• Memory • A body in motion stays in motion...Not so fast.

[Padraig]

Ymiden 14, 716

"What're ya doin' mister?"

Padraig frowned, and having failed to take back his solitude by ignoring the other soul on the bench, uttered, "I'm working," without ever looking up from his notebook.

"Ya don't look like yer workin'. Ya look like yer drawin' pitchers." The kid's feet were dangling off the ground and swinging back and forth, back and forth, rocking the bench that just a few ticks ago, had been Padraig's alone. He'd chosen the quiet shelter of one of the larger greenhouses in the fruit gardens, thinking that it was a private place where he could work undisturbed for as long as he liked. Somehow this kid, somewhere between six and seven, had discovered him and plopped down on the other end of the bench without so much as a by your leave.

The young man didn't particularly care for children. The younger ones unnerved him. And as a general rule, they tended to smell funny, were often grubby and sticky. They asked too many questions, and tended to put their fingers where they didn't belong. In their ears, their noses, and in other places that didn't warrant thinking about. And the arrival of this one in particular was inconvenient.

Padraig was studying at the university, pursuing his letter in physics, and had left his outside work late, till he was somewhat pressed for time. "I'm not drawing pitchers," he said irritably. "It's a diagram, of what might be a perpetual motion machine. Assuming it was possible."

"What's perpedipal motion?" The kid was persistent. Brown shaggy hair, freckled face, a missing front tooth. Grubby. "Perpetual." Padraig turned on the bench, brow furrowed, frowning, his tongue pressed into his cheek. "Where is your mother?" he asked. "Well what is it? Can I help?"

"An object at rest stays at rest," he said, "and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unbalanced force." Inertia. Something like that kid's bare, filthy feet, which were still going, unless some sort of force arose to stop it. "Go away." The kid was unmoved, except for those feet. "What does that mean, all that stuff ya jus' said? Come on mister, I wanna help. Please?"

At this rate, he'd have no finished project to hand his professor. Padraig tried once more to spot an adult nearby that might relieve him of the nuisance, and found not another soul nearby. "Give me that ball in your hand," he said, pointing to the chipped wooden ball in the kid's hand. "Why?" Padraig reached out and took the ball from the kid..."Hey! What'd ya do that for?"

Naturally. The ball was sticky.

[Padraig]

"Imagine that this long walkway is forever," Padraig said after he took the ball from the boy, and led him to the opening between two long rows of fruit trees. Several feet wide, narrow wooden planks had been fitted together into a raised walk that extended from one end of the greenhouse to the other. He'd left behind his textbook and notebook on the bench where they'd been sitting.

"But it's not forever," the boy argued. "I can see the end right there."

Padraig exhaled in slowly, then out. "Use your imagination...What is your name?"

"Myron," the kid said. "Alright, Myron. Use your imagination. It's forever."

Padraig had examined the walk earlier, and knew that it possessed a steady downward slope from one end to the other. Poor engineering, maybe. It was possible that no one walking on it would notice. But it was good and straight, and the end was a handful of inches below the beginning. "So I'm going to put your ball into motion and we'll see if it moves all the way to forever." The young man placed the ball into one of the polished grooves in the walk, and gave it a good nudge to get it rolling. Then both he and Myron walked along behind it to see how far it would go. It slowed after the initial push, but onward and onward the ball rolled until finally it came to the end. Myron grinned. "So that's perpedular, perpet...What you said, right?"

"No. According to what I've learned in my classes, and from my book. It isn't." Now Myron frowned. "Why isn't it? It went all the way to the end." Because, Padraig explained, perpetual motion was the movement of a theoretical mechanism that would continue to move indefinitely, once set into motion, without an external energy source. And it must not slow due to friction or loss of energy. "Huh?" the kid uttered, scratching at the brown mop on his head. Admittedly, kid speak was no part of Padraig's wheelhouse.

"Remember what I said about inertia?" The kid nodded in the affirmative, in spite of not remembering at all. Pride, even in one so young. "An object at rest stays at rest, and an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an unequal force." So said his textbook. So said his notes. "So?"

"The ball moved because I pushed it. That's ok. But what kept it moving was an outside force." Myron scratched his head again. "What force?"

"Gravity."

"What's gravity?" Padraig plucked a piece of low hanging fruit from a nearby tree, held it over Myron's head and let it drop. It bounced off, hit the ground and rolled away. "What'd'ya do that for!?" For the first time, Padraig smiled a little. "That wasn't me. That was gravity," he said dryly. So said his textbook and notes. The force that attracts an object and pulls it towards the middle of the world, or towards any other body with enough mass. Gravity. "I don't get it."

Right. So to illustrate, Padraig left the kid where he was and strolled to the opposite end of the walk where he picked up the ball. "When I pushed the ball, it began to move. It stayed moving because gravity was...behind it. But watch this." Bending over, he placed the ball in its groove again and gave it a good push to get it moving. This time, it rolled a good ways, but then slowed, stopped and began to roll backwards again, downhill. "Why'd it stop rolling?"

