LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 16, Day 36: Hot Gas
“Good morning,” Fathom called out as he descended onto the beach.
“Good morning,” Pryce replied once the sand had settled enough for him to speak; at least without getting a mouthful of it.
“You teach me about how you go to moon now,” Fathom said; it sounded less like a request and more like a statement.
“I can not explain with words we have, is very complicated,” Pryce explained, trying to dissuade him.
“Try,” was the only word Fathom said in response.
“Okay,” Pryce said, pacing as he formed his thoughts. After a minute or so he stopped and turned to Fathom. “Some types of gas can burn, which means it can be fire. For example, the gas you blow out can burn. Yesterday I teach you that burning fire make air expand,” he paused to pick up a glass bottle. “If gas in here and you burn it, gas go outside here,” he said, pointing at the mouth of the bottle. "Humans take gas that can burn, and burn it. Gas expand, and gas pushes machine. Machine that is pushed by gas is called rocket, Understand?”
“Push is…very weak,” Fathom said, confused. “What can rocket do?”
“Humans make machine that make push strong, machine is called ‘engine’. Humans also use many many kilograms of fuel for rockets. Rocket that launch…” he trailed off, causing Fathom to look at him expectantly. “Did I tell you how we take pictures of island from high up?” Pryce asked, uncertain.
“No,” Fathom said. “I ask, but you teach other things,” he said, a little reproachfully.
“Sorry, I forgot,” Pryce apologized, “Humans send machine up with rocket, machine is called ‘satellite’. Satellite has camera on it, and rocket carry satellite around the Earth,” Pryce said, summarizing an extremely complicated process. “Satellite use camera to take picture of Earth, then satellite land in ocean, and humans find it to get photos.”
“Makes sense…? But humans do very strange things.”
Pryce shrugged. “Rocket worked. Eventually.”
“What is ‘eventually’?”
“Means something that happen after long time, or something that happen after many fails.”
“Rockets fail…?”
“Yes, first rocket explode before it go over horizon, second and third satellite no come back, fourth rocket send satellite up, but satellite burn up when it come back down, and fifth satellite hit water too hard, broke,” he rattled off the results of the failed launches. “Sixth rocket get pictures, but not good ones, seventh rocket take this one, and eighth rocket take this one,” he said, pointing at the two maps.
“Rocket fail many times, human still make more?”
“Yes, why?” Pryce asked, puzzled.
“Dragons usually do not try again if they very fail. If dragon strong fail one time, probably die if try many times.”
“Correction: Dragons usually do not try again if they fail very hard,” Pryce said, and wondered what obstacles a dragon might try to overcome. Flying in bad weather? Hunting large game? Fighting rivals? He could see how perseverance may be a bad thing when your life was at risk. “Strong fail is ‘fail badly’, and failures are…good, failures teach us how to make better,” Pryce said.
“Failures…good…?” Fathom rumbled; a conflicted noise. He was evidently baffled by this backwards way of thinking, but if Pryce had to guess he couldn’t exactly offer any reproach when faced with proof of their success.
“Humans no like failure,” Pryce clarified, “but failure is how humans learn things. If you did not fail, you did not try. Do dragonets fail before they get good at flying?” He asked.
“That is different, parents help dragonet with flying,” Fathom said obstinately. “If failure is good, then why you sad by your failure?”
The question was completely innocent of any ill-intent, it still made Pryce grimace before he could answer, “…failure is different when people die. If people die, they can not try again.”
“But you can try again?” Fathom asked, genuinely confused.
“I…” Pryce said, falling off as he realized he didn’t know what to say.
“You are not dead, if you are sad, that does not help dead people,” Fathom said reasonably.
“You are right, but I still…feel sad,” he eventually forced out. Fathom did not verbally respond, but lowered his head and made a concerned interrogative noise. “I’m…good,” Pryce reassured, unsure if he was lying or not. “Do you have other questions?”
Fathom seemed to want to ask more about this topic, but acquiesced to ask, “How rocket fly around Earth?”
