Newton the Knitter

One of my boys wants to be a physicist. I asked him the other day what he thought he'd like to be for Halloween and he said, "The Higgs boson."

He was critiquing his younger brother's plan to cause some mayhem in their Lego world and he said, "That's a violation of Newton's first law." The brother, predictably, said, "What?"

"Inertia," came the explanation. The brother said, "What?"

They cycled through again. "Inertia." "What?"

I could see a trace of uncertainty in my future physicist's face, the way a person looks when he wonders if he's mangled an unfamiliar word. (I used to think I should say ASK-ance (rhymes with Haskins) and AW-ry (rhymes more or less with story).) He tried again. "Intarsia. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion."

Such are the hazards of chatting with your mother the knitter about the socks she's making. In Newton's alternate laws, #2 and #3 will address Fair Isle and entrelac.