September 13
I woke up Aric by nuzzling his chest, and he leaned down and kissed me on the ear, then he said that it was too early to be awake, so I slid my hoof under the blankets and said that wasn't what his body was telling me but I could let him fall back asleep if that was what he wanted.
He asked me if I was going to go on a morning flight and I said I had planned on it, but I didn't have to start early. I was kind of lucky this quarter because I didn't have any classes before ten. I was going to get as lazy as a human.
So Aric asked me what classes I was taking, and I told him and he thought that I was crazy to be taking a math and physics class and he said I was going to be up to my ears in homework. But that was okay because it was fun homework and stuff I needed to know.
He told me he was taking two theatre classes and also class on science-fiction books, which sounded like it would be fun. He said that he didn't know what to expect but that it would probably be easy because that was all stuff that he liked to read anyway. And then I slid my rump over and started tickling him with my tail, in case he'd forgotten what I wanted.
I was feeling really good when we were done and I flew out the window and raided the bird feeder for sunflower seeds so I'd have a snack. Aric threw a pair of balled-up socks at me, but he missed. Then I took off, even though I couldn't go too high 'cause I hadn't brought any of my flight gear with me.
It was nice and sunshiny and I was already having a good morning and I was really looking forward to my lab and class today. And I didn't feel like going back to the dorm to put on my flight gear, so I'd just stay low and alert.
So I flew over his street and then past the end, where the cars couldn't go, and that put me right over one of Western Michigan's parking lots.
I flew south over their campus, keeping low enough that I was out of the way of any airplanes, and zig-zagging around light posts for the fun of it. Then I curved to follow the railroad tracks out of town, gaining a bit more altitude so I was above any trains that happened to come by.
I started having second thoughts by the time I got to the 131 bridge, 'cause I really wasn't supposed to be flying off-campus without my flight gear even if I was staying a lot lower than the airplanes, and I didn't want to get in trouble for it, so turned around and headed back to campus.
The tracks ran right next to Arcadia Creek, so I flew over that instead, and went even lower. I had to be careful, 'cause it wasn't a very big creek and there were trees and snags across it, and I lost it a couple of times when it went underground. I guess that people had decided that they didn't want to let it run naturally, but I bet nobody asked the fish what they thought.
Fish are kinda dumb, though, so they probably didn't care.
When I saw the first road that actually went to college, I followed it and then once I was on campus it was okay to fly around without wearing my flight gear if I wanted to. But I was ready for a shower and then breakfast.
Since I was right by the dining hall, I flew up to one of the windows and looked in—I could see our table, but there wasn't anybody sitting at it yet. Then I went over the building and across the quad until I got to the boardwalk and landed.
I had to wait for the shower—Rebekka was waiting and she said that Ruth was who was inside. So while I waited I told her how over the summer the makers had made me a rope that I could tie to a cloud and she thought that was really cool. She wanted to know what I did with the cloud after it was tied up and I said I could sit on it and maybe on the weekend if there were clouds I'd catch one and tie it up over the quad because that would be fun.
It didn't take too long before Ruth was done with the shower and Rebekka went in for her turn, and while she was in the shower Peggy came in too and I offered to let her go next, 'cause she'd have to get dressed afterwards and I didn't.
She said that she'd feel bad taking my place since I'd been waiting, but I didn't mind. So she hugged me and when Rebekka came out she went in, and then after she came out I took my turn.
Since nobody had come in to wait after me, I could have taken a little bit longer, but then I would have gotten to breakfast late, and I didn't want that. And now I knew the Tuesday morning routine, so I could fly a little bit longer.
It was kind of strange how everyone sort of figured out the shower order on their own. We'd never all gotten together and had a group meeting with all the girls in our wing; the schedule just sort of made itself.
Peggy was all dressed and ready to go when I got back to our room, and she had her backpack with her, too, 'cause she had a class after breakfast just like me.
I thought about taking my saddlebags, but my barrel was still wet, and if I wore them it would take forever to dry off. I bet if humans were covered in a proper coat they'd never wear clothes, just because sometimes it was really inconvenient to get dry.
The man was there making omelets this morning, and he even remembered what I liked. So I had that and some fruit too and that was more than enough for breakfast.
