Science Lesson Anyone?

My thumb had a science lesson today in motion. As of the time I'm writing this, it still has not forgotten todays lesson. We spent the day in Olympia cleaning Grandpa's house. Don't worry, he hasn't passed away yet. Some of the regular weekly chores have become more of a chore than they used to be. We spent several hours today scrubbing kitchen counters, doing laundry, cleaning windows, and scrubbing bathrooms.

The spare bathroom is where our little science lesson takes place. In this bathroom, lived a very dusty vent. Grandpa has lung cancer and is living on oxygen. Dust in this house is bad. We were on a mission to remove dust. This vent needed dusting badly. What's the best thing to remove dust from a vent without taking it down and washing it? How about a vacuum cleaner? This shouldn't be too hard. Just run the vacuum hose over the vent and its done.

It works just fine if you can get the vacuum hose detached from the floor runner. This is how we come to our little science lesson in the laws of motion.

When the vacuum hose has inertia, outside force is required to set it in motion. In this case, my hand was the outside force. Remember, once an object, such as a hand holding a vacuum hose, is in motion, it stays in motion unless acted upon by an outside force, such as the vacuum motor itself. Finally, for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When a hand, holding a hose hits a vacuum motor, the motor gives off an action of equal force to that of the hand holding the hose. This is why my thumb now has two red marks that will very likely bruise by tomorrow morning.