We have a responsibility to the next generation to tell them the truth about how our world is. With constant improvement, and the reinforcement of lessons learned centuries ago, we can perhaps at last break free of the bonds of our imperfect society and approach the dream of utopia. Or I could lie to them a bunch because I want to get invited back for next year’s Meet A Scientist Day.
The kids, true to their nature, were ultra-curious about internal combustion engines and the automobiles that drove them to and from work. I found their questions exciting, mostly because I had no idea how to answer any of them and I had to come up with convincing-sounding lies on the spot.
“Mr. Switch, how does a windshield wiper work?” asked one rosy-cheeked cherub, hanging on my every word.
“Uh, the Bernoulli effect.”
“How are tires made?”
“From a big chunk of solid rubber. They carve away all the parts that don’t look like a tire and then throw some metal inside it so it looks like they did more work than they did. Next question.”
“Mr. Switch, how does a carburetor work?”
“Quantum entanglement.”
“Why do cars go slower going uphill?”
“Coriolis effect.”
I was killing it, but then one of the kids threw out a hardball question. There was nothing I could do about it than face it head on. Perhaps I would even save lives, so that there would no longer be shellshocked survivors like myself, wandering the shattered wastes.
“How does an automatic transmission know when to shift?”
“The souls of the damned are trapped within the torque converter. As their eternal agony proceeds, there is occasionally a side effect that might be interpreted as changing gear. You must never, ever look inside one.”
I looked back at a sea of horrified faces. Some of them had even stopped incessantly rotating their fidget spinners to contemplate suicide. Time to cheer this room up a notch, I figured, leave on a good note.
“You kids ever seen a Roman Candle before?” I yell my query over the sound of a road torch being sparked.
