Twilight Sparkle Solves Love
Celestia's sun had only begun its glorious daily trek through the clear blue sky of summer.
Rarity the unicorn took a deep, stimulating breath, letting the warm air carry the scents of the summer morning to her nose. She couldn't help but smile. What a beautiful day! The rays of the morning sun warmed her white coat, and her purple mane positively shone under its light.
Her mind buzzed with the possibilities the day might hold, but first, of course, she had to visit her dear friend Twilight Sparkle.
It was to be a social call, for once. No crisis threatened Equestria, there was no “issue of the day” affecting any of her friends, and her beloved but… exhausting sister and her friends were spending the day with Applejack at Sweet Apple Acres (Rarity strongly suspected that “Cutie Mark Crusaders Farm Laborers” would be a short-lived project).
And it had been so long since she’d seen Twilight! Why, had it been a whole week? Goodness, how time sometimes does fly!
Perhaps a cup of tea and some pleasant conversation, and then Rarity could be on her way. What would she do today? Perhaps a walk? Ooh! And lunch out! And today would be a simply perfect day to find a shady spot and finish reading her latest romance novel! Perhaps she would pay Fluttershy a visit as well. Yes, it was a day teeming with possibility.
Rarity’s musings were interrupted as she reached her destination. Twilight Sparkle’s library tree was quite a remarkable landmark in its own right, but it seemed… off... today, somehow. There was a sort of… stillness that contrasted the buzz of activity around it. The windows were all closed and shuttered, and it didn’t look like much care had been taken of the plants outside.
Rarity knew that Spike was visiting Canterlot this week, but even without him around the house, Twilight usually kept better care of things than this. Perhaps Twilight was wrapped up in another of her projects again?
Raising her hoof, she knocked on the door. “Twilight, dear? Are you in there? Would you like to have some tea?”
Through the door, Rarity heard the familiar soft thud of a book being dropped in surprise, followed by the rapid pattering clip-clops of running hooves, a crash, more pattering, and then the door opened.
“GAH!” Rarity shrieked.
“RARITY! OHMYGOSH IT’S SO GOOD TO SEE YOU!” Twilight said loudly. Her eyes were bloodshot and bugging out, and her face was split by a wide, toothy, maniacal grin.
“...Twilight, dear,” said Rarity, recovering a bit. “You… haven’t been outside in a while, have you?”
“RARITY! YOU HAVE TO COME SEE! I SOLVED IT!” and before Rarity could utter another word of protest, Twilight had wrapped her hoof around Rarity's and dragged the unicorn inside.
It was dark in the library, despite the hour. As Rarity, with her keen eye for detail had observed from outside, most of the drapes, shutters, blinds and so on had been drawn over the windows. The central room of the library was littered with various books and crumpled papers in various sized piles. There were empty coffee cups everywhere. And in the center of the room: a blackboard, the debris cleared from around it in a circular radius as if it were some holy artifact.
"I SOLVED IT, RARITY!" said Twilight excitedly (and more than just a little crazily). "THE GREATEST MYSTERY TO EVER CONFOUND PONYKIND'S GREATEST MINDS! I SOLVED IT!"
Rarity rubbed the side of head with her hoof, more than a little bit frazzled. "That's... nice dear, but could you perhaps enthuse just the tiniest bit quieter?"
Twilight blinked. "OH! Oh! Ohmygosh, Rarity I am so sorry! I haven't had much sleep this week."
Rarity shook her head. "It's alright, dear, I had a feeling that might be the case."
Twilight gave a sheepish smile in reply.
"But I'm curious now, darling, what is this mystery of yours?" Rarity had to admit that Twilight was beginning to pique her interest; she found herself getting a little caught up in Twilight's excitement herself.
"Okay!" Twilight said, "Okay. Okay. Rarity: what is the greatest mystery of all?"
Rarity put her hoof to her chin and turned her head up in thought for a moment. "Hmm... Bigfoot?"
"Yes!" Twilight closed her eyes and smiled, nodding vigorously. "Bigf- wait what?! No, not Bigfoot!"
"Oh, well then, what?" Rarity had always assumed Bigfoot was the biggest mystery around. Why, everypony was always talking about it!
"The greatest mystery of all is true love!" Twilight said, her smiling face leaning close to Rarity's in excitement. Her breath smelled strongly of coffee.
Rarity blushed, suddenly uncomfortably aware with how close her friend was standing to her "Whaaat?!" she blustered, taking a couple small steps backward.
"True love! It's the mystery that's haunted pony minds since the beginning of time! It's the big question! ...And I think I found the answer." Twilight's face inched closer, smiling ever wider.
"T-Twilight... t-this is rather sudden..." Rarity stammered, her heart beating in her chest.
Suddenly, Twilight turned away, prancing off to the enshrined blackboard that commanded the center of the room. "Yep! The toughest question that has ever existed! And I answered it!"
"O-oh?" asked Rarity, now thoroughly confused from an impenetrable miasma of mixed signals.
