Skip to main content

Spontaneous generation

A week ago Luke wanted to get from the porch to the garage without going through the house.  He said that there were too many flies in the house.  I scoffed.  "What are you afraid of?  There aren't that many flies."  How wrong I was.

All the next day we killed one fly after another.  Michael stopped counting after a dozen.  Amanda even killed two with one blow (although we did not have a belt made with that phrase on it, for fear she would be recruited by passing kings who wanted her to kill a giant).  Even the spiders got into the act---there were several flies in webs around the house. Yum!

Some flies even made it into Luna's (the betta fish) tank.  I'm not sure whether she ate any of them.  It's a good thing we have three flyswatters: the entire family can get into the fly swatting act.

I went from not seeing any flies when Luke asked about them to seeing tens of them the next day.  Spontaneous generation, a la Aristotle?  Michael says that it only counts as spontaneous generation if an open garage door can be counted as spontaneous.

The flies have calmed down in the past few days---perhaps they are dying out.  We'll see if we can keep the garage door closed enough to keep the population down this weekend.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My hero, Helen Parr

Otherwise known as Elastigirl , a.k.a Mrs. Incredible. She is a stay at home mom ( SAHM ), she clearly feels that what she is doing is important and is willing to give up a lot to do it (remember her comment in the intro: "I'm at the top of my game! Leave saving the world to the guys? I don't think so.") But she is finding fulfillment in leading her family from day to day, in doing a hard job well. She also knows that she is very talented, and that knowledge helps her see beyond the repetitive drudgery of staying home. My favorite scene is from the deleted introduction, where she talks with a "career woman" who is of the opinion that staying home is fine for people who can't do anything else. She responds that taking care of her kid is at least as hard as saving the world, and is valuable contribution to society. The point for me is that someone has to do the job that I'm doing, and it's not something that you could pay someone to do. I see...

Kindergarten Fashions

I was informed the other day that Eleanor wants to get a new thermos. She lost the o-ring from her purple Tinkerbell thermos, and I have so far resisted buying another one for her, on the theory that you shouldn't just replace things that are broken since it doesn't encourage being careful with one's things. I have been sending her with the sippee cups that she has been using since she was a year old, which she has resisted giving up to the point of becoming partly dehydrated when I don't let her use them at home. Here's how the conversation went. Eleanor: Anna and Jane said today at lunch, " Kindergartners don't drink from sippee cups!" Me: That's very interesting. Eleanor: They are supposed to drink from thermoses. Me: Eleanor, would you like a new thermos? Eleanor: Yes! Get the purple one, please. If there is a crayon one, that's the one I want.... Who knew that peer pressure started in kindergarten? The sippee cups are perfectly f...

Why you should study the history of math

  Why you should study the history of math In the mid 1300s a fad made its way around Italy. Mathematicians would challenge each other to “mathematical duels”. They would post problems for their opponents to solve, sometimes along with their solutions in coded poetry. The winners would get support and funding from rich patrons, the losers would descend into obscurity. One such contest, between Fiore and Tartaglia, involved a new method for solving the cubic. In order to win, Tartaglia worked day and night to find Fiore’s method---unfortunately, Fiore did not do the same and only knew his own method and no others. (*Recall that the formula for solutions to quadratic equations of the form use the quadratic formula, Giorlamo Cardano---physician, philosopher, astrologer and mathematician---convinced Tartaglia to share his method and promised never to reveal it. Then Cardano figured out a more general method, and wanted to share it, but was blocked by his promises. Fortunately (for Ca...