Pryce took a deep breath to clear his mind, then picked up a very short twig and pointed at the globe, “Rocket start on mainland, rocket fly up, then straight line like this,” he said, moving the twig from the mainland up and around the globe until it returned back to where the mainland was.
“If humans can fly, why you not fly here?” Fathom asked, his tone skeptical. It was probably quite difficult for him to imagine an aircraft – for obvious reasons.
“Rocket take much much fuel, and can not carry much mass, also very hard to land.”
“…but if rockets strong, why can not carry much mass?”
“…good question, but it…complicated,” Pryce shrugged. “Ship carry much more things and use less fuel. Humans need many things to live on island. Need food, water, tools, medicine, weapons for 40 people.”
“Humans make machines that carry things?” Fathom asked.
“Yes, those are ‘vehicles’,” Pryce said, rummaging through various textbooks until he found the one he was looking for. "Ship is a vehicle, we have cars, airplanes, hot air balloons, and we had Zeppelins," he put each name to the respective photos.
"Had Zeppelins? You no have anymore?" Fathom asked, and Pryce was gladdened by his improvement in understanding past and future tenses.
"Zeppelin fly using hydrogen gas. Hydrogen gas is very light, so it floats. Balloon is like this," Pryce held out the soccer ball. "When a lot of gas burn, that is 'explosion', Zeppelin have mistake, spark make hydrogen explode." He flipped to a page depicting the first and only crash, flaming debris strewn about the field.
"That...is bad."
"40 people died in that crash," Pryce said, quiet and low; several of his acquaintances had been among the fatalities.
"Humans know hydrogen explode, but you use them to fly?" Fathom asked incredulously.
"Yes."
"What is word for person who not act good, hurt self, say strange things?"
"Crazy is person who do very very strange things, stupid is person who do not think very good."
"Humans crazy-stupid."
Pryce withheld a snicker to explain defensively; "Hydrogen can not burn if there is no oxygen, but there was a leak and a spark, small spark make big explosion."
"Small spark? Did lightning not make explosion?" Fathom inquired.
“Good guess, but no.” Pryce retrieved a wool blanket from the ship and explained what it was before rubbing it over his hair, causing little crackles and pops. "This is fur, when you rub fur it makes static electricity," he explained. "Static electricity make spark."
"...strange, but I see this before."
"Where?" Pryce asked, confused. Dragons didn't have fur, so where would they see static electricity?
"Rub quartz together, quartz make sparks."
"No, that's different, that is piezoelectricity, is complicated."
Fathom grumbled something made unintelligible by the language barrier rather than by volume, then said clearly, "Dragon have furs like this, furs rub against other furs, makes spark."
"Yes, that is static electricity,” Pryce confirmed, “Wait, dragons have animal furs? Why?”
"Soft."
"Right, stupid question."
"Yes,” Fathom said blithely. “Human rub fur, make Zeppelin explode?" Fathom asked, returning to the main topic.
"No, at least we don't think so. Static electricity not just made from rubbing, probably made by something else we don’t know of."
“Humans still make Zeppelins now?” Fathom rumbled.
“No, they’re too dangerous,” Pryce said dismissively.
“Zeppelins too dangerous, but rockets not dangerous?”
“No one is inside rockets,” Pryce explained.
“No one inside rockets? How you make photo?” Fathom asked, surprised.
“Machine make photo every thirty seconds, no need human on rocket.”
“Why human not on rocket?”
“Rocket too fast, would kill human inside.”
Fathom snorted, “Humans soft.”
Pryce narrowed his eyes. “Remember we talk about speed? Humans measure speed in meters per second.”
“Yes, why?”
“Well, change in speed is called acceleration,” Pryce explained. He should be using ‘velocity’, but that would just be confusing right now. “Like I said earlier, we are going very fast because we are close to equator, but we don’t feel it because we are not accelerating. Our speed does not change, understand? Good. Because speed is meters per second, we want acceleration which is change in speed, so units of acceleration are meters per second per second. This is confusing, and it is ok if you don’t understand, but the important thing is that everything falls at 7.85 meters per second per second, we call this one ‘g’.”
