. I noticed something about the scales.

  3. 3

    Many weeks later. The plant is tall. The soil, weighed again, is almost the same.

    Inkling The soil weighs nearly the same!

    Muddle But the plant got so big!

  4. 4

    Muddle peers under the leaves while Inkling pours in water.

    Muddle If it didn't eat the soil, what did it eat?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Plants sit in soil, and their roots go deep into it.

Try it: With a grown-up, weigh a pot of soil before planting a bean, and again in a month. Write both numbers down.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

Plants build themselves mostly from air and water, using sunlight. They take only a little from the soil.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • For a very long time people thought plants took their food from the soil. Source
  • In the 1600s Jan Baptist van Helmont grew a willow tree in a weighed pot of soil for five years. The tree gained about 74 kilograms; the soil lost only about 57 grams. Source
  • Van Helmont decided the tree was made of water. He was partly right: most of a plant is made from carbon dioxide from the air and water, through photosynthesis. Source

Stretched

  • Plants get nothing at all from soil. What we simplified: Roots take up water and small amounts of minerals, such as nitrogen, from the soil. They just do not eat it for their bulk.

Made up

  • Muddle, Inkling and the pot are made up.

Strip 4

Big Things Sink

  1. 1

    At the pond, Dreamer looks at a huge log and a tiny pebble.

    Dreamer Big things sink. Little things float.

  2. 2

    Beto drops the pebble in. Plop. It goes straight down.

    Dreamer Huh. It was little, but it sank.

  3. 3

    Beto rolls the big log into the water. It bobs and floats.

    Beto How does it work? The log is huge. Watch.

    Dreamer It's floating!

  4. 4

    Dreamer holds a pebble in one paw and a twig in the other.

    Dreamer So it isn't size. What is it, then?

That was a reasonable thing to think. A big ship and a small coin make it look as if size is what matters.

Try it: In a bowl of water, try a coin, an apple, a cork and a lump of modelling clay. Then make the clay into a boat shape and try again.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

It is how heavy something is for its size. Things that are lighter than the same amount of water float.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • Many children and grown-ups think size decides whether something floats. Archimedes wrote a book about floating more than 2,200 years ago. Source
  • Whether something floats depends on how heavy it is for its size compared with water. Source
  • A steel ship floats because its shape holds a lot of air; a solid steel ball sinks. Source

Stretched

  • Archimedes jumped out of his bath and ran down the street shouting Eureka. What we simplified: The story was first written down about two hundred years after he died.

Made up

  • Dreamer, Beto and the pond are made up.

Strip 5

Flies From Fruit

  1. 1

    On the kitchen windowsill, tiny flies buzz round a bowl of old bananas.

    Muddle Old fruit makes flies! It turns into them!

  2. 2

    Danya puts banana in two jars. One gets a cloth on top. One stays open.

    Danya How do we know? Two jars. Same fruit. One covered.

  3. 3

    Days later. The open jar is full of flies. The covered jar has none inside.

    Muddle No flies in the covered jar!

    Danya Look on top of the cloth.

  4. 4

    Muddle watches flies walking about on top of the cloth.

    Muddle If fruit makes flies, why didn't this fruit make any?

That was a reasonable thing to think. The flies seem to appear out of nowhere, right where the fruit is.

Try it: With a grown-up, put a slice of banana in two clean jars, cover one with a cloth and a rubber band, and look each day for a week.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

Flies come from eggs laid by other flies. Covering the fruit kept the flies from laying eggs on it.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • For about two thousand years, many people believed small living things like flies could grow out of rotting food. Source
  • In 1668 Francesco Redi put meat in jars, some covered with gauze. Maggots appeared only where flies could reach the meat. Source

Stretched

  • Redi settled the question for good. What we simplified: People argued about tiny microbes for about two hundred more years, until Louis Pasteur's experiments in the 1860s.

Made up

  • Muddle, Danya and the kitchen are made up. The jar test is real; try it.

Strip 6

The Bigger Bottom Number

  1. 1

    Two cheese pizzas, the same size, on the Whetstone's table.

    Dreamer I want a quarter. No, an eighth! Eight is more!

  2. 2

    Lan cuts one pizza into four slices and the other into eight.

    Lan I'll do it! Here's a quarter. Here's an eighth.

  3. 3

    The two slices side by side. The eighth is much smaller.

    Dreamer Hey! My slice is tiny!

  4. 4

    Dreamer looks at all eight little slices in a circle.

    Dreamer Eight is bigger than four. So why is my slice smaller?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Most of the time a bigger number does mean more.

