Primer Page #3

Abe had taken on the task

of quantifying and explaining the device.

But as weeks became months...

their enthusiasm became a slow realization

that they were out of their depth.

There he is.

I've been calling you all morning.

-Where'd you call?

-Your work and your cell.

I'm not there.

Really?

-March Madness?

-It's Carolina and Michigan.

-Who's up?

-I don't even know what.

Do you have anything important

at work today?

I hope you're not implying

that any day is unimportant at Cortex Semi.

I was going to come give you

this big speech about how we've been...

friends for a long time and built up trust,

that whole thing.

But how about this instead?

If you ditch work this afternoon and promise

to do the few small things I ask you...

I will in return show you

the most important thing...

that any living organism has ever witnessed.

Well, it looks like mustard to me.

I know, but it's a film. It's a protein...

secreted by a fungus

called Aspergillus Ticor.

He told you that?

No, he knew it was a protein

but didn't know where it came from.

All he really did was just take some pictures

with their equipment.

Guess where we're going.

-Do you know where Will is?

-No, why?

The Ariel meeting

is pushed back till Wednesday.

I thought he was waiting around for it.

Where are you going?

What do they do with engineers

when they turn 40?

-What, Bradshaw?

-Exactly. You know what?

I do know where Will is.

I'll let him know on my way out.

-Okay. Thanks.

-Can you meet me out front?

-You got to drive.

-Okay, here. Take my keys.

Okay, if you can, just pretend

that this is the first time I came in.

And if you would just

tell him exactly what you told me....

-Okay, so what is it?

-Protein buildup.

-Okay, can you just tell him?

-Protein buildup.

-But what kind?

-Some fungus.

-Some fungus.

-Where did it come from?

-I don't know. You were to take it to the lab.

-Yeah, that's next.

-You were in design, weren't you?

-Yeah.

How did you get over here?

Do you know what they do

with engineers when they turn 40?

They take them out and shoot them.

What the hell, Abe?

You could have just shown me the pictures.

-I want you to believe it.

-Believe what, the protein?

-I believe you.

-Okay, look...

this guy already thinks it's a joke,

so he may be a little defensive.

Really? Why would he think that?

Please.

Aspergillus Ticor.

This is a fungus that's everywhere.

It's in our bed, our skin,

sometimes even our GI tract. Everywhere.

It's basically the reason you don't leave

things in dark, damp, closed-off places.

Thank you.

Do you have that sample I brought?

There it is. Terger. T-E-R-G-E-R.

Okay, when I showed you this,

tell him what you thought.

-You thought it was a joke, right?

-It is a joke.

Right, but how did you know?

Will you show him? Please?

This is how I get protein A

out of Aspergillus Ticor. We sweeten it.

We agitate it. We spin it around.

We sweeten some more.

-Takes about a month.

-To get the same amount I brought in.

To get the same amount I brought in.

So if it's an incubatorforfungus,

is that valuable?

-That's not what it is.

-Then what is it?

There's another way to secrete

that much protein. Do it naturally.

But that takes a lot longer.

If it has a little moisture and it's left alone,

it'll start secreting and it'll build up...

-and build up, but it takes a long time.

-How long?

-A long time.

-More than a few days? Then how long?

To get the same amount of protein

that we have...

the amount that I was wiping off

every five days...

and five days later it would accumulate...

he says it would take about five to six years.

I don't want to belittle this guy.

So, I said screw it

and I put my watch in there.

-And?

-I want you to do it.

-Where is it? The box?

-I took it back to the shop.

-Wait, digital or old mechanical?

-Exactly. I did both.

-And what?

-I want you to do it.

We thought

that we were degrading gravity, right?

That we were blocking that information.

I think we're doing more than that.

I think we're blocking more than that.

When you were controlling the feed,

did you notice it was parabolic?

It's important. Parabolas are important.

Here, look at this.

I don't know, Abe.

I'm going to start it up

and let it run for 60 seconds...

with nothing in it. It's empty this time.

That's 22--

In all the equations that describe motion

and heat and entropy.

In all Feynman diagrams what's the

one variable that you can turn negative...

and still get rational answers for?

It's not mass.

Twenty-two hours, 27 minutes in the box.

-It's an odd number.

-That's 1,347 minutes.

-1,347, man, you got that fast.

-How did you know it's odd?

Because this is it. This is what's going on.

There's an "A" end and a "B" end.

Let's say the A end is 12:00,and the B end is 12:01.

All right? We start the machine

with the Weeble at the A end.

-It travels forward--

-You got to write this down.

-There's nothing to write down.

-I'll write it down.

It travels forward normally

towards the B end.

When it gets there,

the feed runs down parabolically...

until it should stop, but it curves

back around towards the A end.

When it gets back to the A end....

Curve that around. The Weeble...

has experienced a total of two minutes,

and again it curves--

-Back around. It curves parabolically.

-Right.

It comes back around

and it does this about 1,300 times.

When it finally exits on the B end...

it's traveled an odd number

of forward and backward trips.

What is so special about 1,300?

Why is it about 1,300? Why isn't it exact?

-This is not empirical.

-Here, give me that.

I don't know why it's not exact.

There's some sort of probability there.

Every time it hits the B end

there's a chance...

a small chance it won't

curve back around towards the A end.

And for some reason, it takes

about 1,300 trips before it finally does.

It does have to exit, or else

we wouldn't be able to see it afterwards.

Okay, let's take a look at this.

Twenty-two hours, 14 minutes.

-1,334 minutes.

-Even.

Enter at the B end.

Exit at the B end.

-ljust want you to see it the way I saw it.

-I am trying, okay?

Everything we're putting in that box

comes ungrounded.

And I don't mean grounded to the earth,

I mean not tethered.

We're blocking whatever keeps it

moving forward, so they flip-flop.

Inside the box, it's like a street,

and both ends are cul-de-sacs.

This isn't frame dragging or wormhole

matching. It's basic mechanics and heat.

This is not mechanics and heat.

-We can publish.

-Yeah, we can publish.

No, I mean we can really publish.

Aaron, the Weeble's stupid. It can't move.

Even if we were

to put the Weeble in at point B...

it's still going to bounce back and forth

until it's kicked out at the B end.

But if it were smart...

it could enter at the B end

and exit at the A end before it flips back.

You're talking about making a bigger one.

I didn't say anything.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes