An Intimate Academic Evening with Malcolm McCreedy 4/5

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(APPLAUSE. ZOOM PAN IN ON PROFESSOR FINSRAW AND DR. MCCREEDY)

Announcer: Welcome back to &quot;An Intimate Academic Evening&quot; with eminent thinker and Nobel-Custis Prize winning physicist Malcolm McCreedy. Brought to you by a partnership between our friends at New Media and ThinkCore Edutainment.

Finsraw: Thank you. We're back. Now, Doctor McCreedy, without further ado: please tell us in your own words what the Limnal drive does. How it can possibly manage these incredible—frankly, impossible—velocities?

(MCCREEDY IS SLUMPED DOWN IN HIS CHAIR, FEET EXTENDED OUT ACROSS THE DAIS. HE SHRUGS)

McCreedy: It's in the textbooks. Lots of big words. Kind of hard to explain.

Finsraw: Yes, but to hear the words from* the author himself,* so to speak. It would be an enormous benefit to our students just to hear it…

McCreedy: Localized spacetime ratio displacement via release of diode-channeled, sonoluminescence-derived virtualized photonic zero-point energy spectra.

(FINSRAW WRAPS HIS ARMS AROUND HIS TORSO AND SMILES BLISSFULLY)

Finsraw: Science! Delightful! And what does it mean exactly?

McCreedy: I just told you.

Finsraw: Yes, but if you were to explain it to a layman.

McCreedy: A layman wouldn't understand it.

Finsraw: They may not be able to grasp the full scope and breadth of it, certainly, but come now sir: there are a thousand students here, and close to a billion viewers watching tonight. Children, factory workers, the glitterati, and even the mundane common man. Illuminate them! Bring this wonderful knowledge into their lives!

McCreedy: To children. You want me to explain zero-point quantum mechanics to children.

Finsraw: Indeed I do!

(MCCREEDY PAUSES. HE AND FINSRAW STARE AT EACH OTHER FOR A FEW SECONDS. MCCREEDY LEANS TOWARDS THE AUDIENCE. HE BEGINS MAKING SLOW, EXAGGERATED GESTURES WITH HIS HANDS AND SPEAKING IN A CONDESCENDING VOICE.)

McCreedy: Kids, we project a big, loud noise into an invisible pool of science-y stuff, and everything goes kablooey! Then we break the laws of the natural universe, and in order to keep reality from pooping the bed, the universe balances things out by makes the ship goes really really fast.

Finsraw: Now, Doctor, when you say &quot;kablooey&quot;, could you clarify…

McCreedy: You there, in the front. Frowy-face. You have a problem? Speak up.

(MCCREEDY WAVES HIS DRINK AT THE CROWD. THE ATTENDANT IN THE AISLE RUSHES TO POINT THE MICROPHONE AT A STUDENT NEAR THE FRONT, WHO STANDS WITH A PUZZLED EXPRESSION)

Student: No, sir, it's just, the way we leverage zero-point in your equations…is it safe to just shift that big a pool of energy? I mean, it works, but aren't the laws of physics in place for a reason?

McCreedy: Your second question is awful. What laws? Who put them in place? What reasons?

(MCCREEDY SIPS HIS DRINK. THE STUDENT SLOWLY SINKS BACK INTO HIS SEAT)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: …But your first question is exactly the right one. Is it a smart thing to simply grab the entire luminescence spectra and yank it in another direction? Without even fully understanding how we're yanking it?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation3">Student: So…is it? Smart, I mean. To use it.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Probably not. It's pretty dangerous.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation3">Student: So we shouldn't use it?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: I wouldn't say that. But who knows. I just figured the thing out, everyone else is running with it. You gotta take that risk if you want to succeed. Our ancestors had a great saying that applies perfectly here. It involves omelets. Have you ever made an omelet, Frowny?

<font class="DocumentFontConversation3">Student: No.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Neither have I. Hate cooking eggs. Always get them everywhere. Our ancestors used to make omelettes all the time. Terrible cholesterol levels. Can't remember what the saying was, though. You should probably look it up.

(MCCREEDY STARES BLANKLY AT THE STUDENT. THE STUDENT STANDS AWKWARDLY FOR A MOMENT, THEN SLOWLY SITS BACK DOWN.)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: Riveting! Simply riveting stuff. Malcolm, can you tell us how you made the final breakthrough?

(MCCREEDY SWIRLS HIS DRINK. HE HUNCHES BACK DOWN IN HIS SEAT)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: I don't know. Trial and error mostly. We have all of this equipment around us now. Our toasters have more processing power than the biggest Ancient supercomputer, and we take it all for granted. I just got bored. Where I worked, they had some pretty powerful simulation tools for modelling waste flow. At night, when nobody was using them, I just kept running &quot;what if?&quot; scenarios. Bought a couple of textbooks. That sort of thing.

(MCCREEDY GESTURES AT THE ROOM)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Everything I needed was out there already. Custis had it almost figured out, and he got most of his stuff from Einstein. I just kind up picked it up and ran with it. I figured you academic folks already knew all about it, but then I got to the Cookery and…

(MCCREEDY SPREADS HIS HANDS AND SIGHS DEEPLY)

<font class="DocumentFontConversation1">McCreedy: Shoulders of giants, and all that.

<font class="DocumentFontConversation2">Finsraw: And truly, sir, you are the biggest giant of our age, with the biggest, ah, shoulders. Lots of food for thought. Let's take a quick break and let everyone mull it over.

(MCCREEDY GLARES OPENLY AT FINSRAW. APPLAUSE. ZOOM PAN OUT AS LIGHTS DIM ON THE CENTRAL DAIS. )