maskormenacelogs | CATCH ALL FOR FEBRUARY // ALL OPEN

A // UNIVERSITY // OPEN

Being transported to that other world delayed classes … once more … but at least the university understood it was against her will and let her have her job back.

Feel free to find Jane in her classroom, pop in on a class, catch her on a lunch or coffee break, or find her in her office working on lesson plans and grading. She might even be working on some live demonstrations with gravity! If you get trapped in the gravitational pull, she apologizes and will work on refining the equations a little more next time.

B // STUDYING MAGIC // OPEN

At the library (pick any one, she can use the porter without restriction once more), Jane has selected a number of books on magic. Anything from mythology to the literature of magic to some actual serious scholarly research into it. There is one particular book, though, that is just out of reach on a top shelf … across from where she currently is … on a ladder.

We all know where this is going.

C // TAKING A WALK // OPEN

Sometimes, Jane just really needed to clear her head.

Sometimes, that meant walking around her neighborhood in the middle of the night without any real purpose. Where she ended up didn’t matter. It was what she thought along the way. Of course, sometimes, that might include some ranting about the universe and paperwork or students being lazy after all her efforts to help or stupid songs getting stuck in her head.

She really needs to apologize to her neighbors.

D // WILD CARD

I probably forgot a plot somewhere, so feel free to put that here! Feel free to do that even if we didn’t plot anything!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

That's great! To be in the thick of developing technology, I'm jealous!

[Her smile becomes wider.]

Really? Thank you! What did you think of them?

You'd probably love the gnomes, then. They're always trying to invent something new. It's disappointing that most of their inventions don't work or end up exploding on them.

I particularly enjoyed the one on Einstein-Rosen bridges, even though I was a little confused on some of the intricacies like exotic matter. I had hoped to win a tutoring lesson with you at the auction to get a better understanding, but I was outbid.

[He really thought he had a chance for a while there, too.]

As long as they don't give up and learn from their mistakes, I say they're doing the scientific process pretty well!

[At that, Jane beams. No one had really thought Loki of all people would bid for her, let alone win, but it's nice to know that someone bid because they wanted the help.]

Well, if you want to, I can put my research on hold and give you that tutoring session now.

Slow progress is better than none.

[Oh, that's the best thing he's heard all day. Kang smiles.]

Really? I would certainly appreciate that. Though, I'd hate to interrupt your research. I don't mind at all postponing it for a later date or time, if that's what you'd prefer.

Exactly.

[She waves a hand, dismissing that.]

No, not at all! I can research any time, really. Unless now isn't a good time for you?

No, no, now is fine. I'm a little ahead on my schoolwork, for once. And maybe, to repay you, I can help you with your research? My kind are natural magic-users, and I have copies of the research two imPorts a couple of years back had done on me.

That would be great! But let's not think of it like paying back favors. Research and education is too important to treat it like that.

[She leads him over to her table and begins clearing a spot for him.]

Where do you want to start?

[He follows and takes a seat, carefully arranging his wings so they won't get pinched.]

Back home, information is extremely valuable - it was the main export of my nation, in fact. I forget sometimes that many here don't view it the same way. [A pause, as he digs out a pen and notepad from his messenger bag.] Maybe you can start with exotic matter, what exactly it is and how it's created.

Yeah. There are always education reforms and such, but even then, there are so many faults to that system or people slip through the cracks. Kids still ask what is the point of going to school.

[And at a college level, hearing people ask that, is a horror.]

Exotic matter, sure!

To put it broadly, we have matter like wood, plastic, curtains, dust. Stuff that acts normal and has normal properties. You can do an experiment and likely predict what will happen. Exotic matter is the stuff that doesn't behave normally. It has "exotic" properties. A wild card.

If it breaks the laws of physics, is hypothetical, aren't commonly encountered, or poorly understood, it's probably considered "exotic matter". So this would be dark matter or supercritical fluid. Sometimes ordinary matter, when put under extreme pressure, can be put into here, if its physical or chemical properties changes dramatically.

[Kang nods.]

Normal meaning properties that are currently understood. And exotic matter is anything that displays properties that we haven't yet encountered or been able to explain. There was a term I saw in one of the books - non-baryonic matter. Is that another term for exotic matter? I've really only gotten into the basics of quantum physics in my classes so far.

Exactly—or a deviation from the norm, such as an element being in a gas form at a temperature when it typically isn’t.

You’re pretty close with that one. Baryons are particles that are made up of three quarks. Protons and neutrons are the most well-known examples. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s exotic. If it’s hypothetical, probably, but …

[She rummages through a bag and hands him a piece of paper that has a chart on it.]

This is a resource I was going to give to my students studying particle physics. Long story short, particles have been put under a number of different categories for one reason or another. Like electrons, they’re under leptons. It’s great you’re getting familiar with the term, but I wouldn’t worry too much about memorizing everything right away. There’s a lot.

I've also heard of something called negative mass. That would be an example of a deviation from the norm. How would that even be possible, theoretically? I know photons don't have mass, but to have negative mass...

[He takes the paper and looks over it quickly.]

I have a feeling this will be extremely helpful. I haven't been able to find a lot of resources that put everything together like this for the higher levels of classes. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

Oh, that! That is used in some speculative models and opens up a lot of questions, such as if it should repel objects instead of attract them. It also would break a lot of energy conditions. It also has to do with what you are considering mass: inertial mass, gravitational mass, or passive gravitational mass. I know some people at NASA were working with anti-hydrogen, but I don't know what the results of their experiments are. They were still working on them when I came here.

[She hums, thinking.]

Maybe? I have a lot of resources like that, so if you guys are having trouble finding stuff like this, I need to post them online. There aren't paywalls, are there? Where you have to pay for access to journal articles and stuff like this?

CATCH ALL FOR FEBRUARY // ALL OPEN

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I'm just going off of the movies here

no problem :)

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LMAO physics is def not my strong suit - we can do a skip ahead if isn't yours as well?

physics is MOST DEFINITELY my strong suit, but we can keep it short :)

Let's see how much of this I can bullshit with google

lols that's pretty much all of science

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