Science questions for kids | How did science come about?

How did science come about?

Karamzini school 4th grade science elective students, Espoo

Science was born out of curiosity and a desire to experiment. People wanted to understand things and do them in a new way. That desire is characteristic of the human species, so in that sense science is as old as man.

Transferring information became safer and more accurate when you learned to do it using writing and numbers.

The art of writing was already invented in the 3000s before the beginning of the countdown in the area of ​​present-day Iraq. In this case, the observations could be shared with people far away and from generation to generation. More people were able to participate in testing and improving the information.

Astronomy is often considered to be the oldest real science – there are very old signs left of its doing.

It has been found that already in the Stone Age more than 3,500 years ago, people were looking for regularities in the movements of celestial bodies and made markings on their objects and structures.

In early cultures, there were people who specialized in astronomical knowledge, and progress from observations to theories was made no later than in ancient Greece about 300 years before the start of the countdown. At first, however, no distinction was made between divination from the stars and the study of the stars.

Eventually even the rulers noticed the usefulness of science and began to support researchers, scientific societies and research institutes, and producing and testing knowledge became a profession for some. Nations began to compete to see who could do the best science.

Modern science has its roots in the 16th and 17th centuries. Italian and English scientific societies were important incubators of new science.

They began to emphasize the importance of repeatable natural science experiments and observations, even though the universities still focused on old texts and ancient scholarship.

Heini Hakosalo

University researcher and docent of the history of sciences and ideas

University of Oulu

What is the strongest plant in Finland, and what about the whole world?

Lahja Saarinen, 8

Plants can be strong in many ways. It is difficult to define which of the plants is the strongest.

A plant can be strong, for example, in such a way that it survives in difficult growing conditions, such as liverwort on a cliff or cactus in the desert. A plant can also be a particularly strong structure, like trees. Different pliable and flexible plants can also be very strong in structure.

If strength means above all a strong structure, the strongest plants in Finland might be trees. Many of them are of very strong construction.

The trunk of the tree provides strength, which allows trees tens of meters high to bend without breaking even in strong winds. The frame can be sawn into boards, logs and poles to be used as building material for houses and furniture.

One of the strongest, if not the strongest, trees in Finland is the birch. It is such a hard material that it is difficult to work with in woodwork.

The rattan palm, on the other hand, is a good candidate for the world's strongest plant. Its really durable and flexible stem is used to make furniture and other necessities.

The banana-like manila hemp is also a very strong plant. It consists of fibers that can withstand even strong pulling and bending without breaking. Manilla hemp is used to make the famous manilla rope, which is even so durable that it can be used to tie a large ocean liner to a pier in a harbor.

Saijaliisa Kangasjärvi

assistant professor of plant biology

university of Helsinki

Is a horned whale's horn so hard that it can break ice?

Topias Selin, 4

Horned whale the horn is formed from the left tooth, which in dogs grows up to three meters long. It is very rare for a female to grow a horn.

The horn is softer on the outside than on the inside. It contains an innumerable number of nerve endings, which makes it very sensitive.

It is known that the horned whale can use its horn to sense, among other things, the temperature and salinity of the water. In this way, the horned whale can, for example, monitor where the ice is developing and find areas that are not blocked by ice.

The horn is somewhat flexible laterally. There are some observations that the horn whale can slap fish with its horn and thus stun them into easier bites.

It has been speculated that the horn of the horned whale is also related to fighting, defending against predators and even spearing food. However, those theories have not received support.

The main reason for the horn is probably that the dogs can use it to impress females. A bit like birds: male birds are more colorful to win the attention of female birds.

It has been assumed that the horn also helps in breaking the ice, but there are no observations of breaking. The horn might well be able to withstand the blasting of thin ice. After all, it will hardly stick to the dough. The record for breaking ice is held by the bowhead whale, which can break at least twenty centimeters of ice.

The horn of horned whales, also called the unicorns of the sea, has raised many questions for centuries. Topias is not alone with his question!

Sanna Kuningas

specialist researcher

Natural Resources Center

What kind of sound does it make when the tooth goblin eats teeth?

Auri Knaapi, 3

Caries bacteriawhich is also often called the tooth troll, is such a small creature that we cannot see it with the naked eye.

We also cannot hear the sounds it makes. It might be possible to hear with ultra-sensitive devices, but at least they haven't been invented yet.

If we could hear the sounds made by the tooth ghost, they could be something like this. First, the tooth troll would creep quietly and imperceptibly onto the surface of the tooth. At first you might hear a hiss as it sprays acid onto the tooth.

Then it would start to eat away at the hard surface of the tooth, and you could hear a small clicking sound like hitting a stone with a mini-hammer. When the toothpick gets deeper into the tooth and reaches the soft dental bone, you might hear a crunching sound.

We can evict tooth ghosts from the mouth by brushing our teeth carefully in the morning and at night.

Arja Kullaa

professor of oral medicine

University of Eastern Finland

Send the question, the questioner's full name and age to [email protected]. The column is provided by Touko Kauppinen