i remember everything, so who are you?

[self_composed]

Bella attends her classes with faultless punctuality, every time. She sits in the second or third row on an aisle in the middle section of seats, in the classes that take place in big auditorium lecture halls like the main section of Bio; she's willing to put herself closer to the professors in smaller classes like OS and of course her flute chair (third; she hasn't been quite ridiculously showoffy enough to climb beyond yet) is assigned. But right now, she is in Bio, learning tidbits about auxin and tropisms that the textbook didn't cover fully. She's running at about one and a half speed, just enough that she can trivially listen to and process the lecture against her memory of the text while also permitting some mind-wandering. She liiiiiikes her cognitive speedup power.

Comments

[self_composed]

"I went into more detail than that in the essay, obviously. And I don't think I'd use the word 'exciting'. By the time I regained consciousness there was no further excitement."

[regularsized]

"Things that sound exciting often aren't. Particle accelerators, for example. Actually, I lie, particle accelerators are the most exciting thing on the planet."

[self_composed]

"What's so exciting about particle accelerators? Baseball bats accelerate particles. They're not exciting."

Lab lab lab. Bleah.

[regularsized]

"I'm sure under the right circumstances a baseball bat could be very exciting. But no, I mean the big ones. The ones that let us study the basic components that make up our universe. I happen to think that's exciting as hell."

[self_composed]

"I know the kind you meant. I'd probably call them 'fascinating' instead though. If you do them right they shouldn't be exciting - an exciting particle accelerator might irradiate you or turn itself on unexpectedly or something. A well-designed particle accelerator should be pretty stable and, except for whatever experimental results you're gathering, predictable."

[regularsized]

"The experimental results are the exciting part!" says Bridget.

[self_composed]

"Then the experiment's exciting, not the accelerator," laughs Bella. "I'm sure we could use these materials to do something a lot more interesting than watch one-way diffusion, but these materials we have here? Not exciting."

[regularsized]

"What exactly is the difference?"

[self_composed]

"You could be using a particle accelerator to just replicate what someone else was doing with their particle accelerator and always get the same results they did. That would be dull."

[regularsized]

"Yes, but why would I do that?"

[self_composed]

"Because a whole lot of studies turn out not to be replicable, and we can't trust those, so we have to figure out which things do and don't replicate. Doesn't make it exciting just because it's important."

[regularsized]

"There aren't so many high-end particle accelerators in the world that any one of them will find themselves running out of new research to do. And given the choice, I wouldn't choose to spend my time exclusively replicating other people's results."

[self_composed]

"That's probably why there are so lamentably few replication studies done," says Bella. "It's a real problem, actually - the people qualified to redo studies aren't interested, so they don't, so we go by old results that one study got one time, and for standard p-values that means that one in twenty results we're relying on is just wrong. Coincidence." She looks at their lab experiment with a small sigh. "One thing I can say for this kind of silly make-work is that if it turned out these dialysis membranes didn't consistently work as advertised? Some undergrad class would've noticed by now."

[regularsized]

"If I had a particle accelerator of my very own," she says, smiling slightly, "I'd be more likely to check my own work before other people's."

[self_composed]

"Sure, but then the idiosyncrasies of your particular accelerator could still throw you off. If you're, I don't know, too far north or there's a little scratch in one bit of the machine or you're using different software to run it or it's too sunny out. You want someone in Switzerland or wherever to help you."

[regularsized]

"And if I had a particle accelerator of my very own, I'm sure I'd take that into consideration. Why, do you know where I can find one for sale?"

[self_composed]

"Nah, I have no idea how you'd go about getting one. Don't they have to be built onsite from near-scratch anyway? I think they're big. Can't put them in a shipping container readily."

[regularsized]

"Yes, they're not exactly portable. But then, neither is a house." She cracks a grin. "Now, find me a house with a particle accelerator in the basement, and I'm there."

[self_composed]

"If I find one, I will certainly tell you."

[regularsized]

"You are turning out to be an excellent friend so far, then."

[self_composed]

"Anything else I should be on the lookout for? Giant Tesla coils, islands full of subtly diverse finches, Leaning Towers of Pisa off of which you might drop objects?"

[regularsized]

"Didn't we just go over how I prefer not to replicate other people's results before finding out new ones of my own? Giant Tesla coils sound like fun on a recreational basis, though. I wouldn't mind one of those."

[self_composed]

"I was just listing minimally portable scientific items," Bella says, shrugging and noting the required notes in her lab notebook. "Not filtering beyond that."

[regularsized]

"In that case, well done."

[self_composed]

"Why, thank you."

Lab lab lab. "Do you have any non-science-related interests?"