Jack and the Geniuses by Bill Nye

Author:Bill Nye
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2017-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

9

GENIUS IS OVERRATED

Typically I love it when the geniuses are wrong. Really. I float on a cloud of happy unicorn dust for days. This time? Not so much. The memory card only stored video, not a neat and tidy record of Anna Donatelli’s recent travels. It contained hours of footage of Anna swimming through the strange world between the ice shelf and the seafloor, which was scattered with starfish and crabs. Watching the video in our room was mesmerizing. I felt as if I was kicking through that eerie blue world myself, only without the heart-stopping cold. But the video didn’t give us answers. Instead, it sparked about a thousand more questions, and one scene proved especially strange.

When Hank came into our room after his meeting, he was drawn in immediately. On the video, little white globs appeared to be floating up from the seafloor toward the ice surface. Hank pointed to a spot on the screen, jabbing it with his index finger. Ava winced; she was constantly reminding him that not all laptops were touch-sensitive. “What’s that?” he asked.

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out,” Matt said.

“It’s not plankton,” Hank decided. “Plankton would drift. This material is floating straight up.”

Matt nodded. “Maybe it’s less dense than the surrounding water.”

“You all understand density, don’t you?” Hank asked. He’d said “you all,” but he was looking directly at me. I did understand the basic idea, and I started to say as much, but he didn’t listen. “Think of an ice cube. When you drop an ice cube into a glass of water, what happens?”

They waited for me to answer. All three of them. I rolled my eyes. “It floats to the top,” I said.

“Right! Exactly. Because frozen water has a lower density than liquid water. That basically means it has fewer particles, or molecules, of water packed into the same space. Something with higher density has more particles packed into the same space.”

“So are those ice cubes?” I asked.

Everyone went silent.

“No . . .” Matt answered. His response was slow and hesitant. Not definitive. He glanced at Hank. “Right?”

Again they were quiet. I couldn’t tell if my question was brilliant or completely idiotic. “How is this going to help us find Anna?” I asked.

Both Ava and Matt looked to Hank.

“Well,” he said, “if we study the surroundings closely, the depth of the water, maybe even the thickness of the ice, we might be able to narrow down the possible locations.”

“So the map would be easier,” I pointed out.

“Yeah,” Ava said, “but we don’t know where it is, remember?”

“Britney might be able to help,” Matt suggested. “She knows this seascape better than we do. Maybe she’d recognize the spot.”

As Hank edged his finger back toward the screen, Ava held her own hand close, ready to slap Hank’s pointer away. Looking at the three of them, I realized it was going to be a long night. I could’ve poured a cold bowl of soup onto Hank’s head and he wouldn’t have turned away from that screen.

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