Sean wasn't there because he didn't have any classes until the afternoon and Christine said that made him a lazy bum but that was okay because we could talk about boys and periods and the latest fashion and other fun girl stuff. Well, I didn't know how fun that would be but I said that I was probably only going to have one more estrus before the end of the the year and Christine said that was really unfair. I told her she ought to have been born a pony.
She said if she could have been, she would have wanted to be a unicorn 'cause then she could do all sorts of fun magic with her horn. I guess that would have been nice but I said that I liked being a pegasus because flying was better than magic.
Peggy asked her if she'd worry about being caught by virgins, and she said that she'd let them lure her in and then stab them with her horn and gallop off, and eventually her story would end when an angry mob armed with pitchforks and torches finally cornered her in her forest glen.
Me and Peggy both thought she was thinking about it a little too much.
Then she asked if I'd ever tried to toss a ring on a unicorn's horn, and that was something I'd never thought of doing.
When I got to my physics lab, we were supposed to partner up and I wasn't sure who I ought to pair with, 'cause I liked both Crystal Dawn and Lisa, and I could only pick one. But then Crystal Dawn picked a boy named Austin for her lab partner, and so I asked Lisa if she would be my lab partner.
Well, she wanted to know if I could pull my weight, and I said that I could pull almost twice my weight, 'cause I'd tried it a pony pull once.
And she said that wasn't what she meant. She wanted to know if I was smart enough, and I said that I hoped so but I wasn't sure because I'd never taken the class before. So she said that I was a silly pony but I could be her lab partner.
We each got to go to our own table and Professor Brown said that we were going to play with fire today because he always started with that because everybody liked it and kept hoping that we'd get the chance to set something else on fire. And he said that I was supposed to be wearing a lab coat and safety glasses but I didn't have either and I hadn't seen them with the books for class.
So he took me out in the hall to talk to because he'd never taught physics to a pony before, and he wasn't sure how flammable I was, and we both agreed that we didn't want to find out. And he told me that I could hurry and go down to the physics department offices which were at the end of the hallway and around the corner and I could talk to them and they would see what they thought.
Well, I was kinda upset about that because if I couldn't do the lab I couldn't do the class, but one of the professors found a lab coat that I could wear, and I managed to convince them that if I closed my third eyelid that would protect my eyes. And another professor loaned me a sparkly scrunchie and pulled my mane back so that it wouldn't be in danger, and then they said that I could go to the lab like that but I needed to have my own lab coat for next week.
And I thanked them and promised that I would get it, and then I went back to the lab feeling kind of silly at how the coat was hanging and how the sleeves had been rolled up so that they would fit my forelegs. And my mane felt weird, too, 'cause I almost never tied it back.
Professor Brown thought it was pretty funny, too, but he said that if the department head had said it was okay, that was good enough for him.
The lab was kinda basic, but the main purpose of it was to get us used to how to use the equipment we had to take measurements and he demonstrated a thermal camera for us, which was really neat, and then he showed us how to make a Cincinnati Fire Kite, which was basically folding a sheet of newspaper into a diamond-shape and then you lit the corners and it flew up like a hot air balloon. He put his in a special chamber so it couldn't get away and set the paper on fire, and at first it didn't do anything except burn and smoke a lot, but then it suddenly lifted off until it hit the top of the chamber, where it kind of disintegrated and fell down in embers.
Then we all had to make our own, and not everyone could do it right, so most of them didn't fly at all. Ours did, kind of, but it didn't make it all the way up to the top before it came apart. He said that they were tricky to make correctly, and that he could always tell who the pyromaniacs in class were by how well they did with their kites. And he reminded us again not to make them and fly them unless we were well away from anything that was remotely flammable, because he said he'd lose his tenure if one of his students burned down the college.
After class, I went back to the physics office and gave back the scrunchie and lab coat and thanked them again, then I went right to the bookstore and found where they sold lab coats—there was a little section with clothes which I had never paid much attention to, and that's where they were. They came in little bags that were just marked with letters and I wasn't sure how to know what one would fit me. One of the salesgirls thought that a M would be right, so she took one out of its package and she helped me try it on and it didn't work at all. She said that I was broader around the shoulders than she'd thought, and I finally had to get an XXL which was way too baggy some places and too tight in others and the sleeves were way too long.
But I knew that Kathleen could make it fit better, so I brought it with me to lunch and sat in the dark room and when Donald came to lunch I asked him for her telephone number. And then before I went to my next class I called her and she said that she could make it fit me, but we wouldn't be able to get together for a couple of weeks since she didn't even live in Michigan, and she was sorry she couldn't help.
