One day Jispa old me that she has this great desire to once
touch the fan while its moving. Hah! Ya sure. I told her that I wanted to touch
the fan as well when I was her age. I wanted to stop the blades from moving. She
said – ya she wants to do that as well. We both laughed as we shared our
similar childhood fantasies of holding the blades of the fan. She told me ‘when
I was small once I put a stick in the fan, thinking that I would go round round
round, like in the movies.”. “ya? You serious. I have done that as a kid my
self” I told her. “So what happened” I asked her. She said “nothing, the stick
banged against the fan”. Yup. That’s the thing that happens. Then I asked him “do
you really want to touch the fan while it’s on? There is one trick. You can
touch the middle motor and not the blades. You should be fine then. Come let’s
do it”. So I first touched the middle round bit and then I held her hand as she
touched it. But I warned her to do it only under adult supervision. I told her
that I did this as a kid. Then I narrated one incident to her. Once, (I must
have been around 17/18) I wanted to check if I could stop the blades of the mixer
with my fingers. So I tried experimenting with the mini boss. The hand held
blender. I held the blades with my fingers and then started it. I got a deep
cut in my finger and of course – the blade did not stop :) . that was my stupidity.
I then tried showing her the scar on my finger. We could see a faint line. It
was fun sharing these stories with Jispa. We really share the same weird ideas.
How would it be to stop a fan?
A few stories that I did not tell her was that one of the things
I experimented with was that I would do two more experiments with the fan. One was
after I switched it off, at what point before it stopped moving altogether – would
I be able to stop it. Putting my hand on the motor and increasing the friction
was one. Putting a stick and even my hands on the blades when they are slower
was another. The other experiment which was very successful and led to the finger
in blender experiment was I would switch on the fan and then immediately try
and stop it from moving by holding on to the blades. Now in a large ceiling fan
that takes a lot to shrug off the initial inertia – it worked. You can stop a
ceiling fan from starting by holding on to it. WARNING – any kids reading this –
DO NOT TRY this at home. The fans can be of varying speed and this stuff was
tried in the 90’s or 80’s. Motors and speeds have surely moved on from then on.
SO since I could do that to the fan I wanted to do that to the blender. That
successful experiment is not something I am going to tell Jispa about. Prudence
prevailed.
But it was still fun to share a lot of these fun things with
Jispa. Most of these experiments are garbed under scientific research in our
brain. Once Jispa got a scolding for using nail paint in her fingers without
asking. Later on I found out that it was a part of a scientific experiment on
the effects of chlorine on nail paint. How long will it last while she swims.
But let me leave you with a video of a blender and stuff I would
love to do at home. I think they got the amazing insight of every childhood
fantasy… will the blender blend it? see all the related videos.
