yego.me
💡 Stop wasting time. Read Youtube instead of watch. Download Chrome Extension

Uncovering the Tooth Fairy | StarTalk


2m read
·Nov 11, 2024

So, Tooth Fairy is an interesting dilemma when you're a parent. Because right when they're losing teeth, they're supremely gullible. They'll believe basically anything you tell them, because they don't have their own sense of the world yet. Their understanding filters through what you deliver to them as a parent, as a trusting parent.

So, the two of us, we're sitting there, saying, "What do we do about their lost two teeth?" So here's what we did: They lose a tooth and say, "Mommy, Daddy, what should I do with our two?" Here's what we did: We said, "We heard that if you put it under your pillow, a Tooth Fairy comes and swaps it out with money."

We heard this, we're not sure about that. Okay, they said, "Okay," then they did that. So they put it over an envelope under the pillow. The next morning, there's money there. So, "Look, Mommy, Daddy, the Tooth Fairy came!"

And so, I asked them, "How do you know?" They said, "Oh, well, there's money there." I said, "Okay, but how do you know it was a Tooth Fairy?" And so, they're my kids. For every next tooth, they would rig an apparatus in their room to detect things that might come in their room overnight.

They put aluminum foil on the grounds, because you could hear that crinkle if somebody walks in, and they started rigging all of this. Then, at school, they organized a Tooth Fairy experiment. Someone had the idea that maybe it was the parents who are the Tooth Fairy.

Okay, so how do you test that? Here's how you test it: Anybody whose tooth came out in school, you do not tell your parents about it. You then put that tooth under your pillow and see what happens.

And so, the next kids whose tooth came out, they did this, and the next morning, it was still a tooth. So, they busted the Tooth Fairy legend. They got to turn a Tooth Fairy fantasy into a scientific experiment. I don't have a problem with that. And at no time did I say there's no Tooth Fairy. They figured it out. That's how we deal with the Tooth Fairy in my household.

More Articles

View All
Brave New Words - Kevin Roose & Sal Khan
Hi everyone, it’s here from Khan Academy, and as some of you all know, I have released my second book, Brave New Words, about the future of AI in education and work. It’s available wherever you might buy your books. But as part of the research for that bo…
Virality and network effects drive organic growth.
The best consumer companies incorporate both virality and network effect, which are different concepts but very closely related, in order to grow their user base organically. Virality is the idea that one user using your product introduces it to other us…
The History of Magic | StarTalk
What’s this with Escape artists? I never was as enchanted by that as others have been. When you’re talking about a escape artist, you’re really talking about Houdini and then a lot of knockoffs after that. Houdini, in the early 20th century, a man born in…
Example question calculating CPI and inflation | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy
The CPI, or Consumer Price Index, is used to measure the cost of a typical basket of goods the typical household in the nation of Jacksonia buys. Four loaves of bread, three pounds of cream cheese, and eight books are purchased each week. The prices of th…
Alex Honnold Rappels Into a Ravine | Running Wild With Bear Grylls
[music playing] This is, like, pretty legit. That’s, like, a long ways. I’m pretty pleased you’re saying that. I’m definitely feeling it. I mean, this is 300 feet at least. Ultimately we want to get down into the gorge. Let’s rappel off the bridge? Yeah,…
Ask me anything with Sal Khan: March 27 | Homeroom with Sal
Hi everyone! Welcome to our daily live stream. This is why we’ve almost, we’ve been doing this for a little bit over two weeks. For those of you all who are new to this, the whole point of this is Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with a mission of providi…