Well, I was sorry, too, but I couldn't expect her to come rushing up here and make a lab coat fit me, so I called Mister Salvatore and he said that he would find a way to make it happen somehow. And I felt kind of bad making him have extra work like that. I guess I learned that I ought to plan some things better.
My next class was also in the Dow building, and it was about the physics of space, which was going to be really interesting. Humans had discovered lots of things about space that ponies hadn't, and so I was sure I'd learn lots of exciting new stuff.
It was all the way up on the top floor, and it was a smaller classroom than the physics class. And I didn't see anyone that I knew, so I guess I was going to have to make new friends.
The woman who had loaned me the scrunchie was our professor, and she wrote her name on the board which was Professor Mitchell, and she explained all the things that we were going to learn in class and I was really looking forward to it. She said that later in the year, we'd get to go on a field trip to an observatory and that wasn't mandatory but it was highly encouraged because it was always better to see things with your own eyes.
She also told us that there was an astronomy club which met at the Nature Center, and that they had a big telescope that we could look through, and she gave us a schedule of their meetings.
I was kind of disappointed when she let us go early since it was our first day, 'cause I wanted to learn more.
I had a little time before dinner so I read Obadiah which was really short. He only had one vision, where God said that the people of Edom thought they were safe because they lived up on mountains and soared like eagles, but that He would bring them down, and He would give their land to the Israelites, because they'd stolen it and been mean to the Israelites.
Then I wrote in my journal and before I went to dinner I went down the hallway and to Meghan's room, 'cause I wanted to know if I could sleep with her tonight. And she said I could but that we couldn't do anything since Amy would be there so that was kind of disappointing. But it would still be nice to snuggle with her.
She asked if I wanted to go to dinner with her and I said that I would, so we went to the dining hall together and decided to sit in the farthest-away room. I hoped that nobody at my table was missing me too much, or that her friends were missing her. Sometimes it was hard to spend enough time with all your friends—I still hadn't had a meal with Leon and Cedric and Trevor, so maybe I would do that at lunch tomorrow. I wasn't sure what their schedules were like.
Meghan said that it was too bad that there weren't any places on campus that we could hide and be private and I thought so, too. But it wouldn't be nice for either of us to kick out our roommates, so I guess we'd just have to think of something.
I said that I thought it would be fun to get a room at the hotel all the way towards the top, and she thought so, too, and so we started to think about when we could do that. It wouldn't be this weekend, 'cause we were going to the football game on Friday and I didn't know when we'd be back, and she said that we probably wouldn't be able to get a room at a good rate on such short notice anyway but if nothing else we should make plans to do it after mid-terms because we'd want the stress relief.
And she said maybe we could go to the nature trail and sneak off into the woods some day and I thought that would be fun.
She had to go to bell choir after dinner, and so I went back to my dorm room and I had a telegram from Mister Salvatore. He said that he'd found a seamstress who could fix my lab coat but she'd need to take lots of measurements and he wondered when would be a good time. So I said that tomorrow after dinner I could or otherwise it wouldn't be until the weekend. And I had to wait a little bit until he replied again and he said that tomorrow would work and he'd pick me up before dinner.
I hung out with Peggy and Ruth and Kat for a while and then I went down the hall to Meghan's room. I didn't take my flight gear, 'cause I'd just walk back and get it in the morning.
All the girls were there, and pretty soon we started talking in Equestrian 'cause it was good practice for them and for me, too. It's weird how when you're off in a foreign land you can forget how to speak your own language if you don't use it much, and at first it felt really weird speaking it, but then it started seeming more natural.
And after a while Amy started to ignore us, 'cause she didn't speak it at all and I felt bad that we were having a conversation she couldn't participate in but she said it was okay, she had some reading she needed to do for her English class anyway because her professor had decided to assign eighty pages on the first day of class. I thought that was pretty mean, and I was kind of glad that all my professors had decided to start things off slower.
We probably could have stayed up all night, but when Amy closed her book and said that she was going to get ready for bed, we all decided that we ought to think about it ourselves. But we didn't wind up going to bed for almost another hour—we just moved over to Becky and Lisa's room, until the conversation sort of wound down.
