EP: Sometimes Maybe One Frog

[merryeccentricities]

Joly's taken a table not too far from the observation window and covered it with a spread of ceramic and Plastic working tools. In the middle and the center of his focus is a sort of upright cylinder, and a few small objects on either side of the tube. Occasionally he drops one into the tube, makes some notes, and positively giggles.

Open to talking, but Science may very well keep happening during conversations.





((ooc: at and away From Keyboard intermittently for the rest of the day, so there may be instaslowtimes, but open for the next couple days!))

((ETA: and AFK for a few hours now, but I'll pick up tags when I get back! Thanks!)

Comments

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The cylinder's getting an interested look from a young woman with steel-grey hair, a number of scars on her face, and what looks like a dark green men's uniform. Hey, it's science; it's worth checking out, right?

[merryeccentricities]

Joly certainly thinks so!

He notices her looking , and tries to fight his smile down from "giddy" to "polite" long enough to bow a little towards her.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Ellen's expression turns sheepish before she returns the gesture (curtseys are something people in old vids do, silly!). "I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't mean to interrupt; that looked like something you'd see some of the Scribes back at the Citadel working on, and I was trying to figure out what it was without interrupting."

[merryeccentricities]

"Oh no-- no, you didn't!" Nor did she. If it was a delicate sort of experiment, he wouldn't be running it here in the main room. "It's magnets, you see-- make them strong enough and they can make all sorts of things float! But we never had them so strong back home!" The grin is back in full force. "I could never have found them strong enough back home. Here, if you want to look?"

There's a brief moment of mental flailing while he tries to decide if he should get up and stand away from the table, or--given her extremely unorthodox clothing, and the bow-- stay seated as he would with a man, or--- he settles for pushing the tube across to the far side of the table.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Certainly," says Ellen, and accepts the tube over on her side of the table. "I think there may be some magnets almost this strong at home, but- well, honestly, I'm not sure. There's so much to do with science and magnets and electricity here that seems to have developed very differently from what we have at home that I couldn't really say."

Micro-chips, mostly. And tiny computers that were supposedly very powerful but yet couldn't operate a halfway decent robot, for some reason.

[gredya]

"What is that?" Gredya's tone of voice conveys disapproval. (Come to think of it, her voice also conveys that she's just at Joly's elbow, having approached with no more noise than usual.)

[merryeccentricities]

"AH!"Joly sits up straight very quickly and whips around to look in exactly the wrong direction for a moment before turning around again properly to see Gredya. "Ah, Madame Gredya! Hello, I haven't seen you inside before." A strange thing to realize, but he's fairly sure it's true.

"It's, ah, it's magnets." He's starting to grin again. "Very strong magnets. They make things float! Do you want to see?"

[gredya]

"I like outside better."

She hasn't been here, inside or out, in a while. She looks thinner than before, and tired. But she shrugs and moves closer. "Magnets, what is that?"

[merryeccentricities]

"Ah,yes, I-- have friends who might agree. Although it's very cold there, right now." And she does look so thin. "Magnets are--" What's the absolute simplest way of describing a magnet? "-- a sort of material that's attracted to other things like it? They occur naturally, at least in our world; maybe you've seen, oh, lodestones?"

[gredya]

It's colder at home.

Gredya looks at him blankly until lodestone: she doesn't know it in English but Milliways translates the word into the Wyr language. "I heard of those. I have not seen. I did not hear that they make things float."

[herr_bookman]

"Wait, what?" Autor says as he approaches, a grin creeping onto his face. "How are those things floating?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly beams and scoots over so that Autor can have a seat and look too, if he wants. "I'm not entirely sure I understand the theory-- it's an incredibly strong magnet, and it sort of makes the object in the tube a counter-magnet? And if you've ever tried to push the matching ends of magnets together-- well, it's a bit like that. Isn't it amazing?"

[herr_bookman]

"What!" Autor declares, and does take a seat for a better look. "That makes no sense at all--and yet I see it happening before my very eyes. A magnet that makes things float? Who would have thought! It seems very much like magic, though I know it's not."

The boy chuckles. "You always find the most fascinating things, Joly. How are you, by the by?"

[merryeccentricities]

"Oh, you could have sold this for a miracle anywhere in the world in my day. And of course it is, but it's a miracle anyone can do if they know how, and that's so much better..." He looks at his little electromagnet with shining eyes for a moment before laughing.

"How am I, I'm fine, it's my friends who are having the grand adventures. Bossuet tried to learn to fly on his own, apparently-- did you see him yet?-- and so I had a chance for more practice in the infirmary. And Bahorel has some story about fighting monsters on Christmas Eve, and I can't even be sure he's making it up, here. And one more of our number has joined us! Feuilly, a wonderful fellow-- I do hope you get to meet him while you're here this time. And, oh!" He hugs Autor, briefly but fondly. "Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year both; I'm sorry I missed seeing you for them! How have you been?"

