Ainan's experimental flair: a practical scientist

Yesterday, Ainan took something out of the freezer, and said: "This is super-cooled water, Daddy."

Now, until Ainan first mentioned it to me, a few months ago, I had never heard of super-cooled water. As is becoming increasingly the case, it is Ainan who introduces me to things scientific.

I looked at the water. It was just liquid, like any other water. There didn't appear to be anything special about it. I went about making a cup of tea.

Then Ainan did something magical. He swirled the water in the vessel - and all at once, it turned to ice, as if some Wizard of old had cast a spell.

I had never seen that before in my life. If I had not been scientifically trained, and I had seen that in a time before science, I would have thought it magic, at work. The liquid crystallized as ice, in an instant. Uncanny.

What I found revealing about this, is that Ainan has good experimental control. He is able to get the world to do things, experimentally, which, frankly, I would have thought unlikely. He has, to use an old word, the "knack" for experimental design and interaction with the world.

Don't ask me how he got the water to do that - but he did. What a curious boy.