Me and Meghan went back over to her room and she still got into her sleeping clothes in the bathroom in case Amy wasn't all the way asleep, but she left the door open, and then she sat on the edge of the bed and set her alarm clock to wake her up. And she said that it was later than she thought, and when I asked how late she said it was after midnight.
She laid on her back so I could put my head on her breast, and I pushed her shirt up a little bit so that I could rest my wing on her belly, and she put her hand on top of it and it didn't take me too long to fall asleep.
Minor correction: in the last chapter, I misspelled Kat's name as Cat.
So Silver has done a pull. I wonder how many stones she pulled, but that be asking her weight and a mare never reveals that. One more connection to the Pony Planet series even though this story is not connected.
You know, I was somehow expecting that someone picked up the fact that Silver would need a lab coat and would have a pony sized one at the ready.
I had too much faith in humanity it seems.
(The ring-toss was OK, but I will NOT let you pitch horse-shoes at my head!>
<Way to take all the fun out of it, Twi...)
Probably because the most likely reaction from the unicorn would be this:
orig08.deviantart.net/a6a0/f/2011/265/b/8/twilight_is_unamused_by_eonevolution-d4alwu6.gif
No, that's Applejack who's the silly pony.
I really don't think a third eyelid is going to cut it in terms of eye protection on any level, if anything it probably only increases the risk of eye damage.
I realize you've probably already planned and written ahead, but it seems to me that Silver is simply out of luck; strictly speaking she's not going to be able to do most of the lab stuff very easily at all, since much of it--at least in my experience--requires a bit of manual dexterity that she simply doesn't have. The most dexterous part of her body is her mouth, and given the nature of the mouth (ie no real protection) handling chemicals--even those that normally would be safe to get on your hand by accident--are going to give her no end of trouble.
Technically I think she's probably best thought of as a student with disabilities--and indeed, that's probably how she'd be accommodated on campus. Whether this means she has some special alternative to taking labs, I don't know.
Okay, artists, you have your cue.
tfw Silver Glow ask this with a cute and innocent face and then you realize she meant both meanings.
7725494
Given that it's a physics lab, though, and there aren't so many chemicals involved in that, she'll probably be okay with most of the experiments. She might not be able to do some of the more finicky parts of some of them, but even then she can observe and report.
I think that the professor and/or the department staff would want to take that on a case-by-case basis. I don't know what K's policy was, but I generally got the vibe from most of the professors that they felt duty-bound to make your learning process as good as they could, and a lot of them would go out of their way to accommodate students. One of my English professors let me do essays in the computer lab, since my handwriting is appallingly bad, and another one let me do my senior project by mail with her while she was on vacation in California (this was before things like gDocs, so I was legit mailing her a manuscript, she made corrections and suggestions, and then mailed it back to me).
Obviously, they're going to be wary of anything that's dangerous, because they don't want anybody to get hurt--that would be one of their foremost considerations.
I wish. I'm still playing catchup from October.
I've often thought that if youth is wasted on the young then privacy is wasted on the old.
For non USA readers. There is a law called The Americans With Disabilities Act (IIRC). It basically says that institutions & companies must make "reasonable" efforts to accommodate people with disabilities but the devil is in the details. What is "reasonable" & who decides? The -ING lawyers, that's who. Their motto is "If we see Common Sense, we will KILL IT!"
Tenure. In the USA if you have a job as a teacher for a certain length of time, you are given tenure. It is very difficult to fire a teacher with tenure. This was intended as partial compensation for the low salary teachers get compared to other college graduates. At college/university level it is in your contract. You don't have tenure they can simply refuse to renew your contract for any reason. They don't even have to tell you why & you have no recourse.
7725467
You need a pillow then probably, also if you don't have back pain to begin with I'd avoid it.
7725533
Hey, I've done that before! If you have the right kind of sleeping bag, it's actually easier than it sounds. I did have the right sleeping bag (it was a Boy Scout thing, and Boy Scouts have to be prepared).
7725484
I believe the criteria Mythbusters use are:
Confirmed - possible under the circumstances/limitations posed by the myth in question
Plausible - possible, albeit under extreme circumstances
Busted - can't reproduce, no way this can possibly ever happen in this universe as we know it, get the buck out
7725484
They had done an initial program where they called it busted, but they went back and revisited it and came back with plausible, with the caveat the force needed to achieve it would more likely tear the person apart than to "de-sock" him.
