Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) (2 page)

BOOK: Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1)
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“Nine point eight zero one five two,” he repeated.

Stephanie moved the camera tripod around to the other side of the lab bench and focused it on the device.  She pulled a chair from the bench that Benko and Chang used as an office desk and put it next to the lab bench with the equipment and climbed up on it.

She delved into her jeans pocket and pulled out a heavy lead weight on a thin piece of wire.  “Start it up,” she told them.

The turbine went up to speed, and when it reached there, the book began to move.  Then the book slid off the desk, followed a moment later by the instrument.  “Don’t turn it off yet,” Stephanie called.

“Roger,” Stan replied, peeking around the corner.

Stephanie moved the plumb bob steadily towards the spot where the book had been, the plumb bob hovering a fraction of an inch off the bench.  The heavy weight swung back and forth for a few seconds before stopping.

Stephanie twitched the wire, lifted the plumb bob higher and it moved again.  For the next several minutes she moved it this way and that, until at one point, the plumb bob was moving in a small circle.

“That’s enough,” Stephanie called after another minute.

Johnny turned down the turbine.  When the turbine was idling, Stephanie hopped off the bench and confronted the two graduate students.

“It’s almost four in the afternoon,” she told them.  “Tomorrow afternoon at two, you will both appear in my office.  I want theory; I want numbers.  I want testable hypotheses.  Do the math.”

She turned and gathered up her things and left the two students with a last word.  “Neither of you saw fit to ask for a copy of the DVD.  I’ll copy it for you and have it for you within the hour.  I do not expect that between now and then you will have anything more important on your plate than being here, trying to figure out what’s going on.”

“We don’t have anything to play it on,” Stan said, waving at the video camera.

“I’ll dub a standard DVD then.  If you do not have access to a computer of your own, call Services and they will supply you with one.  Tomorrow, gentlemen, two o’clock.”

She turned and left.

Stan turned to Johnny.  “That didn’t go well.”

“I don’t have any idea what’s happening.  It can’t be magnetic, the Styrofoam cup moved.”

“And she was getting a reaction from that pendulum thing of hers,” Stan replied, “so it can’t be vibration, either.”

“A plumb line,” Johnny supplied.  “My father uses them in his construction business.”

The two looked at each other then at their apparatus.  “I don’t have a clue,” Stan said.  “Not a clue.”

“I have a bad feeling about tomorrow if we don’t figure something out.”

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 2 — A Good Aim Point

 

 

 

At five minutes after two the next day, Stan Benko and Johnny Chang walked into Stephanie’s office.

“Professor Kinsella,” Stan told her, “we don’t know.”

They were both in the same clothes they’d been in the day before, they both looked like they were in desperate need of sleep.

“Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock, in your thesis advisor’s office.  Gentlemen, do or die.  Either you have done the math before then or I’ve discovered it, not you.”

“Could you give us a direction to look, Professor?”  Johnny asked, more desperate than ever.

“Give you a hint?  They teach the answer in Physics 101.  How many forces are there in physics?”

“Four,” Stan said, trying to work a degree of surliness into his voice.

“There’s your answer, multiple choice.  Do or die, gentlemen.  Nine in the morning, your thesis advisor’s office.”  She pointed at the door and the two left.

About seven that evening, the two were in Stan’s apartment, after having snatched a few hours of sleep.

Trina, Stan’s wife, came in, followed by Elaine Cho, a Chinese woman from Beijing.  Elaine was carrying a laundry bag.  “I’ll be a second, Elaine,” Trina told the younger woman.

She turned to her husband.  “You have all your things in the laundry bag?”

“Yes, Trina.”

Trina vanished into their bedroom, and Stan looked at Elaine.  “You have Professor Kinsella, don’t you?”  Stan asked her.

“Yes.  She’s a very difficult professor.  Very rigorous.”

“You have any tips on how to deal with her?”  Stan persisted.

“What do you mean ‘deal with her?’” Elaine asked, wary.

“She’s on our case.  It’s do or die for us tomorrow morning.”

“You crossed a full professor?”  Elaine said, obviously startled.  “I won’t get involved!”

“Sometimes I just want to punch that smart-ass in the mouth!  Do the math!  Is that all she can say?”  Stan growled in anger.

Elaine looked at Stan as if he were insane.  “In my country, were you to punch a full professor in the mouth, they would take you out the same day and put a bullet in your head.  Then they send a bill to your family for the cartridge.  Tell your wife I’ll be waiting for her in the laundry room.”

Elaine whirled and left, as if fleeing the Black Plague.

