Question of the Day: 36

If a ball is thrown straight up from ground level into the air at 10 m/s, how long will it be until the ball hits the ground, assuming gravity's acceleration to be 9.8 m/s(squared)?


Everyone else has to confront this question today because I had to confront that question last night when helping Middle study for her Trigonometry & Statistics exam. After about 45 minutes, we came up with this equation, where "t" is the time until the ball hits:


-10t = -4.9t(squared)


Which we then couldn't solve for t because I couldn't figure out how to dequadratic-ize that or whatever the term is -- forcing Middle to say that she was going to the review session before her final exam today, and forcing me to acknowledge that the older kids have now progressed beyond the point where I can be of much direct help in their homework.

But I can still indirectly help, and I did that -- by making some extra coffee for today so that Middle could get a cup of coffee bright and early and go talk to her teacher. I have, therefore, officially progressed from "father who helps with homework" to "beverage service."

In other mental degeneration news, I mentioned a while back on The Best of Everything that I had subcontracted out my memory to Google, something I did because looking things up on my computer has become easier than actually remembering them.

The extent to which I've opted not to remember or even try to remember things hit me today when I needed to locate a file number for a case I'm on. I opted to do a "Google desktop" search of my computer to locate that file number -- because doing that was easier than looking at the file itself.

The file itself was sitting just out of arm's reach on my desk.

I will remember that moment, someday, when I am reduced to a blog of protoplasm electronically linked to Google.



Five Pages publishes a novel as I write it: Five pages at a time, each week day. Right now:

Up So Floating Many Bells Down: Sarah's fiance has drowned, and while she struggles to convince the world, and herself, that he was killed, her brother Dylan up and moves to Las Vegas to pursue a career as a photographer.