Cutie Blossom Science Fair · 11:34am Oct 1st, 2023
The Mare Stream shook as it zipped through a patch of turbulent air. Sunny smiled reassuringly as Misty fought to keep her balance. “The Mare Stream can take some getting used to. At least we're taking you on a secret surprise adventure! Are you excited?”
“Oh, yeah! Definitely!” Misty replied while getting to her hooves. “Uh, so, um... what is it?”
“We're going... to Zephyr Heights for the annual Equestria Cutie Blossom Science Fair!”
This was new to Misty. “Cutie Blossom Science Fair? What is that?”
“It’s a celebration for all the ponies that have gotten their new cutie marks that year,” said Hitch. “You all get to go on stage, with a flag pole strapped to your back, and tell every pony about the amazing science story that is depicted by your cutie mark.”
“Science story?”
Sunny smiled at her friends. “My cutie mark is a star with a tail—a comet. The first time I saw a comet was a magical moment. I always enjoyed watching the stars from the roof of the lighthouse, with my telescope. One evening there was a new star with a tail. I’d never seen anything like it before. I asked my dad about it. He told me lots of stories about Twilight Sparkle and how alicorns used to raise the sun and moon, but he didn’t know how the stars worked today. I went to the library. They didn’t have any books on comets, or any money to buy one. So, I ran a lemonade stall to raise money. I had a bit of bother sorting out some awkward customers who got into a silly fight for no reason, but that’s not important. I got my book! I learned that comets are remnants from the first days of the solar system, billions of years ago. They’re made of ice and organic material and spend most of their time a hundred thousand times further from the Sun than the Earth, but every orbital cycle they fall into the inner solar system and are catapulted around the sun before returning to where they started. As they near the sun, they develop a coma as the heat turned some of the ice to gas. The coma is blown by the solar into a long bright tale that we can see.”
Zipp grinned. “Before we had magic, I was always crunching numbers trying to figure out exactly how Pegasi could fly again. But one day, I had this epic breakthrough moment. I realized, to run up a wall, I would need sufficient friction between the surface and my hooves. If I got the speed right, I could jump up so when my hooves made contact with the wall, there would be enough horizontal deceleration to give a normal reaction force, and hence enough friction to let me push up higher. Then I could repeat, two, three, maybe more steps until running out of horizontal momentum. Then I just had to flip back, spread my wings, and glide down to the ground. That’s the day I got this little wonderbolt.”
Izzy hopped up and down with excitement. “My turn! So, it all begins back in Bridlewood, during the days of yore, on the eves of the Translucent Moonstone Moon... Moon... Moon... There was this really sad-looking junk pile in the middle of our forest. But I didn't see it as junk. I saw it had potential. First, I took an old PVC pipe and fixed it to a wooden base with a metal bracket. Then I ran some plastic tape between two old rollers, and rigged it to a pedal driven chain; added a round metal bowl up the top, connected to the roller with an old brush. I had a Van de Graaff generator. Once I had it cranked up to ten thousand volts, the sparks were really flying. What could I do next? I took an old umbrella, and connected the ribs with wires to the generator, alternating between the high voltage, and ground. Then, I chucked in some ping-pong balls covered with conducting paint, and they whizzed round and round the canopy at speed. Then were picking up charge, and were pulled towards the next rib and repelled from the last. I had built my first particle accelerator. And then BAM! I got my mark!”
Seashell proudly turned her body so every pony could see her flank. “My name is Seashell, and my cutie mark is... a shell! Because I'm a pony who's fascinated by the mathematics of fractal patterns! Sea shells have spectacular complex forms. This one is a logarithmic spiral, a pattern where each turn is larger than the last by a constant factor. It’s decorated with ribs and spines with perfect regularity. It looks like these molluscs know a lot of math, but they actually just follow a few simple rules. As they grow, they secrete layer upon layer of shell material calcium carbonate, turning round and round in circles, getting bigger with each pass, and adding a twist to turn the shell into a helicospiral. Growth spurts can create deformations that develop into fancy spines on some shells, and then appear in rows at regular intervals. The same pattern repeated with each cycle on a bigger scale.”
Misty laughed nervously.
“Um… Does any pony know where I can sign up for a crash course on butterflies?”
I can see Izzy making a particle accelerator as a foal, easy.
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I mean, probably not intentionally but yes.
And then it turns out she actually got a mark in chaos theory.
("'Noooo, Opaline,' they said, 'you can't just set things on fire and call it a science fair project. Well who's laughing now!?'")
Thing is, Microwave ovens Are particle accelerators. Theyre just designed to be just as leaky as the power put into them.
As for setting thins on fire, theres a whole branch of building regs specifically aimed at that, and you have to burn everything to make sure its safe, or fake.
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Seashell: Don't you worry Misty. Just follow my lead. Your cutie mark is a representation of a Lorentz attractor - a solution to a set a differential equations describing the flow of air that has an extreme sensitivity to initial conditions.
Haven: I'm sorry that despite our advanced pony tech, and magic, it is still impossible to accurately forecast whether it will rain during the ceremony tomorrow.
Misty: I jinxed it, didn't I?