Stan stared at Johnny morosely.  Johnny just shrugged.  Singapore was more civilized: they wouldn’t send his parents the bill for the bullet.

Trina came out and looked around.  “What happened to Elaine?”

“She went ahead,” Stan said.

Trina nodded towards the playpen where their year-old son was playing with some toys.  “Watch the kid, Stan.  I’ll be back in a while.”

She left too and Stan stared vacantly into space.  Finally, he huffed a sigh, his eyes resting on his son.  “Some day, John, you will be my age and your mother will go out and tell me to ‘watch the kid.’”  Stan lapsed back into silence.

The baby smiled at his father’s words and picked up a kaleidoscope someone had bought for him at one of the baby showers Trina had gone to.  He promptly tried to look through the wrong end.

Stan got up and went and took it away from John, handing it back reversed.  “Gotta look at it the right way, John!”

He was halfway back to the sofa when he saw the light bulb go off over Johnny’s head.  He was a second behind.

“How it works can come later,” Stan said eagerly.  “We need to work from what is happening.  We’ve been looking at the wrong end of the problem.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s strong or weak force,” Johnny said.  “No way!”

“And electromagnetism is out,” Stan said firmly.  Giving up a favorite hypothesis isn’t easy.

“Gravity.  Remember the plumb bob?” Johnny mused.

“Up and down, right and left.  All around,” Stan replied.  “Oh yeah!  The source has to be a point.  A point that was level with the turbine’s rotational axis and at right angles to it and a couple of feet away.”

“A point gravity source at a remove from the apparatus!  That has to mean the Holy Grail of modern classical physics!  There is indeed a direct relationship between gravity and electromagnetism!”  Johnny said, slapping his fist into his palm.  “All we have to do is figure it out!”

He looked at Stan.  “You know where we’d be if she hadn’t made us take those measurements?  Sunk!”

“What was that one at the end?  The one that broke when it hit the floor?” Stan asked.

“The video!” Johnny said, springing towards Stan’s TV.  They had watched the DVD earlier twice, with only the dimmest understanding of what they were seeing, having no idea what to look for.

Now they watched it intently, calling out comments about what was almost certainly happening.  And at the end, the camera was badly focused on the instrument; they could just barely read the numbers, nine point eight zero one five two.  The microphone on the camera picked up the turbine winding up.

The instrument flickered, going to point eight one, then point eight two, then changed, going to nine point nine two five.  “That’s an accelerometer,” Johnny said, his voice hushed.  “We created a ten centimeter a second gravity well!”

“Oh, we are so fucking going to kick that woman’s ass tomorrow!” Stan said loudly and gleefully.

Trina had just come in, now she walked up to him and glowered at her husband.  “I forgot the detergent.  If I ever hear language like that from you in front of the kid again, I’ll wash your mouth out!”

She vanished into the bedroom and returned with a box of detergent and stalked past, rigid with anger.

Stan watched her go, a smile on his face.  “She’s a tiger around John, you have to give her that!”

“Give her what you want later,” Johnny told him.  “First, we have to figure out how rotating magnetic fields create a point gravity source!”

The next morning Stan and Johnny stood in their thesis advisor’s office, Stan scribbling equations on a white board with Johnny pointing out the important parts.

Doctor Sorenson, a dour Swede, old enough to be their grandfather, sat haughtily silent throughout the presentation.

When Stan finished with a flourish, he faced Professor Sorenson, but his eyes were on Professor Kinsella who’d stood equally silent throughout.

The elderly professor looked at the board for a few moments and then spoke to Stan.  “It is my understanding that you were doing empirical experiments, working without a hypothesis and that you saw no reason to take notes.  Further, you departed significantly from the agreed upon protocols and terms of experiment.  Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I like to fish, but that is a form of recreation.  You are studying theoretical physics, not fishing.  Your experiment was a fishing expedition, pure and simple.  You are physicists, not engineers.  We do our work with predictive mathematics, not hammers and duct tape.  Professor Kinsella has offered to take the two of you in hand for a remedial month in basic experimental techniques.

“At the end of that month, I will question her about your progress; I will question you.  At that time, I will decide whether or not to allow you to continue in your degree programs.  You are dismissed.”

Outside, the two stood chastened, but breathing a little easier.  Obviously, they’d missed the worst of the bullet.  That comfort lasted until Professor Kinsella joined them.

“For now, a simple thing.  Tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock I want you to present an experimental plan to me.  We will go over it, and if it’s satisfactory, you may begin the day after tomorrow on it.”

“That would be a Saturday, Professor,” Stan said, trying to sound reasonable.

