How many licks does it take to get to the center of Mars?

On weekends, Rebecca and I take an astrobiology course at MIT, with one of my favorite people teaching it, Zandra. We always manage to have a blast and say completely ridiculous things.

Last class we started off by reviewing the processes in a cell, and watching a realtime youtube video of a simulation—unfortunately, we didn't have any speakers and no one could hear it. "Will you do sound effects?" someone asked. "Thhht, thhht, thhht," Zandra starts off making the clicking sound for unraveling the DNA. "Thht, tht,tht, th....FWOOM! ch-ch-ch-ch-ch....wait I want to save that one for later! Shoooooooooom....shhhhhshhhshhhhshhh, kapaka FWIT! FDOOM"....All the while we are laughing hysterically. "I better stop before I embarrass myself," Zandra says after it was too late.

Then we moved on to astronomy slides. "If for some reason you've never heard of Mars, it's the fourth planet from the sun," Zandra begins...then goes into complex chemistry. "I thought Mars was made of aluminum oxide," one student asks. "If Mars is made of aluminum oxide, then by just adding iron you could get thermite!" I say excitedly, thinking of an entire planet of thermite. "Thermite burns at a temperature of over 2,000 degrees celsius and drips molten iron." Of course, after that no one wanted to let me near Mars.

As we continue we hear a strange noise from outside. As we theorize what it is, someone pipes up, "It's a robot dog laughing at your theories." Another student hypothesizes, "It's the delayed sound effects for the bio video."

Zandra then introduces our projects to design a solar system. "Pick a star and name it. You can name it after some real star, or you could name it Schmeed. I always wanted a star named Schmeed." She calls on someone to read a slide. "I choose..." she says, thinking. "Pikachu!" someone exclaims.

Then Zandra goes into more math about luminosity. "The energy at infinity is zero....and I'm so sorry I just said that." Moving on from this very strange statement, she talks about how we need to "Calculate the velocicery....I mean the necessary velocity." I think we should coin the word velocicery, personally, it's a very useful hybrid.

Finally, we conclude with a video. Zandra's laptop is always almost out of battery. Today, we once again warn her. "Your battery is out." "It's not gone, yet," she protests. "It had a little x over it," a student points out. "That doesn't mean it's out, it just means it doesn't like me," Zandra argues. Two seconds later the screen says 'Preparing to hibernate,' then goes black. Mhm.

And that's how many strange things can happen in less than two hours. :)


Sachi