physics

Little Danes experiment

Little Danes experiment is a physics topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Little Danes experiment rather than just read about it. In short: The little Danes experiment, also known simply as the experiment (Danish: eksperimentet), was a 1951 Danish operation where 22 Greenlandic Inuit children (known as "experiment children"; Danish: eksperimentbørn) were sent to Danish foster families in an attempt to re-educate them as "little Danes". While the children were all supposed to be orphans, most were not.

Key takeaways

Little Danes experiment belongs to physics; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Little Danes experiment to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Little Danes experiment from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The little Danes experiment, also known simply as the experiment (Danish: eksperimentet), was a 1951 Danish operation where 22 Greenlandic Inuit children (known as "experiment children"; Danish: eksperimentbørn) were sent to Danish foster families in an attempt to re-educate them as "little Danes". While the children were all supposed to be orphans, most were not. Six children were adopted while in Denmark, and sixteen returned to Greenland, only to be placed in Danish-speaking orphanages and never lived with their families again. Half of the children died in young adulthood and survivors experienced mental health disturbances. The government of Denmark officially apologised in 2020, after several years of demands from Greenlandic officials.

Background Following World War II, Danish government officials and non-governmental organisations believed Greenlandic society was underdeveloped and sought to redesign it. Together with the Red Cross and Save the Children, they manufactured an experiment to create a system where Greenlandic children would be brought to the Danish mainland, learn Danish, be fostered by Danish families, and then come back to Greenland as "little Danes": A population that was to become, according to the colonial studies researcher Claire Louise McLisky, the "new ruling class of Greenlanders". The children were supposed to be selected by Greenlandic priests according to certain criteria: Around six years old, without mental or physical impairments, and orphaned.

Experiment

Even though the participants selected were supposed to all be parentless and about six years old, priests could not find enough qualifying children. As a result, only six were orphans, and one child was nine years old when the experiment began. With the selections made, the MS Disko departed Nuuk in May 1951 carrying 22 Greenlandic Inuit children: thirteen boys and nine girls. They soon arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark—a country Helene Thiesen, one of the children, "had never previously heard of". After being moved to a so-called holiday camp at Fedgaarden, operated by Save the Children, they were immediately placed in quarantine over fears they carried contagious diseases. This quarantine lasted the whole of the summer; there, Thiesen broke out with eczema. The queen of Denmark, Ingrid, visited the camp and took pictures with the children. Thiesen said she "didn't understand a thing" of the queen's visit, and that her general unease of the experiment showed through in the photo, in which "none of us is smiling". The children were then placed in Danish foster families for over a year. There, they learned the Danish language and forgot Kalaallisut. They were supposed to be sent back to Nuuk after about six months, but the construction of the orphanage by the program stalled, and over the course of their yearlong stay in Denmark, six of them were adopted by Danish families.

Aftermath and apology

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Little Danes experiment

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Little Danes experiment claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In physics, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Little Danes experiment before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Little Danes experiment ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Little Danes experiment

In research: Little Danes experiment appears in physics research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Little Danes experiment in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Little Danes experiment is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1951 in Denmark, 1951 in Greenland, Adoption history, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Little Danes experiment outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Little Danes experiment in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Little Danes experiment means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Little Danes experiment out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Little Danes experiment in simple terms?

Why does Little Danes experiment matter?

Because it connects several physics ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Little Danes experiment?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Little Danes experiment.