fandomhigh | Unblinded Science, Period Six [5/10]

Walter fussed at the front of the classroom. On the one hand, it wasn't Harvard, but on the other hand, there were nice acid-resistant black tabletops. Those had been constants even from his own student days and as much as he loved new things, the old things were comforting.

Today's lecture? Microwaves! Fun times!

Okay, maybe not, but Walter has an ace up his sleeve, apparently involving.... fruit.

Once the class was settled, Walter surveyed the students, absently patted a papaya sitting in front of him that had been given a face through the clever use of a googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and a sharpie, and smiled absently.

"My name is Dr. Walter Bishop," he said and then frowned, trying to remember what he was going to say next. "And this is..." he referred to a paper on the table, "Unblinded Science. We will be exploring some of the things that make science interesting and which push the boundaries of what you will believe science is capable of. After all, an old friend of mine once wrote that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Keep an open mind, and more importantly, a fertile imagination."

But first, the lecture, which apparently Walter didn't trust himself to give without notes, and which, in his manifest discomfort, he read from directly.

"The existence of electromagnetic waves was predicted by James Clerk Maxwell in 1864 from his equations. In 1888, Heinrich Hertz was the first to demonstrate the existence of electromagnetic waves by building an apparatus that produced and detected microwaves in the UHF region. The design necessarily used horse-and-buggy materials, including a horse trough, a wrought iron point spark, Leyden jars, and a length of zinc gutter whose parabolic cross-section worked as a reflection antenna."

Walter looked at the rest of his notes, lips moving slightly while his thoughts ran on a complete tangent to microwaves involving an especially pneumatic woman he had once met in Kansas City, and then he slapped the notes down on the desk and looked up at the class with a bright, almost hectic smile.

"But this is a survey course, and you young people get distracted easily, so let's have some fun instead. At each of the seven stations you'll find two pairs of safety glasses. Put them on, put on your lab coat, and examine the devices that I have assembled for your practical today.

"These devices will project microwaves at the glass dome in your workstation. I have provided" (Peter has provided) "a supply of papayas and papaya-decorating supplies. Place the papaya under the glass dome and press the button on the device. You may experiment with the settings on the dial to determine how high you must go to achieve gooification, and how high to reach explosion."

Some intelligent soul has ensured that the boxes cannot be turned in any direction other than the glass dome. It might have been Walter. It might have been someone not as intelligent but far wiser.

[ooc: ~~Wait two minutes for OCD please.~~ Class roster and syllabus are out of my reach at the moment. I'll add them when I get home from work this evening.]

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Scully had been enjoying class, and had wandered by in search of more pipe-cleaners when she happened to catch a glimpse of Spock's ears. And eyebrows.

...hunh.

No, she wasn't staring, but that would be a double-take. Natural mutation? Interesting. Possible role-player gone way too far?... hard to be sure.

Spock noted her double-take and turned away from his experiment to sort of sigh and say, "You are not 'seeing things,' nor am I an elf. I am an extraterrestrial alien from the planet Vulcan. Will there be any other questions?" Might as well get it out of the way.

Hokay. Role-player. Scully took that in relative stride, and said calmly, "Not unless you feel like explaining how an extraterrestrial crossed several thousand light years to arrive at planet Earth. But I wouldn't expect you to share that information to satisfy a random stranger's curiosity, so don't feel like you have to."

They were really good ears! Seriously. They couldn't be plastic surgery, they looked so real.

"To be honest, I am not entirely sure of that myself," Spock admitted. "That is to say, I am certain of how I arrived on Earth; I merely took a transport vessel and then a shuttle from San Francisco. However, my parents intended to send me to school in the twenty-third century. I believe the island's status as a 'dimensional nexus' may have resulted in the time travel."

Which snapped Scully's attention off the ears and onto him like a laser.

"Dana Scully. Sophomore." Said to get that extraneous information out of the way and get back to: "You experienced a time anomaly too? I'm still trying to quantify it and identify the boundaries of its area of influence. Not to mention any other side effects caused by that-- dimensional nexus?" She frowned. "I'm going to have to do research. Much more research."

"Spock. Junior. I did, as have many of the students at this school. As you may already be aware we come from many different worlds and dimensions." Spock still wasn't entirely sold on the 'magic' for instance. It was completely illogical.

"My assigned Big Sister mentioned that to me, but I haven't seen enough evidence to be entirely convinced as yet." Scully blew out a breath, then admitted, "But if a dimensional nexus is in place, at least theoretically, that's not entirely impossible... but the forces and energy necessary for it are insane." Scully started waving her arms, voice growing more intense. "It's not that it breaks the laws of time and space so much as why would you want to expend that much energy on something that could spindle into a quantum singularity and possible random space-time fold if it went wrong?!"

Edited 2010-05-11 05:19 (UTC)

"You are assuming that the nexus is a deliberate action on someone's part, as opposed to a naturally-occuring anomaly that merely...happens to share space with this island," Spock said.

Frankly, if the universe ever imploded, he would not be surprised if this place was the start point.

"But a naturally occurring phenomena-- the odds of it having such neat limits, to conform to a natural topographic feature, that's... I can't even begin to calculate those odds."

"Yes, but it is not impossible," Spock pointed out. "And once one has removed the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. I am not entirely convinced of the matter myself," and it was probably a good thing he hadn't been here while the island was teleporting, "but in the absence of any active cause for the island's more unusual attributes, I have decided I am willing to accept the hypothesis for the present."

"Sherlock Holmes might have had a point," Scully said carefully, "so I'm going to attempt to find ways to test the hypothesis. My worry is that a lack of measurable testing data or instruments is what encourages the theories of 'magic' that seem to be prevalent. Or a lack of theories entirely, and encouragement to just 'go with it.'"

Unblinded Science, Period Six [5/10]

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