7725454 Wire from Kim Jong-Un to Celestia:
OMG! You like cake too???
Rather than depending on nictitating membranes (fine for dust, water, sand, and mud but insufficient for fire, shrapnel, and chemicals), she can use horse-goggles.
I really hope Silver talks with Mister Salvatore about the whole lab thingy, because he might be able to get her some protective headgear... And maybe something to grip stuff in the lab safely.
Oh and his face when he asked why Silver picked these classes, and she goes: "because we didn't do stuff like this in my school, i want to learn things i don't know yet!"
The eyelid thing is good, but would you trust contact lenses for your eye protection?
I'm certainly not
And I wonder when Silver os going to ask Meghan to come with over to Aric, so all three of them can have a fun time and don't need to worry about privacy.
Also who of when is Peggy going to find out about Silvers alone-time-toy ?
7726062
for mares with a partner, it is fun ?!
Speciesist!
Nope that exactly the right level of thinking about that sort of thing.
What kind of Scientist are you? What happened to experimentation? Humans have been working for thousands of years to find out exactly how flammable other humans are (and often themselves as well), now you've got a whole new population to test!
Aric: As a what?
Silver: As a huu-- nicorn.
Um.
Stop, Silver is adorable enough now.
7725571
I'm not sure if safety rules are set by individual professors or the department as a whole--or even the school as a whole, and I'll admit I'm not super familiar with what sorts of experiments you could possibly do in a class on thermal physics. But a third eyelid still isn't going to provide much, if any, protection from--say--something breaking off and flying into her face. Plus I think you're underestimating the sorts of experiments that might be done, such as those that require working with extremely hot liquids/possible chemicals.
For example, she might be expected to do an experiment that involves dissolving solid NaOH into water and observing the change in temperate to calculate the heat of dissolution. Solid NaOH isn't exactly a walk in the park.
Maybe it differs at that school, but it seems to me it's likely the other way around, where the rules are set out and only in particular instances are they going to make exceptions to them.
You know when you are in the university chemistry lab, when the fume cupboard has built in gloves, and in order to use it, once youve closed the blast sheet, you have to wear hard hat and visor as well as goggles.
Blowing up hydrogen filled party balloons is always fun. once you manage to find just teh right size so you can gurentee a bang, and not a window removing explosive kaBoom.
Shouldnt a scientist say, the EM drive cannot work under our current knowledge of physics, therefore I cannot say if it can work or not. What do you mean relativistic ping pong ball device look like th Mach drive, and the paperclip drive looks like a plasma wave surfer?
I'm surprised theMakers haven't made a prosthetic hand for SG that fits over a hoof.
Of course, once that gets back to Equestria their society will knocked for a loop.
Or collapse.
Even the Unicorns could see the advantages of TKing a human glove.
For being apart so long, they certainly took up exactly where they left off!
7723629 Wow. Yer I'm definitely never reading Austraeoh haha.
Austraeoh: 3,183,533 words
Fallout Equestria; Project Horizons: 1,781,141 words (1,968,925 If you include Fallout Equestria: Homelands which is a direct follow on from Horizons which is only at chapter 9 right now so that number will definitely rise)
I'm actually expecting someone to suggest setting fire to bits of Silver. (Mane, tail, fur, feather, hoof clipping) Given how ponies tend to be physics breaking it might produce unexpected results.
I'm going to guess the chance to play thermodynamics games with a cloud might be too tempting for the teachers to pass up.
The entire lab? Seems wasteful
Oddly, I think she will do better then most of the humans. Part of what makes space seem weird is that everything moves in 3-dimenions (this is also true of flying, but a bit lesser as you have a fixed 'down' which is something you don't have in space). Humans are built for 2-dimention movement so adding the third can make it a bit challenging, but as a Pegasus she'll already have a good grasp of that so it will be a touch easier for her.
Even so, space just feels weird. Say if you are in orbit behind something and want to catch up with it, you need to slow down. Slowing down will drop you into a lower orbit, where you'll be moving faster. This turned out to be a real problem on Gemini 4 as they didn't understand how to make it work yet and ended up failing at a rendezvous. Buzz Aldrin was the one who worked out the mechanics behind it, and Gemini 6 and 7 were able to successfully rendezvous, and Gemini 8 actually docked with another craft before they had to abort the flight.
