The Yagloomb Space Center

By: Alan Gottesman

Chapter I

First Day

In a picturesque mountain setting the spectacularly new red brick building overlooked the myriad acres of farmland below. It was the first day back at school. Mr. Winkle was a newly hired social studies teacher. As Mr. Winkle was onducting the class, Henry Haddock was viewing his personal digital assistant.

Mr. Winkle noticed that Henry Haddock was not paying attention. He walked over to Henry's desk. Mr. Winkle looked at his seating chart. "Mr. Haddock! Please share with the class. Perhaps your activity is relevant to the class."

Henry stood up and went to the front of the room. He pulled down a projector screen. "I will plug in my projection attachment into my personal digital ssistant. The class will be able to see how my home experiment is proceeding. "The GUI (graphical user interface) of Henry's home network appeared on screen. "My computer is networked to various ultra high and low radio receivers. Whenever an interesting frequency pattern develops, the network using a global positioning system pinpoints the origin of its source. I use my pda to control the network remotely."

Mr. Winkle walked to the front of the class. "I will take your pda." Mr. Winkle confiscated the pda. "What you have told the class is very informative, but it is not relevant to this class. You are wasting class time. I should give you detention but seeing how this is the first day, I will overlook this particular instance. "

Strolling confidently around his desk, a glimmer of a smile appeared on Mr. Winkle's visage. "This is a social studies class. Our topic for today is magic. Does it exist? " Mr. Winkle looked down his seating chart. "What is your opinion Miss Shannon Beanfeld?"

"Yes." The class tittered.

Mr. Winkle scanned his seating chart.

"What's your opinion Mr. Bob Tater?"

"Perhaps magic is science that we do not understand." Bob Tater a glared at Henry Haddock. "You wasted the classes time. I will take care of you after school."

Mr. Winkle nodded his assent towards Tater.

"Your answer was very good, Mr. Tater. Suppose class, that you were members of a primitive culture. If you were to encounter an airplane or a radio, you would probably think that these items were magic. Please do not pick a fight with Mr. Haddock."

A student raised her hand and was recognized. "They would have no basis in their society to recognize these objects. Therefore, they would have no rational explanation of what they are. "

"Very perceptive of you, Sue Carrot."

The bell rang. It was time for math class. The students filed out of the classroom in an orderly fashion. They entered a hall with monitors and filed into their next class.

"Hello class. My name is Mr. Peri." Mr. Peri wrote an equation on the board. "x to the nth power plus y to the nth power equals z to the nth power. This is the famous Fermat equation. When n is greater than 2, the equation has no integer solution. Mathematician Andrew Wiles solved a theorem that was indirectly related to the solution of the problem, thus proving the hypotheses. He used twentieth century mathematics to solve the theorem. Fermat claimed he had solved the problem. The mathematical tools of the twentieth century were not available to Fermat. Some mathematicians suspect that Fermat did not have the proof to the theorem. Who would like to try and solve the problem? "

Henry Haddock raised his hand.

"Come up here young man. Here is a piece of chalk. Now show the class, show the world your method."

There were two chalkboards on the side to the front of the room and one huge main chalkboard on the front wall. Henry proceeded to the front. "Even though there are no integer solutions for n greater than 2, there are irrational solutions." Henry proceeded to scrawl equations on the front of the board. Mr. Peri's eyes widened with amazement. Henry continued "An irrational number can only be expessed as an infinite series of fractions or an infinite nonrepeating decimal, whereas an integer can be expressed as both a finite and infinite series of numbers." Henry quickly filled up the front board and started annotating results on the side boards, and erasing the front boards, while eliciting comments from time to time. Mr. Peri shook his head from side to side as if to bring himself to reality. He glanced around the room, and saw the class was beginning to lose interest. He saw Henry produce proofs that had eluded eighteenth and nineteenth mathematicians and brought fruition to the efforts of the early pioneers of mathematics.

Wanting to make a good first impression on the class, Mr. Peri interrupted Henry. "Thank you, Henry. You are perhaps the cleverest mathematician of all time. In my opinion you are greater than Gauss. Your work is truly amazing.Let's consider your audience. Could you prove some difficult mathematics problem that the ancient Greek mathematicians were looking for a solution to?"

"Yes, I will." Haddock's eyes surveyed the class. "Attention class, here is something even the great Pythagoras could not perform. The trisection of an angle with just a straightedge and compass. Please get out your rulers. Draw an angle, by using a compass. If the arc between the two radii is trisected than the angle is trisected. First draw a line, and construct a right angle. Lay off one leg of the right angle to be three times the length of the other and draw the hypotenuse. Roll your straightedge about the arc enclosed by the radii. Mark its length on the longer side of the right triangle. Construct a parallel line to the hypotenuse at the intersection of the arcs length. Mark the intersection of the hypotenuse of where the parallel line intersects the other leg. Using its length roll it back on the arc between the radii, and once more leaving two consecutive marks on the arc. Draw radii to intersect those marks. You have just trisected an angle. The compass was just a convenience. It could have been done with just a straightedge. Take a piece of string. Fix it at one point, and draw a circle holding the other end of the string taught and you will see what I mean. Who can tell me what geometric principle was used in constructing the triangle?"