Try it: Fold one paper circle into four and another into eight. Lay one piece of each side by side.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

The bottom number says how many pieces the whole is cut into. More pieces means each piece is smaller.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • In the 1980s the burger chain A&W sold a third-pound burger. Its owner later said many customers thought a third was smaller than a quarter, because three is smaller than four. Source
  • Two eighths make one quarter, so a quarter is twice as big as an eighth of the same pizza.

Stretched

  • The third-pound burger failed only because people thought a third was smaller. What we simplified: That is the owner's account. Price and taste may have mattered too.

Made up

  • Dreamer, Lan and the pizzas are made up.

Strip 7

Eyes That Shine

  1. 1

    Muddle stares hard at a book on the shelf.

    Muddle My eyes shoot out and touch the book. That's seeing!

  2. 2

    Inkling shuts the curtains and turns off the lamp. Pitch dark.

    Inkling Wait, I noticed something. Look at the book now.

  3. 3

    Darkness. Two round eyes, wide open.

    Muddle I'm looking so hard. I can't see anything.

  4. 4

    Inkling clicks the lamp back on. The book is there again.

    Muddle My eyes didn't change. So what changed?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Seeing feels like reaching out, and we say we 'look at' things.

Try it: In a dark room with a grown-up, look for a toy. Then open the door a crack. When does it appear?

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

Light from a lamp or the Sun bounces off the book and travels into our eyes. No light, no seeing.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • Empedocles, Plato, Euclid and Ptolemy all wrote that sight works by rays going out from the eye. Source
  • A 2002 study by Winer and colleagues found that as many as half of the college students asked believed something goes out from the eyes. Source
  • About a thousand years ago Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) explained that we see because light reflects off things into our eyes. Source

Stretched

  • Ibn al-Haytham invented the camera. What we simplified: He studied the camera obscura, a dark room with a small hole, which people knew about long before him. Cameras came many centuries later.

Made up

  • Muddle, Inkling and the dark room are made up.

Strip 8

Stopping by Itself

  1. 1

    Dreamer rolls a marble across the rug. It slows and stops.

    Dreamer See? It ran out of push. Everything does.

  2. 2

    Beto puts a big smooth tray on the floor.

    Beto How does it work? Same marble. Same push. Watch.

  3. 3

    The marble rolls across the tray, all the way, and taps the far edge.

    Dreamer It went so far! I didn't push harder.

  4. 4

    Dreamer kneels by the rug, rubbing a paw on the bumpy wool.

    Dreamer Same push both times. So why did it stop here?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Almost everything we push does slow down and stop.

Try it: Roll the same ball across carpet, a wooden floor and a smooth tray. Mark where it stops each time.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

Rubbing against the bumpy rug slows the marble down. With nothing rubbing, it would keep going.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • About 2,300 years ago Aristotle taught that a moving thing keeps moving only while something keeps it moving. People learned this for many centuries. Source
  • Galileo and later Isaac Newton argued that a moving thing keeps moving unless something, like rubbing, slows it. Source

Stretched

  • Newton worked out all of this on his own. What we simplified: He built on Galileo, Descartes and others, and said so himself.

Made up

  • Dreamer, Beto, the rug and the tray are made up.

Strip 9

The Moon's Shadow

  1. 1

    A thin crescent Moon over the Green.

    Muddle The Earth's shadow is eating the Moon. Most of it is gone!

  2. 2

    Indoors, curtains shut. Lan holds a ball on a stick. A lamp shines from one side.

    Lan I'll do it! The lamp is the Sun. Walk round me.

  3. 3

    Muddle walks round Lan. The ball shows a thin bright edge, then a half, then all of it.

    Muddle A thin one! A half one! Now a whole one!

  4. 4

    Muddle stops. Nothing is between the lamp and the ball.

    Muddle No shadow touched it. So why was it thin?

That was a reasonable thing to think. Shadows do make things dark, and the Moon does go dark in parts.

Try it: In a dark room, a grown-up holds a lamp still. Hold a ball at arm's length and turn slowly round. Watch its bright part.

For grown-ups: the idea behind the empty bubble

Half of the Moon is always lit by the Sun. As it goes round us we see more or less of the lit half.

Ask for the child's bubble before you read this out. Any answer that uses the test counts.

The Honest Page

Which parts of this story are true, stretched or made up?

True

  • Some people believe the phases are caused by the Earth's shadow falling on the Moon. They are not. Source
  • The Moon shines with sunlight, and the part we see lit changes from nothing at new moon to nearly all of it at full moon. Source
  • The Earth's shadow does fall on the Moon sometimes. That is an eclipse of the Moon, and it only happens at full moon. Source

Stretched

  • The Moon has a dark side that is always dark. What we simplified: The far side gets as much sunlight as the near side. We just never see it from Earth.

Made up

  • Muddle, Lan and the ball on a stick are made up.