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THE AWESOME SCIENCE MAGAZINE FOR KIDS!
The science behind the myths and legends
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Create a water clock
MAKE A MAGNIFICENT MARBLE MAZE
Test PARTHENON pillars
WHIZZPOPBANG.COM ISSUE 91
EXPERIMENTS PUZZLES AMAZING FACTS SCIENCE NEWS
GREEK MYTHS CREATING THE
The ancient Greeks are also known for their myths and legends, thrilling tales of gods, supernatural heroes and ordinary humans. As you might expect from the Greeks, these fictional stories often contain some interesting science too.
CONSTELLATIONS
Some Greek myths describe how constellations of stars supposedly ended up in the sky... Andromeda was a beautiful princess who married Perseus. When she died, the goddess Athena placed her in the sky as the constellation Andromeda.
PERSEUS AND THE GORGON
In this story, the hero Perseus was sent to fetch the head of the gorgon Medusa. She had venomous snakes for hair, and anyone who looked her in the eyes instantly turned to stone. Luckily for Perseus, the goddess Athena gave him something to help him defeat the gorgon – a shield with a shiny, reflective back.
Hey! That’s cheating!
What was Medusa’s favourite cheese? Gorgon- zola!
Perseus used the mirror shield to look at Medusa’s reflection, so he could see where she was without looking at her – and chopped her head off!
DAEDALUS AND ICARUS
When the inventor Daedalus fell out with King Minos of Crete, Minos imprisoned him and his son Icarus in the Labyrinth, an elaborate maze. To escape, Daedalus built two sets of wings from willow and feathers, held together with wax. Daedalus and Icarus put the wings on and flew away over the sea.
START
ns
LOOK BEHIND YOU!
In a battle between the gods and the giants, the giants threw a dragon at Athena. But she caught it and threw it into the sky, where it became the constellation Draco.
Pegasus was a magical winged
horse who became a servant of the gods. When he died, Zeus, king of the gods, put him into the sky to become an everlasting constellation.
Copy Perseus and use a mirror to see something you’re not looking at. Yo u’ll need a friend or family member to be Medusa!
Yo u will need
A small hand-held mirror A room
What you do 1. Ask the other person to go into the room and choose a place to stand.
Daedalus told Icarus not to fly too low or too high. But Icarus loved flying so much, he flew higher and higher. He went too near the Sun and the heat melted the wax in his wings. They broke apart and Icarus fell down into the sea.
2. Now slowly walk into the room backwards, holding the mirror up in front of you. (BE CAREFUL!) Can you use the mirror to help you see the person and walk up to them? (Make sure you don’t look directly at them, so you don’t turn to stone!)
D’oh!
© Shutterstock.com
Help Icarus find a way out of the Labyrinth! Check your answer on page 34.
Icarus couldn’t really have used the wings to fly, and even if he could, he couldn’t have got near the Sun (it’s much too far away)! But wax does melt when it gets hot and hardens as it cools, as you can see when a candle burns.
You should find
You see things because light bounces off them and travels to your eyes in straight lines. When light hits a mirror, it can bounce off that into your eyes – meaning that you can see behind you!
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The ancient Greeks were pioneers of science, but they also had some pretty wild ideas! Here are some theories that were way off the mark…
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Aristotle believed the brain was a cooling device! He said the heart was the centre of logic and knowledge in the human body, and the brain was just an organ for cooling the heart.
2+2=4
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Megasthenes thought lambs grew on trees, or at least he started the idea! When he saw cotton plants in India, Megasthenes wrote about a plant ‘on which wool grows’. Another writer then described the cotton pod as a melon, which in ancient Greek can also be translated as ‘goat’ or ‘sheep’. Some people still believed lambs grew on trees right up to the 18th or even 19th century!
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Plato thought light came from the eye. He believed that ‘a stream of light or fire’ left the eye, rebounded from an object and combined with sunlight, allowing it to be seen by the eye. He also said that an object’s colour was ‘flame particles’ coming off of it.
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G rGOeNeEk s wrong!
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What do you call lots of sheep rolling down a hill? A lamb slide!
