Physics made fun

I never liked Physics. I managed to pass it respectably in both high school and college but not happily. In high school it helped that the teacher was kinda cute (to a 15 year old) and in college I managed to pass physics on a deal made with a fellow student. "I'll help you through calculus if you help me through physics". But I digress before I've even started.

Today we went to the Hagley Museum. We both had the day off and it was supposed to possibly rain (it never did) so we decided this was a good mixture of indoor and outdoor activity. Hagley Museum (and Winterthur) are part of the Dupont family legacy. The Hagley is on the grounds of the original gunpowder works which was Dupont's first business in America. We entered the visitor center first to see the exhibits about the Dupont family from gunpowder to chemicals. It was all very interesting. The demonstration of how the mills worked using the force of water in the Brandywine reminded me of Physics. (See, I get to the point eventually). It was much more fun than learning about it in school.

Next, we took the bus tour to the family mansion and a guided tour there. We had a private tour ; just Dave and I. It was nice. We took the bus back toward the visitor center getting off at various stops to see the steam engine demonstration, the machine works and the rolling mill worls. The machine shop was more physics and mechanical engineering and quite fascinating. It just amazed me how it all worked. The water goes in here, turns that gear there, which turns another one and so on. Remember the song "The Wheels on the Bus" ? Well there has to be a similar song that can be sung about the water mill.

Another fascinating point (to me anyway) was how careful they had to be about sparks. I mean it makes perfect sense seeing as how they were working with gunpowder; but I didn't think about it until they started pointing it out to us. For example, the train cars that gathered the finished product ran on wooden rails so there would be no spark between cast iron wheels of the traincars and metal tracks. Workers were searched as they arrived for matches, belts, suspenders etc. Despite all that there were a total of 288 explosions over the years they operated the mills there.

After touring the machine shop and the rolling mill works tour we walked up Worker's Hill. I had been here before during the MS Walk in October 2007. Workers Hill was the start of mile 14 of a 16 mile day! In fact, it was during the walk that I first had the idea that DAve and I should come here to spend a day. Life's been busy, but we finally made it! LOL

It was a really fun day. We arrived at around 11 and were driving out of the parking lot when they closed at 4:30! On the way home we stopped at Hank's Place; a little restaurant at Route 1 and 100 in Chadds Ford that we have passed numerous times and finally decided to try. They make a mean meatloaf!