“Everything?” Fathom asked in disbelief. “Not everything, some things fall faster than others. Dragons fall faster when wings closed.”
“Sorry, I mean the biggest acceleration is 7.85 meters per second. Common mistake humans make is that heavy things fall faster than light things, but all things fall at same speed if there is no air.”
“Strange mistake, falling is easy to understand,” Fathom said.
“You are a dragon, you can fly, that makes falling easier to understand for you.”
“Makes sense,” Fathom rumbled. “Humans can not fly. Sad.”
Pryce shrugged. “We do what we can. Also, we call thing that makes things fall ‘gravity’.”
“Understand.”
“So, Rockets accelerate at 30-50 g’s. This means they accelerate 30-50 times faster than gravity.”
Fathom stared. Then blinked.
Pryce took this as an invitation to continue. “For a rocket accelerating at 50 g’s, a rocket accelerates at 392.5 meters per second per second, which means after one second it goes from 0 meters per second to 392.5 meters per second, and then after two seconds it goes to 785 meters per second.”
“…what.” Fathom asked blankly.
“To fly around Earth, you need to be going at 7076 meters per second, so we need to go very fast.”
“Why you need to go very fast?” Fathom hissed, looking at Pryce as if he were insane. “Dragons no fly fast like that!”
“Correction: Why do you need to go that fast? Answer: Satellites need to go around Earth, go around Earth is ‘orbit’. Imagine if I throw a rock, it land like this,” Pryce said, sketching a rock arching up and down on a flat surface. “But if I throw very very hard, it go like this,” he sketched a rock going further, landing onto a slightly curved surface. “If I throw rock very very very hard, it go like this,” he sketched a rock going around the world.
“You…can not throw rock that fast, yes?” Fathom looked at Pryce warily.
Pryce chuckled, “No, I can’t, that was just an example. Rock is like rocket. Rocket go very fast sideways, so it no hit ground.”
“Wait, yesterday you say Earth is circumference of 40,080 km, you did not explain this?” Fathom asked, in delayed indignation.
“I forgot, there were lots of things to talk about,” Pryce shrugged. “And you didn’t remind me!” He added defensively.
“Not my mistake human memory is bad,” the dragon snorted austerely.
“Correction: Not my fault human memory is bad. And it’s also not my fault if dragons do not know the circumference of the world, humans learned that over two thousand years ago,” Pryce said, unable to refrain from being a little smug.
“Two…thousand?” Fathom said, irritation forgotten and curiosity taking it’s place. “How did humans learn that? Humans use ship to measure? Dragons do not have ship, can not measure Earth like humans.”
“Oh, I don’t know, I’m just a human who doesn’t have good memory,” Pryce drawled, grinning.
Fathom may not have had the words, but his deadpan expression needed no verbal explanation.
Pryce huffed. “You’re no fun. Humans didn’t have ships like two-thousand years ago, and we did not even leave the island to measure Earth, we used geometry,” Pryce said, a smile spreading across his face.
“What is that?”
Pryce took some time to name the basic operations of math, which Fathom was fortunately already familiar with. Then he explained how humans measured the angles of shadows cast by pillars at two different latitudes at the same time, and how the difference in the angles would be the angle of a triangle drawn from the center of the Earth to each pillar[1]. The distance between the pillars and the difference between angles resulted in a circumference of 40,000 kilometers – which was quite close to the currently accepted value of 40,080 kilometers, at least when measured from the poles. The Earth almost certainly bulged at the equator, though they only had uncertain estimates as to how much it bulged.
Pryce drew the problem out on a piece of graph paper and showed Fathom how he could calculate the circumference of a circle without measuring it with this method. First. he drew a small circle and only measured the angle and the distance between two points to get the circumference, proving this method worked. Then he drew one using the values that had been obtained for the modern-day value and showed Fathom how 40,080 km was obtained.
Once he was done showing his proof, Fathom sat back down onto his haunches with a flabbergasted air.
“How humans…make this?”
“Words for making ideas is ‘think of’, the answer to ‘how do humans think of this’ is that a few smart people did some smart math,” Pryce explained simply. “Rockets are much, much, much more complicated than this,” he added.
