My first two physics lessons

My dad was an EE who Graduated Physics at NTSU. I remember my first physics lesson from him. We were on vacation in Colorado, and it seemed like it rained for a little bit every single day. I believe we were headed to Vail and I was about six years old. There was a rainbow outside the right window of the back seat where I happened to be sitting. I was watching it and told dad it was going "the same fast as us". He said now watch it and since we were the only one on the road he came to a crawl and it slowed down with us, then he sped back up and it sped back up with us. I thought it was amazing. At six he didn't explain why but later in life I learned why and he provided the observation for me.

The second lesson was he was driving me home from one of my friends birthday parties and we were on an old gravel country road. I was holding a helium balloon by the string and playing with it. He asked me which way it would go if he slammed on the brakes, and I pointed at the front windshield. That car didn't have seatbelts back then so he took the balloon and told me to hold on to the dash. When he slammed on the breaks he let go of the balloon and it went to the back of the car. He didn't explain why but later in life I learned and he had provided the observation for me.

I think back about my dad and he did a lot of things like that with me and later in life I understood why. That is something simple you can do for your children and it doesn't have to be physics but he saw the physicist in me at an early age and would do things like that.

Think about that the next time you are spending time with your children it was a simple thing that stuck with me and when I understood I appreciated it even more. I am not a father so I won't preach to you but I was a fathers son, and I can tell you those simple things are the things I like to remember and learned from.