Aristotle said eels didn’t reproduce. Because their anatomy is different to other fish, he thought eels didn’t produce larvae but were suddenly created from mud. He said flies, lice, midges, oysters and clams were spontaneously created out of other stuff too.
s 5 !
Thales believed the Earth was flat. He said it was a disc floating on an infinite ocean and that all matter in the universe came from water.
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Unlike Thales, Aristotle realised the Earth was a sphere, but he thought the Earth was at the centre of the universe with the Sun, Moon, planets and stars revolving around it. (He also believed the planets were alive!) We now know the Sun (a star) is at the centre of our solar system, and that there are billions of other stars in our galaxy and billions of galaxies in the universe.
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Aristotle didn’t think light could travel through empty space so he came up with the theory that the entire universe was filled with a special element called ‘ether’. In 1910, Albert Einstein proved that light didn’t need the ether with his theory of special relativity. Aristotle knew that some of his ideas would probably be proved wrong, and he was OK with that! He said when trying to understand the world, we should consider theories but that it’s facts that matter and if the facts change, our theories should too.
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Praxagoras thought arteries in the body carried air, not blood. Although he was the first to realise that veins and arteries were different, he thought that only veins carried blood, while arteries carried air. Praxagoras explained bleeding from the arteries by saying that when they were cut, they attracted blood from nearby tissues.
Find the names of these Greek philosophers and scientists in the grid. They might be written forwards, backwards, horizontally, vertically or diagonally. Check your answer on page 34.
THALES SOCRATES PLATO ARISTOTLE HIPPOCRATES PYTHAGORAS
ARCHIMEDES HERO ARISTARCHUS DEMOCRITUS LEUCIPPUS ERATOSTHENES
D E M O C R I T U S H B A R I S T O T L E G I L K A L W R Z J Q F H P E T T S I U H E R O Y P U Y O E O P F K M T E O C P S Q C C E G H A X C I F T V B X R A N L S R P O H P S Y G A P P V A P S E I K O V W T Z O T U I N A R C H I M E D E S G E A J T H A L E S S L Q S U H C R A T S I R A whizzpopbang.com 15
b... clu O C E
Emmi’s
Turn a shoebox into an epic toy! For a simpler project, leave out the holes mentioned in steps 3 and 5.
AMAZING MAZE GAME Yo u will need
hoe box (or similar-sized box, S with the top removed) Scraps of corrugated cardboard (the thicker, the better) Ruler Pencil Craft knife or other sharp knife
2
1
rugated Ask an adult to cut a piece of cor de of your insi cardboard the same size as the r box’s lid and box (this could be made from you and a series of will form the base of the maze) th of a ruler). long strips 3 cm wide (or the wid
ot glue gun (or PVA glue, H double-sided tape and sticky tack) Paint Scrap paper Paint pens and/or permanent markers Marbles
Draw a line 4 cm below the rim of the box. Use a hot glue gun or doublesided tape to stick a row of cardboard strips with their top edge touching the line and leave to dry.
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3 Ask an adult to cut a hole larger than a marble at the bottom of one side of the box, close to a corner.
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Decorate the maze base, the box and the remaining strips with pai nt.
Continued on page 21 ➜
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5
Plan your maze, then draw it onto the maze base with a pencil. Ask an adult to cut out any holes with a craft knife.
Stick cardboard strips along the pencil lines. If you’re using PVA glue, you may need to hold them in place with sticky tack while the glue dries, then remove it later. Once dry, add extra decorations with paint pens or permanent markers.
I’d love to see your marble maze! Take a photo and ask an adult to tag us on social media @whizzpopbangmag and email it to Y@whizzpopbang.com
Put the maze into the box – it will rest on the cardboard strips you added in step 2 – then add a marble and test your maze!
ECO
More
ideas...
Once you’ve mastered your maze, try these extra challenges: Time your family to see who can
complete the maze the quickest. Add more holes and walls to
make your maze trickier.
Try to complete the maze
with two marbles at once!
Continued from page 16
It’s up to us to save the planet. Lots of small actions can make a BIG difference! Try reusing paper straws, twisted pieces of paper or foil to make the walls of your maze. Got a few spare boxes? Turn one into an amazing Greek theatre – find out how on page 17!
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