Fathom only tossed his head – the draconic equivalent of shaking his head, Pryce thought – and he did not immediately reply.
“How long it take for rocket to go around Earth?” He abruptly asked, looking almost resigned to the insanity of the situation.
“Around one hundred minutes.”
Fathom rumbled absently in response, staring blankly and causing Pryce to wonder if he was shattering the poor dragon’s worldview too many times per day.
“Do…you want to see photo of Jupiter?” Pryce asked hesitantly.
“…Yes,” Fathom said, somewhat subdued compared to his usual curious self.
Pryce had brought the book out this morning because he knew Fathom would be interested in it, so he was able to flip to the bookmarked page quickly. “Here’s a better picture of Jupiter,” Pryce said as he turned the book so the dragon could see it.
[2]
“See that spot here?” Pryce asked, trembling a little in excitement.
“Yes?” Fathom answered, a little warily.
“That spot is a hurricane so big that all of Earth can fit inside of it, isn’t that amazing?”
Fathom stared at the spot, then glanced back up at Pryce in a sort of dazed manner, as if he were torn between disbelief and awe, and had instead settled on confusion.
“I wanted to show you this yesterday,” he said, flipping through to another bookmark, “but the telescope isn’t powerful enough to show galaxies very well.”
[3]
“Galaxies are groups of stars close together, we are inside of one. The Milky Way you see at night is a band like this, but we are seeing it from the inside.”
“Wait, do you know what stars are?” Fathom asked with sudden urgency.
“Yes, stars are like our sun, but very far away. They probably have planets, but we can’t see them with our telescopes yet. Some stars you see in the sky are actually galaxies like this, but they are very very far away, so they look like a star.”
Fathom sat completely still for a few moments, staring blankly at the photo of the galaxy.
“Dragons…have many things we do not know,” he said, slowly and carefully. “Many thousands of years, and no dragon know how big Earth is, no one know what planets are, no one know what stars are…and then you tell me in some days. Is very strange, like…” he paused, trying to find the right words. “Do humans see things when they sleep?”
“Yes, this is called dream. Bad dreams are called nightmares.”
“You tell me these things, is like…strange dream, but good.”
“That is…good,” Pryce said. “I like teaching you, you teach me too.”
“What do I teach you?” Fathom asked, surprised.
“You teach me things about dragons.”
“Dragons not interesting like stars, or planets.”
“Of course dragons are not interesting to you, you already know about dragons. I don’t know much about dragons, so I think dragons are very interesting and amazing. Also, I would probably be dead without you.” Pryce added, causing Fathom to preen a little despite his melancholy mood. “I think I teach you enough big things today, I want to learn more about animals on this island,” Pryce said. “You remember animals in textbook, can you describe animals on island using animals from textbook?”
Fathom tilted his head from side to side as he considered this plan. “Maybe?” He said uncertainly.
“Let’s do that tomorrow, it’s getting late. Do you want to look at more stars?”
[JOURNAL ENTRY]
Day 36,
Fathom has responded with surprise and very evident shock upon learning more about planets, stars, and how humans calculated the circumference of the Earth, which isn’t unexpected at all.
He speaks English well enough now that I can almost always understand his meaning, I can't believe it's only been 8 days since I've started teaching him English.
Tomorrow I will definitely focus on learning about the species that live on this island. After that…I’m not sure what I will do. I still have to visit Fathom’s home, which I am looking forward to. I suppose I will simply continue to research whatever I find interesting.
I plug in the radio everyday just in case someone decides to send a message. It's still too early for them to worry, but it's part of my daily ritual to leave the radio on while I write my journal entries. It's a pity the daily signal is received at 5:31 AM, I would have liked to be able to hear the signal and know that a human sent that message, even if it contains virtually no information.
At least I am far from lonely; Fathom makes for excellent company. He is always curious and ready to learn. Even his temper is quite good, though he does sass me a bit too much.
Wound progress update: The wound has been healing very nicely, I believe it will be completely healed by day 40 at this current rate of ~1 centimeter per day.