7726583
....And the first time Silver Glow demonstrates a perfect rainbow boom over the campus, the Dean is going to have a few words with you
Yes, I know you specified detached sample, but these are college kids we're talking about here. You KNOW someone would eventually think to do that to the "source specimen".
That's a really light STEM quarter Aric, you have no idea.
It might vary a bit by school, but physics and engineering labs tend to be more chill about safety equipment (with the exception of things like welding). I've never worn lab coats outside of chem and eye protection is only if required. The only regularly enforced rule is pants and closed toe shoes, and even that's iffy. Those might not even apply to silver at all either.
I'm loving the physics professor. Having a good professor makes the class so much better.
I still think silver might be barking up the wrong tree with this class. It'll be a good lesson for her.
7725494 a physics lab isn't going to have much in terms of dangerous chemicles. She could also just be the mastermind and have Lisa do the stuff that she can't.
7727904 Heretic!
7721635
Which is the most important point.
At this point, it's a little late to get in a political debate (although if you've been reading through the comments to this point, you'll notice that politics has come up). And quite honestly, I don't have the slightest clue about what Trump's viewpoint on alien ponies would actually be. But, I can see a certain portion of the population--the same kind of people who go into abortion clinics and start shooting because they're 'doing God's work'--being emboldened by some of Trump's statements, and lashing out at ponies.
Huhuhuhu fire's cool...
7725422
Especially nobody asks a pegasus, because that always makes them look fatter by comparison, since pegasi are the lightest of the three tribes.
I've got to imagine that any town that has earth ponies in it has some kind of pulling competition.
7725450
They should have thought of that, but didn't. Cayenne surely has one, but she needs it for her classes.
7725469
<The ring-toss was OK, but I will NOT let you pitch horse-shoes at my head!>
pre03.deviantart.net/18c7/th/pre/i/2015/030/8/b/cloptrap_ring_toss_by_purplehowl-d8g0cfv.png
7725485
And she's standing in the perfect position to play ring toss!
Applejack is a silly pony. Applejack is best silly pony.
7725513
I should get off my lazy butt and commission some art.
7725536
7725622
Oh, I've got back pain. Pretty much always, to be honest.
7725684
I did not have the right sleeping bag, so it was a rather miserable night. And then I had to go barefoot to the fire in the morning, because my boots froze and i couldn't put them on. Just the same, it was a good experience.
7725719
That sounds about right. And some of them do lead to a grey area, too, like the catching arrows myth. You can, if they're real arrows, you'll probably die before you get one, and why would you want to anyway?
7725752
Yeah, common sense tells me that if you get hit hard enough to lose your socks, you're probably dead.
7725767
I do wonder how the ponies would deal with some of the more evil dictators out there.
"Well, my meeting with Hitler didn't go all that well, so I banished him to the moon."
"Again, Celestia? Nobody will want to meet with you if you keep banishing them."
7725794
They would probably protect against fire at least briefly. In a serious fire, her lab coat won't do all that much to help her anyways. Also, now that I think about it, what are college lab coats actually made of? Are they synthetic?
7725830
When she goes into weather planning, if she knows math that other ponies don't know, she's going to have a real advantage.
Well, they're not quite the same thing. It depends on what you're trying to protect against, really.
Maybe never--who says ponies have or like threesomes?
As soon as Silver forgets its in her pillowcase.
If you like watching them squirm, it's probably great fun.
7725914
Silver Glow is very much a speciesist.
That's what I think, too. If you're going to imagine being a murdering unicorn, you ought to carry it out to its logical conclusion.
img13.deviantart.net/af8e/i/2011/174/b/7/a_roast_to_twilight_sparkle_by_yikomega-d3jsx94.jpg
7726062
Some girls like to talk about that kind of stuff just to freak out guys, I'm sure.
But with a ponytail and a sparkly scrunchie she's even more adorable.
7726067
I'm not really sure, to be honest. it's been 20 years since I last set foot in a lab, and that was a chemistry lab, so not quite the same as thermodynamics.
7726095
Back in high school, we were watching a movie where, among other things, they were dropping alkaline metals in water. The first couple, the scientist just had gloves on. When he got to the last one, there was a blast shield between him and the water, he was completely covered in protective gear, and holding the metal with tongs.
Those experiments are always really easy to overdo. It's why I always assume when I'm trying something like that that the explosion is going to be ten times worse than I think it should be.