[herr_bookman]

"Small miracles that anyone can do? I like that sort of thinking, Joly, though some might find it dangerous," Autor says, flashing another grin.

The boy laughs softly, and embraces his friend. "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well. I have seen Bossuet! He broke his ribs helping fix Javert's church? I could scarcely believe my ears. And I can confirm Bahorel's story--I, too, was fighting monsters then. They'd kidnapped Santa Claus, and we just had to get him back. I hope to meet Monsieur Feuilly soon," Autor says cheerfully. "I myself am healthy and hale and glad to see my friend messing with magnets."

[athelstanthescribe]

Athelstan loves Science! He wanders over to the table and peers at Joly's new toy.

"...how does it do that?"

[merryeccentricities]

Joly smiles in recognition of the attitude. Science is the best! "It's a very strong magnet! Well, an Electro-Magnet." Yes, he pronounces the capitals. He's from the era for it. "Do you have magnets in your world?"

Because one never knows.

[athelstanthescribe]

"Not ones that are made. Sometimes it happens in nature, but no one knows how to make it happen."

[merryeccentricities]

"Well, in my world-- I'm from an Earth-- and in my time,--ah, 1832?-- we'd figured out how to make our own. And in later times, on my world, they figured out how to make their magnets incredibly strong; and when they're strong enough, they can do this!" He gestures at the tube, currently supporting a small sprig of evergreen. "It sort of --magnetizes whatever you put above it, and then they repel each other, as magnets do."

[athelstanthescribe]

He peers at it again.

"Also from an Earth, but much earlier, I think it's 794 by now... it can do that even when the thing isn't metal?"

[fairy_fixit]

Some very large insect buzzes by overhead, but the cylindrical device gives it pause and it starts hovering.


Oh, nevermind, it is a 20 inch tall blonde woman with moth-like wings and antennae that is peering down into the cylinder from up in the air. She is dressed very much like a machinist, or perhaps a smith. "Oooo. Are you playing around with levitation?"

[merryeccentricities]

On the one hand, someone who is very clearly a fairy just asked him a question. Gaping and stammering would seem to be called for.

On the other, she just asked him a question about his experiment, and so Gushing On would also seem to be called for. His brain opts for the familiar path. "That's exactly what I'm looking into! I'm wanting to build a smoother transport for the infirmary, and I thought, if we could have something that floats--Anyway, I read about the magnet-trains of some worlds, and I've always liked magnets, I thought I'd at least look into it. Do you work with levitation technology?" He has his notepad out already, in case the answer's yes.

[fairy_fixit]

She grins! A like mind! An engineer!

But...

"Unfortunately, not. I specialized in teleportation and not levitation. But you achieved it without magic, at least none I man feel," she says before flitting about to bet a better look at the device. "This is an electromagnet, isn't it? An inductor, or a transformer, or a... solenoid! That's it! I've had to interface our fungal-magical teleportation network with a silico-electronic one so I know a little bit about it."

Gushing on is highly encouraged.

[merryeccentricities]

"A fungal- magical... I'm sorry, I don't know what a Teleportation Network is. And no, this isn't magic; it's an electro magnet, using a Bitters solenoid, yes! I'm sure you could make it as well or better than me with the same diagrams I used." He gestures to a layout he copied from one of the studies he found.
"It's about getting the balance right between gravity and molecular magnetism, you see. You know I always thought magnets had to be able to cause other objects to change their alignment; hah, I was just wrong about how much magnet it took! They didn't figure this out for over a century after my life, of course, and I could never have built it--well, and then we had just begun to study electricity! Do you use electricity, or is it all-- all fungal magical?" The question is very earnest. Magic is clearly a natural force in the Fairy's world. As mysterious as any physics he's ever heard of, no doubt!

[fairy_fixit]

She hovers over the diagrams. "It uses plates of metal arranged in a helix instead of coils of wire. Interesting. I wonder if that is to increase its strength. I never learned much about magnetism except that it is something that electricity does when it is in motion. And apparently it is exactly what lodestones do too. I wonder if a magnet like this can serve as a teleportation focus like large lodestones do," she wonders aloud.

"Oh, sorry," here comes the infodump, "magic where I come from is based on the magic inherent in ourselves and fungi and the dentin in teeth. Fungi also makes a good transmitter of magical energy, like metals transmit electrical energy, but that is just on Zanaris. The humans on Gielinor, the planet Zanaris orbits, use magic based on what they can store in runestones, and the elves have a magic based on sound and imperfections in crystals. The humans and goblins on Gielinor are both barely experimenting with electricity too, though based on what I've seen here, the goblins are a bit further along because they are experimenting with doped glass. They both are experimenting with mixing magic and electricity, but rune magic doesn't agree with metal."