The Science of Fairy Tales

Rapunzel, by Kay Nielsen

This article was posted on the SurLaLune board on Saturday. If anyone happens to be interested in this sort of thing, drop me a line with your question and I’ll ask my crack team of resident scientists to see what they can come up with.

The Science of Fairy Tales
By Chris Gorski, American Institute of Physics

Kids of any age love to read fairy tales because the storyline never limits the possibility that anything could happen. Curses, spells, and handsome princes reign in worlds beyond the reader’s imagination.

But are the most magical moments from some of our favorite stories actually possible? Basic physical principles and recent scientific research suggest that what readers might mistake for fantasies and exaggeration could be rooted in reality.

So suspend your imagination for a moment, and look at the following fairy tales as a hard-core scientist might…[more]

Excerpted from the Inside Science News Service via LiveScience.com