That's the fun thing about cutting-edge science, isn't it? You can't always tell if the criteria for your test make it a conclusive test or not.
7726183
That's a pretty complex project, especially if you want it to have reasonable control. Not undoable, but damned complex. And how would she run it? It's not like an amputee, who used to have a hand and mentally knows how a hand works.
I've never been completely convinced of that, since everything in their society would have been designed and developed for ponies to use. So hands might not be as valuable a commodity as many HiE fics think they are. I'm not saying that they would be useless, just that they might not be that huge a benefit.
7726449
Sometimes over the summer, relationships do. Other times, unfortunately, they don't.
7726583
That would be an interesting experiment, although it wouldn't necessarily have any interesting results (and burning hair smells pretty nasty, too).
Ooh, you could have fun with that. Maybe a bonus lab on a weekend or something? Silver Glow probably knows more about the triple point of water than her professor.
7726679
"Okay, students, first you fold up the paper like this, then you burn down the building."
"Um, professor, why?"
"Because I can, that's why."
(I'm not sure what happened there, because the next part of the sentence didn't make a whole lot of sense, either.)
7726683
Can confirm: back in high school, I played a 3d board game with my brother (it was about flying), and I was really bad at it, because visualizing where things were in space was really difficult. She would be more naturally inclined to have a good 3d mental map already, and also have a better grasp of distances and sizes as well, because she would understand things like just how big that anvil cloud really is. Heck, just this week I was puzzling over something I should have already known (the terminator line on the moon) and just trying to visualize in my head how it worked.
7726685
The sonic Silverboom. She probably couldn't pull that off on earth, but if she did . . .
I will confess that at the shop, one of the mechanics set fire to another one on purpose. And I've had a friend set fire to my pants for fun.
7726885
To any arts major, the thought of taking even one math class is too much. On the other hand, I was always that guy that would say "Oh, yeah, I've got a ten-page report due this afternoon, so I'd probably ought to get started on it."
That's totally true. It's not just the material, but how it's taught. I've learned more about math from watching Numberphile than I ever learned in college. I don't totally understand all of it (especially when they write out formulas), but I mostly can follow along.
7727915
And don't get me started on our fathoms and nautical miles vs. statute miles . . . fun fact, in NTSB reports involving ships they have to specify which they're using, because on the Mississippi and the Great Lakes, they use statute miles, while in the oceans and Gulf of Mexico, they use nautical miles.
7730020
Yes, it is.
i799.photobucket.com/albums/yy272/craigjoeproject/20odonoghue.jpg
Also,
img00.deviantart.net/ab79/i/2014/136/5/b/through_the_fire_and_the_flames_by_nadnerbd-d7ijaeb.png
7730020
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=lyrics+fire+by+the+crazy+world+of+arthur+brown&&view=detail&mid=81B24BD1E8DBEAF5558381B24BD1E8DBEAF55583&&FORM=VRDGAR
Ah, the 1960s
8827058
Well, that's a song from the sixties I'd never heard before.
I smell a new sport. Bonus points awarded if the tosser can avoid getting zapped!
You have no idea how relieved this made me. When I was a chem TA, failure to arrive with PPE was an instant fail unless you could get it within 10 minutes. The chem store in the basement made serious cash off of lazy undergrads.
Yay! Silver Glow is best STEM pony! Math, thermodynamics, astrophysics... all the fun stuff!
That's going to be a really awkward police report...
10335350
derpicdn.net/img/view/2012/7/29/60742.png
Proper PPE is very important in a lab, and they shouldn’t make exceptions. Especially because kids are often a mix of dumb and believing that they’re bulletproof. Things get weird when a pony’s involved, though, and realistically there’s some PPE that’s a good idea and some that probably isn’t (for example, fall-arrest harnesses for pegasi might not be helpful).
She is! She’s a smart little pony, that’s for sure.
Should they get caught, Mr. Salvatore would be sure to intervene and make that report vanish under the depths of another pegasus incident form. Presumably the Kalamazoo (and Portage) cops have already heard the horror story from Allegan about what happens when a cop tries to detain Silver Glow. (Well, horror story from the cop’s perspective; Silver Glow got ice cream.)
Christine is awesome. Her brain, man. Her brain.
11223799
She is the best kind of weird and crazy. Her brain works in amazing ways.
I love Christine so much.
11344688
She's just fantastic.