King of Creativity and Duke of Sciency Stuff

I love science.  If I hadn’t been a writer, I’d have been a scientist.  Yeah, sorry Dad, surprise! It’s ok.  And no, now is not the time to start sending me Devry Institute brochures again.

But yeah, I could see me as a scientist. Not a microby or a mathy scientist, just a cool scientist.  The kind who does cool science.

“Why, yes. I am Rob, the scientist of cool. Do you want to see what I can do?”

As a scientist I wouldn’t have discovered alternate fuel sources or created a village-worth of mineral rich food supply from an 8 oz glass of table water. No, I would have blown stuff up, fizzed up black gassy clouds and like the scientists at Duke, I would have created an invisibility cloak.

That’s right. Step aside Harry Potter with all your magic mumbo jumbo; they’ve got science on their side and they created real invisibility.

And now, so can I.  That’s right, I found the article and I immediately downloaded the Duke research. Invisibility!  Can I get a “muah-ha-ha?” from the mad guy in the back?

I was so excited!  I wanted to show my queen my new bag of tricks. My old bag was disappearing, and not in a good way. Who’s your mad scientist now, baby?

I followed the Duke specs and built me a wedgy Eischer picture-framey looking thing (Scientific terminology) that made things vanish.

Tada! And for my next feat of science I will make a desktop computer disappear. 

It made perfect sense. My queen has complained about the clutter surrounding my desktop.  If I could make it disappear, she would never have to look at the eye sore again! Happy wife, happy life, right?

I hefted my desktop, monitor and all, and moved it the invisibility device. Here I discovered one slight hiccup in my plan. The computer was bigger than the invisibility device. I couldn’t even prop it on top.

Sighing, I stared at the pile of electronics and then at my magnificent device. Maybe a test run, maybe something small.  What part of my computer would fit onto the invisibility wedge? Sifting through the parts I placed each component onto the wedge, gauged its size and removed it when the dimensions proved too large.

After twenty minutes of scientific trial and error method I found the piece that fit my little experiment: the cordless mouse.

Oh, well, that’s anticlimactic.

Fine. For now I’ll make a mouse disappear.  I set the mouse on the platform, said the scientific words, and waved my laser wand.

“Eureka!”

Yeah, in Mr. Rob’s sciency world, “Eureka” is Greek for “WTF? Nothing happened!”

I tried again.

“Eureka!”

Nothing. And no, not in an invisibility way. In that way, there was something: a mouse, sitting on a wedge, all perfectly visible.

Back to the Duke drawing board.  This time I read more of the article than just the title.  Apparently the invisibility chamber only works on microwaves.  Well that’s weird. Who wants to hide something from a microwave? An underground potato railroad? 

I read more.

It wasn’t hiding from microwaves, it was hiding in microwaves.  That made more sense. I wasn’t sure why I’d want to hide my computer in the microwave, but now I’d invested in science.  Now was not the time to surrender to logistics. 

I took my wedge to the microwave in the kitchen.  After some struggle, I discovered that laws of light may not apply to my invisibility cloak, but laws of space did apply. The thing didn’t fit into my microwave.  What could I do?

I’m a smart guy. I bought a bigger microwave. I bought one big enough to hold my computer.

Taking my scientific tool home, I placed it on the table. Now with the microwave to hold things in, I could wedge my computer around the wedge and maybe at least part of it would disappear. We’d see. And this microwave, I could move to the bedroom, where the computer normally sat.

“Watson!  Come here, I need you!”  I don’t know how that applies, but it sounds bedroom sciency.

But back to my science. First, I deducted that I only had one computer, so I should start with a test sample.  Something smaller. A mouse? No, I’ve seen a mouse in a microwave.  I didn’t want to clean that up. For this experiment, I’d try a potato. 

I placed my potato on my wedge and my wedge inside my microwave. Closing the door I asked myself the next question: How long did I want to make the potato disappear? 

I set the timer for two minutes, and pressed start.

“Eureka!”

I have a visibly cooked potato.

What happened?

I go back to my article.  “…only microwaves…” yeah, I know that. Finally I found the problem.  This device only makes things vanish on one side. I left the carousel tray in the microwave. As it spins, I’m seeing the other three sides.

I am a freakin’ genius!

Back to the microwave. I pull out the circular piece of glass and it’s little track, leaving me with a square box. Next goes in my wedge.  I have to make sure to place it in the microwave with the “invisible” side facing the window, or I won’t see the science.

I look at my potato. It’s a little overcooked. It’s my last potato. No problem.  I know what I was missing before. I’ll jump to my computer.  I stick the whole thing in around the invisibility wedge and into the microwave. It takes me a bit to get the door closed, but it happens. Nothing left to do but to let science run its course. I set the timer for five minutes and press START.

“Eur—Holy crap!”

Something happened! There was lightning, smoke and flames, then poof! Well, more Bam! than poof! But poof is more scientific sounding. Either way, my computer disappeared! So did the microwave, the table and window behind it.  I can still tell that they’re there though: there’s a black char looking smoky circle surrounding where everything really is. 

Funny, I thought that invisible objects could be touched though, just not seen. 

Whatever! My Queen is gonna be so happy!