"Because this time, the outside force wasn't behind the ball, it was in front of it, pushing back," he explained, though his textbook had described the process in much more complicated terms. "What force?" Padraig frowned. The kid's attention span was roughly equal to the life cycle of a fruit fly. "Gravity."

"So ya were drawin' a machine that can go forever?" It probably wasn't possible, Padraig explained, because such a thing, once put in motion, would need create its own source of power. And it would need to be enough to overcome any number of obstacles without missing a beat. "So if it's impossible why are ya tryin'?" Because, Padraig said, his professor had told him to. And, as an afterthought, he added, "And because there are no impossible questions. There's only the ones that haven't been answered yet." Though might be, in this case, his professor wouldn't agree.

[Padraig]

"Huh?" Answers. Yet to be asked or answered questions. The kid had that look on his face again, and was scratching his scalp as if it was flea infested. Probably wasn't, but philosophical theory probably wasn't his cup of tea. "Never mind," Padraig said.

Suddenly bored with the way things were going, Myron picked up his ball and wandered back to the bench, where he began kicking at a small divot in the earth with his bare toes, or kicking at nothing at all. Padraig hoped that maybe this was a sign that the kid would finally leave him in peace. "Hey, what's that book about?" No such luck then, and Padraig frowned and sat down, picked up the book. "Physics."

"What's physics?" The trial wasn't getting any shorter, but the young man picked up his book, opened the front cover and read directly from the page. "Physics is a branch of science dealing with the nature and properties of matter and energy. Physics, distinguished from the study of chemistry and biology, includes mechanics, heat, light, sound, magnetism, and...so on," he trailed off. "Magne...what?"

"Never mind," Padraig said again before Myron interrupted him. "Hey, my ma is a professor too!"

"What?"

"Ya said yer professor told ya t' draw a...whatever it was, right?" Padraig nodded. "Well my ma's a professor." What did she teach, Padraig wondered aloud? Although admittedly he was skeptical. "I dunno. She don't talk about it much." It was then that Padraig heard a nearby voice on the breeze, edging ever closer. "Myron? Myron, where have you gone off to?" Deliverance. He'd been delivered. "There you are. Didn't I ask you not to wander away?" Beside him, before Padraig even turned around, Myron fidgeted on his seat. "Sorry ma."

"I hope he hasn't been bothering you," the woman said, and something about her voice struck him and Padraig turned round for the first time. It was more than her voice after all. Myron's mother was a professor? Indeed she was. Turned out she was his professor. The young man set his book aside and stood, smiled just a little and shook his head. But before he could answer, Myron piped in, "I wasn't botherin' him ma. I was helpin', and learnin' stuff." Professor Karre was her name, middling of age, plump, blonde, and she smiled. "And what did you learn?" Myron shuffled his feet. "That perpedipal motion is impossible, but there's only answers that 'aven't been asked....or somethin'. You tell 'er what ya said," the kid prompted, looking back at Padraig.

Now it was his turn to shuffle uneasily. He smiled nonetheless. "Rest assured he wasn't bothering me, professor Karre," he fibbed. "He was a very good assistant. I only said that, well I think, that there are no impossible questions, only those that haven't found answers yet." The professor put on a thoughtful expression which left him unsure what she thought of his theory. She quirked a brow, and smiled a little. "Really now? And tell me Padraig, how goes your solution for perpetual motion? Have you somehow found the answer?

He hadn't, he admitted. But then she'd probably known that he wouldn't. That none of them would. "Well, I do hope you'll continue looking," she said, reaching out her hand to gather her son. "And may I assume you'll have your effort turned in on time?" He would, Padraig confirmed. Indeed he would.

[Rei]

Name: Padraig

Knowledge:
Children: Unnerving
Children: Sticky and grubby
Children: Stick fingers in filthy places
Physics: Diagram of perpetual motion
Physics: Object at rest stays at rest
Physics: Object in motion stays in motion
Teaching: Giving physical examples
Teaching: Using layman’s terms
Location: Viden: Greenhouses
Physics: Inertia
Physics: Perpetual motion: theoretical mechanism moves indefinitely
Physics: Perpetual motion: must not have external energy source
Physics: Perpetual motion: must not slow due to friction or lost energy
Physics: Gravity
Physics: Gravity: force that attracts an object and pulls towards middle
Physics: Gravity: force that attracts an object towards another object with enough mass
Teaching: Requires patience
Physics: Includes mechanics, heat, light, sound, magnetism
Physics: Deals with properties of matter and energy
Myron’s mom: Your professor
Myron: Annoying
Myron: Not the brightest

Loot: Please deduct the cost of your textbook from your ledger if you haven’t already.
Injuries: N/A
Fame: N/A

Story: 5
Collaboration: 0
Structure: 5

Comment: This was a very fun interaction. I really enjoyed seeing your character trying to teach the less than bright boy about physics. It revealed a few things about his personality that I really liked seeing. Look forward to grading you again sometime! It was a pleasure and as an aside, no structure problems, and no points in collaboration because it was solo.