“Thirty days, counting today.  You can take the whole thirty days off as holiday, for all I care.  Or not.”

Johnny spoke up, “Professor, our budget is pretty well used up.  We never had much.  Stan and I did a lot of the work ourselves, scrounging things.”

“How large was your budget?” Stephanie asked him.

“A thousand dollars,” Stan said.

Stephanie fished in her purse, pulled out her checkbook and wrote a check.  She handed it to Stan.

He looked down and blinked — another thousand dollars!

“Before you start salivating,” Stephanie said coldly, “I am a proactive grant giver.  That is, you will keep receipts.  At the end of the experiment I want an accounting of the money, every penny.  It will not have been used on pizza or soda pop — just on the experiment.  Am I clear?”

“Yes, Professor,” the two students chorused.

“Tomorrow at one in the afternoon,” Stephanie commanded.

 

 

 

The next afternoon, the two presented a hastily prepared experimental plan to Professor Kinsella.

Stephanie read it through and then looked at them.  “This is barely adequate.  You may, however, begin.  You do not need my permission to deviate from this plan, but I want a written addendum to the plan within a day of any change, the reasons why the change was made and the results.  In any case, I want a report every three days, except I expect the first progress report on Monday at this time,” she told them.

Later, the two of them ran over the equipment list, and then divided it up.  Johnny went after the items needing scrounging, Stan after those that needed to be bought.

Days passed, hectic, busy days.  The only notable thing in their first meeting was after Stephanie finished listening to their report when she asked if they’d made any changes in their experimental plan.  They assured her they hadn’t.

The second meeting was a Thursday and again she asked at the conclusion of their meeting about any changes.  “We learned our lesson, Professor Kinsella,” Stan Benko told her.  “We won’t make the same mistake twice.”

She nodded, her eyes bright.  “Anything else to report?” she inquired.

“No, Professor,” Stan replied.  “Although, I was wondering — our next report is due on Sunday.  Is that correct?”

“If I’m not going to be in my office for one of your progress reports, I will inform you in advance.  I will be here Sunday, so there won’t be any problem.”

Stan and Johnny exchanged glances, but they didn’t say anything until they were out of her office.  “I wanted to take my wife out Sunday after church,” Stan said with disgust.

“I could come by myself,” Johnny told him.  “There’s nothing hard about making the report.”

“I’ll think about it.  The Lord knows what she’d do if I skipped a progress report.  I’m not sure I’m ready to find out yet.”

Sunday was the same thing all over again.  The testing occurred per the plan, there were no changes to report and the results were such and such.  Stephanie did add another question.  “Have you considered the theory behind this?”

“We’re still working on gathering raw data,” Stan told her.

“There’s a lot of it,” Johnny agreed.  “We were going to spend some time analyzing it this week.  It’s there in the plan.”

“Good,” she told them, “you do that.  Follow your plan, let me know about any changes.”

Outside, walking away, Stan was upset again.  “What did we say that couldn’t have waited until tomorrow?”

Johnny Chang sighed.  “Nothing.  But I get this feeling we’re out on a limb and there’s someone sawing it off behind us.”

“She’s a bitch, pure and simple!” Stan said with heat.

“She may be many things, but right now if we ever expect to get our doctorates, she’s a hurdle we have to pass.  And really, she’s not asking anything of us that she’s not willing to do herself.”

Stan could see an odd expression on Johnny’s face just then.  “What?”

“Maybe we should work on theory sooner, rather than later.  What if she’s already worked it out?  If we don’t come up to speed on it, she could still take this away from us.  I mean, this is Nobel work, right?”

“Oh, yeah!  The link between electromagnetism and gravity is someplace in our data!  You’re right!  If we don’t get it before she publishes it, we’re screwed.  She wouldn’t be the first professor to shaft grad students.”

More time passed.  There was a meeting midweek in Professor Kinsella’s office.  She reviewed the data and looked at the two young men.  “You’ve been working on the theory?”

“Yes, Professor,” they chorused.

“We found that working backwards, knowing what was happening, provided unexpected benefits in sorting out the math.  We think we have a viable theory.  It’s there in our report,” Stan told her.

They’d sent notarized copies of the report to half a dozen places, hoping that they would be able to preserve precedence that way, if no other.

“And no changes have suggested themselves to your plan?”

“No, Professor,” Johnny told her.

“Well, I’ve thought of one.  I want to borrow your apparatus for a few days.”

Both Stan and Johnny blinked in astonishment.  “Borrow it, Professor?” Johnny asked.

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