In Starswirl's time it was considered that there was no necessity for the average pony to be able to read. Thus, there were no public schools. Ponies learned what they needed to know by being apprenticed to a trade or by working on their parent's farm. It was customary for the well-to-do to hire a tutor to teach several foals until they were 11 or 12, then to send them to a boarding school. This is why Starswirl was able to devote so much time to his chess career -he didn't have to worry about attending school.
Shortly after Starswirl began attending class, the tutor was ill and a new tutor (one that Starswirl had never seen before or since) took the class for a day. Because the class was unruly, the tutor demanded that they "add all the numbers from 1 to 100." Before he had even finished writing the problem on the board, Starswirl announced the answer "5050".
The tutor was taken aback but answered. "That's right. Starswirl has obviously realized that there is an easy way to do this. You add 100+1 = 101, 99+2 = 101, etc. down to 51+50 = 101. This gives you the equation 101x50 = 5050 for the answer"
Starswirl replied "I don't know how to multiply, I just added them up in my head" He then demanded that he be taught how to multiply. Thus, his tutors became aware that his ability in chess was not an isolated incident.
Shortly afterwards, he read that "skunks need to brace their hind legs in order to spray their scent". Deciding to test this, he located a skunk and hoisted it into the air by its tail. Unable to spray, the skunk was helpless. One of his classmates pointed out "You can't hold it up forever. Sooner or later, you will have to put it down and when you do, you will regret it"
Starswirl carried it over to their classroom and flung it through an open window. Neither the skunk nor his tutor (who was inside) were the least bit amused by this.
When told about resonance, his response was to grab a hammer and a stopwatch and use resonance to knock down a nearby bridge. He said that this was NOT just random destructiveness but was necessary to test his concepts about resonance. He would later use this greater understanding to build a Tesla coil. This was called "an answer to a question no one asked" He would later use it to shoot sparks of 6 feet or more at those who touched his front door. He called it "My answer when I don't want to be asked."
At the time, his father was NOT amused. He said. "You are 11 years old. You have no "concepts". He then grounded Starswirl "for the rest of your life". Shortly afterwards, he was sent away to boarding school
Florine is the most electronegative of all the elements. This means that compounds containing fluorine are extremely stable because nothing can break the chemical bond. During Starswirl's school days, pure fluorine was finally produced after decades of effort. Starswirl was greatly excited. He thought that Fluorocarbon analogs of hydrocarbons could be produced, and that they would be extremely stable. Thus, they could replace ammonia (which was toxic & corrosive) as a refrigerant, and perhaps be used to fight fires.
He theorized that fluorocarbons could be produced by mixing carbon and fluorine. The school forbid his attempt for safety reasons Early methods of fluorine production were both difficult and dangerous. Several researchers were blinded and/or poisoned in the attempt. He ignored this, snuck into the lab at night, and put his theory to the test. He learned that combining fluorine and carbon WILL produce fluorocarbons. Indeed, they are produced so quickly that the reaction is an explosion.
When the police responded to the explosion and called on him to explain himself, he said “It is not the critic who counts; not the one who points out how the strong stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the one who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is no effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
The police officer was not impressed and Starswirl was arrested and taken to Juvenile Detention. Folklore says that when he was locked in, the police officer told him "You talk of 'those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat'? Join them."
The Headmaster was not impressed either. Starswirl was given a flogging, a month's detention, no deserts for a month, and forced to pay for the damages.
Starswirl was equally unimpressed and told the Headmaster "History will remember you solely by what my biographers choose to say of you. I doubt that it will be much." This got him another flogging.
Starswirl did eventually produce the first fluorocarbons by using hydrocarbons instead of carbon, using stronger containers, and chilling the ingredients in liquid air (to slow the reaction down)
Shortly after this incident, his teachers began referring to him as "Spat" (Small Pony, Always Talking.)
spat (spat)
noun
dispute, quarrel
So, it was felt that this was an especially appropriate nickname
Somehow, his fellow students became aware of this and began to use it. Starswirl hated it.
Later, he proved that light had to be a wave. He used a prism to split a narrow beam of light into a spectrum. He then put the spectrum through another prism. When it was not split any further, this showed that they were waves, not particles.
Later, he proved that certain metals would emit electricity when struck by light, but only at discrete intervals of light energy. He theorized that this proved that, although light was basically a wave, this meant that it was a new type of thing that he called a "wavicle" with the properties of both particles and energy.
When a classmate of his challenged him to "fix the cloud chamber" (used for weather experiments), he theorized that the problem of occasional streaks of light showing up was because of invisible radiation, subatomic in size. Although this is accepted now, it was controversial at the time.
Folklore says that he disproved Trotter's dictum that "heavy objects fall faster than slow objects" by throwing a fat teacher and a thin teacher off the roof of the science lab and seeing who hit the ground first. (Actually, they were chasing him and slipped -or so Starswirl always maintained)
Starswirl did other things besides experiment.
Starswirl was the Captain of the Chess Team (As he had retired from tournament competition, the rules back then did not prohibit this). Oddly enough, they never lost a match. He was also on the Zen Sumo Wrestling Team, (telekinetic wrestling, with all movement prohibited) and went personally undefeated.
He even engaged in a few pranks. Having read that ponies will often be unable to eat food if it's strange colors, he got the kitchen staff to use food dye on a meal by convincing them that it was an experiment for a Psychology class term paper (Folklore says that the bribes helped). According to Starswirl's notes, Green was more acceptable than red or purple in terms of edibility.
To win a bet, he broke the "no pets" rule by converting the ceiling light fixture in his room into a fishbowl for a week.
He purchased a barbershop pole. Then he and a few friends carried it around town while wearing their school uniforms. Every time the police stopped them, they showed the police their receipt. Then, they demanded the officers' badge numbers, threatened that their parents' lawyers would be told, etc., etc. After a day or so, word had spread and the police stopped questioning them. That night, they went out in school uniforms and stole every barbershop pole in town.
They stole a rival school's mascot, and shipped it to the Griffon embassy as "a token of the friendship between our nations".
Oddly enough, the staff was glad to hurry him through the school's curriculum and see him graduate early. Folklore says that, as valedictorian, he was to deliver a speech but instead burst into song ("My Way" by Frank Sinatra. We can't link copyright material in stories, so it's in the author's notes)