"Yep!"
"...How?"
"With math!" and with a flourish, Twilight flipped the chalkboard, revealing the other side to be absolutely covered with numbers, figures and words.
"Buh?" Rarity's poor whiplashed brain managed.
"Yes! And I'm so glad you came by today, so I can share my findings with you!"
Rarity's eyes trailed over the board, picking bits and pieces out of the mess:
"Love makes the world go 'round." FALSE. Gravity makes the world go 'round. MISAPPLICATION. DEAD END!
and
Mare + stallion = BABIES. BABIES = LOVE? DEFINITION INSUFFICIENT. NOT ALL LOVE REPRODUCTIVE OR HETEROSEXUAL. START AGAIN!
and
f=ma, therefore if love is a force it must be a measure of the attraction between two masses at a given acceleration, perhaps related to gravity??? MATHEMATICAL MODELS FAIL TO HOLD UP THIS HYPOTHESIS. MASS AND GRAVITY BOTH APPEAR INDEPENDENT OF ROMANTIC ATTRACTION.
were among the standouts.
"Oh my no," said Rarity weakly, staring up at Twilight's monolith of madness, obelisk of obsession, and slate of sensual science. "Ahem," she said, trying to reboot her entire visit, mentally if nothing else, "Twilight, dear, I appreciate what you are trying to do here, but you have to understand... love isn't something you can explain with math, darling."
"It is now, Rarity! Look, I solved it!" Twilight said again, levitating a piece of chalk with her horn and circling some writing in the lower left of the board: if ((x + ~) - #) for individual A from the perspective of individual B is ≥ individual B's values of ((x + ~) - #) for all other individuals, /\ if ((x + ~) - #) for individual B from the perspective of individual A ≥ individual A's values of ((x + ~) - #) for all other individuals /\ if individual B and individual A's ((x + ~) - #) values for each other are approximately equal → love = True
"I got the idea when I was talking with Cadance last weekend. She compared friendship and familial love to romantic love, saying how unpredictable romantic love can be compared to the other kinds, and... well, I guess I got a little obsessed with figuring it all out."
"If... x... plus... squiggly thing..." Rarity tried, her brow furrowed in equal parts concentration and exasperation.
"Wherein x is equal to the value of friendship, tilde is equal to the value of physical attractiveness, and pound is equal to the value of familial relations, which is either zero (if the ponies in question are not related), or equal to the sum of x and tilde, thereby eliminating family members from consideration for romantic love despite the presence of love towards them! Isn't it great? I used the different types of love to figure out how to calculate romantic love! Actually, it wasn't a very complicated equation at all once I thought it through... strange that it's been stumping ponies for so long... ah well! Most of history's greatest discoveries seem obvious in hindsight!"
"Yes, well, that's the thing. You work is very... nice, but you can't simply calculate these things. Love is felt here," Rarity pointed her hoof to her heart, "Not here," she pointed to her head.
"No, I read that too, but I'm pretty sure it's inaccurate. Emotions are a product of physiological reactions to hormonal or pheremonal stimulation, and generation of hormones is regulated by the brain. The heart is just a blood pump, really. Anyway, isn't this exciting!? Who should I show next? Do you think Applejack would be interested?"
Rarity allowed herself a mental image of that scenario:
"Blahblahblah math words blah!" Twilight said, cheerfully gesturing here and there on her board with a piece of chalk.
Applejack stared, tilting her head slowly to one side. She stared. And stared.
"Blah?" Twilight asked, turning to Applejack expectantly.
"Uhh... Apples! Apples apples?" Applejack replied, smiling confusedly.
Twilight stared back. And stared. Finally, she shook her head sadly. She tapped her hoof on the equation for emphasis. "Blah!"
Applejack tilted her head once more, eyes narrowed in concentration. "...Apples?"
Rarity tittered as her imagination dispelled the illusion.
Bringing herself back to the poor, deluded pony in front of her, she said, "Twilight, you can't put a value on affection, on friendship! That's just silly!"
"Sure I can! Though I admit that part is still a work in progress. I hope to develop individual equations for each of x, tilde, and pound, factoring in all of the variables for each, but of course new variables keep popping up!" Twilight laughed, shrugging. "Did you know that eyelash length relative to eye size, as well as facial symmetry and mane style are all variables factoring into tilde? But since you're interested, I do have some preliminary work you can see that I'm doing on x! Since I've been studying friendship so extensively, it seemed like the logical place to start!" Twilight underlined another section of the board on the far right side. "For now, the value is based on a scale from one to ten, calculated by my Friendship Algorithm 1.0!"
"That's nice and all Twilight, but I really think..."
Rarity stopped midsentence as her eyes read over the data.
Friendship (x) values (1.0 algorithm): Rainbow Dash: 9.70, Fluttershy: 9.65, Applejack: 9.58, Pinkie Pie: 9.571633612?!, Rarity: 9.4.
Rarity turned to Twilight.
"NINE POINT FOUR?!"