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An introduction to the Leslie Science System

Quite frankly I’ve been confused about conventional science since elementary school, where I learned in English class that “i” goes before “e” except after “c,” and then it was time to open up our scIEnce textbooks.

I tried to participate in my junior high science fair, with what I thought was a brilliant and much-needed scientific investigation into which jokes are most likely to make my classmates laugh so hard they pee their pants in class or spurt milk out their noses in the cafeteria.

Believe it or not, my teachers quickly killed that line of scientific inquiry.

Darwin, babe, I feel your pain.

From that day on, I became more of a liberal arts kind of girl. Physics, schmysics–the only relationship I had with Newton was through his fig cookies, which in the Leslie Science System actually qualify as health food. Any food that substitutes bowel cleansing fruit filling for chocolate does not qualify as a cookie.

While not everyone buys into it yet–hey, relativity wasn’t an easy sell for Einstein either–the Leslie Science System has served me well over the years. Particularly when it comes to dealing with my husband, who is one of those oddball people who believes in using logic to win arguments. I say there’s nothing wrong with choosing the cutest doctor to deliver your baby, since you’ll be spending so much time together. Or voting for a particular political candidate because you think that Jon Stewart will have a lot of fun mocking him for the next four years.

The Leslie Science System is also great for procedural explanations. I’ve used it to explain to my husband the proper way to light a birthday cake’s candles (Leslie math: your age plus “one to grow on”) or to clarify why it costs $500 every time I go to Costco (Leslie’s law: for every item you put on your Costco list, you will stumble on seven other items you can’t live without).

It’s the same kind of highly evolved logic that comes into play when you buy new sheets for your bed, and then have to replace the carpet and the dressers and the curtains and the husband because the new sheets made them look shabby.

It is also the same kind of advanced thinking required to understand the intricacies of preparing to go on a diet (eat a lot for at least two weeks before, so that the first few pounds will come off easily and encourage you to stay on your diet).

It’s really quite simple once you understand the system. It’s science, Leslie style.

Still, man, given the slow speed in which the world embraces new scientific methods such as the Leslie Science System, I was quite surprised when I was recently asked to write two children’s science books. Perhaps this would be my opportunity to revolutionize the world of children’s books. Perhaps people were finally coming around to my way of thinking.

Imagine my surprise when my editor told me I had to do actual research on spiders and volcanoes and include actual facts in my stories.

“You mean I can’t just make stuff up, I mean use the Leslie Science System, like I do in my column? I really think it’s catching on,” I told him.

“Sure you can,” said my editor. “But I won’t pay for it.”

So I bit the bullet, wrote the books, and cashed the checks. Now you can buy the books at www.lesliedinaberg.com. Just click on “read” for more information. After all, as my fellow unappreciated-during-his-lifetime scientist Einstein said, “Science is a wonderful thing if one does not have to earn one’s living at it.”

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine…” and strange as it may seem, Leslie really did publish two science books this summer. . Email email

Originally appeared in the Santa Barbara Daily Sound on September 15. 2006.