Mr. Peri raised his hand.

"Yes, Mr. Peri."

"You used the principle of similar triangles, Henry."

"Very good, Mr. Peri."

After following Henry's instructions the class became slack jawed. Their eyes bugged out in amazement. Mr. Peri's cheeks reddened with revelations. Young Mr. Haddock had just performed magic with math. Mr. Peri walked about in a circle and bumped into the side chalkboard. The students laughed, and Mr. Peri chuckled.

"Mr. Haddock, it seems that you could broaden the horizons of the mathematical world, if you had a mind to."

"Thank you, Mr. Peri. I have acquired my Ph.D. in math over the Internet. I will pursue it as a hobby."

Mr. Peri thought about his career in a sudden flash. He had been very adept at top level math courses. The monetary rewards were very few. If he were as good at baseball as he was in math, he would be a millionaire by now. "That is very practical of you Henry. Many hobbyist mathematicians have contributed greatly to the field."

The bell rang signaling the next class was to begin. Mrs. Ruttabaga was the English teacher. The class was seated. "Many of you in this class feel it is of no practical value. However, poetry can be utilized as lyrics for a hit rock song. Screenplays are integral parts of movies. A good book can bring its author fortune and fame."

"Storytelling is the backbone to producing a successful career in English. Who would like to tell a story?" Many students raisedtheir hands. Mrs. Ruttabaga chose a girl. "How about you cute little girl with the bangs? Hermione Corn."

"Mrs. Ruttabaga, my brother and I went to the store with our parents. My brother did not want to leave the store. My mother started to drag him from the store. He yelled, "This is not my mother." The students in the class laughed.

"Very good, Miss Corn. You have shared an enjoyable moment with the class. Even though Shakespeare is not part of the required curriculum, his works are referenced and used in many new works of literature. In this class I will not require any specific books be read. You may choose your own books to read. They may inspire you to have a project in which you write your own books. You may even try to have your works published."

It was three o'clock. The final bell rang, ending the day. Bob Tater caught up to Henry Haddock. "Well Haddock It's payback time. You choose the place, where our fight will take place. "

"There is a small park down the hill. I choose hand to hand combat." Tater and

Haddock proceeded down the hill towards the small park, where the duel would take place. They were followed by a large contingent of students from the school. The birds were atwitter. The squirrels were jumping from tree to tree.

The bees were busy pollinating the multitude of flowers.

Tater rushed towards Haddock. His intention was to tackle Haddock. Haddock sidestepped and hip tossed Tater to the ground. Tater tried to leg sweep Haddock. Haddock jumped, he propelled himself forward, and sidekicked Tater on the shoulder. Tater toppled to the ground. Tater was a head taller than Haddock.He walked over to Haddock, and then scowled. Tater grabbed Haddock, and monkeyflipped Haddock, who landed on his feet. Haddock turned and waited, while Tater got to his feet. Using a fireman's carry, Haddock tossed Tater over his shoulder. Tater was infuriated. He rushed towards Haddock, and attempted to deliver a front kick. Haddock countered with a front flip kick, which was delivered to Tater's chest.

Landing on the ground breathless, Tater gasped for breath. After managing to breathe regularly again, he croaked "You win Haddock. I realize you could have killed me."

"That was not my intention. I have been schooled extensively in the martial arts. From the start, I have just used adequate force to overcome you, but not to hurt you."

"Lets be friends, Henry."

Henry could see that Tater was not sincere. There was still a glare in Tater's eyes. "Sure, thats a great idea, Bob." The young women in the surrounding audience to the fight began to au and ooh. They were pleased with the outcome.

Sheri Lapomme blinked her blue orbs at Henry Haddock. "Henry would you be my boyfriend. You are so strong. You are so handsome." She clasped her hands together. She stared directly into Henry's eyes.

Henry felt exhilarated. Beethoven's ninth symphony sprung into his mind. Visions of molten lava, birds in chorus, bees in flight enhanced his moment. "I would be honored Sheri. If you like, I could show you my low frequency receiver setup in my basement?"

Just then a gawky boy with a pen protector in his pocket, who was wearing a leather hat equipped with leather ear muffs interrupted. "Hi there Henry. My name is Rupert Von Kugel." Rupert stuck his hand out, offering a handshake.

Henry shook Rupert's hand. "Well lets go to your basement. You seem very scientific, and I have lots of questions to ask. Cheri you come too."

Sheri looked at Rupert with disbelieving eyes. "Okay its a date. Just the three of us. Oh wait. I promised to babysit my younger brother, Francoise. I'll bring him along." Sheri batted her eyelashes.

Henry and Rupert could not refuse. While Henry and Rupert waited for Sheri to pick up Francoise, a young colleague of theirs showed up. He had a very mod crewcut, and somewhat freckled face. "You sure gave Bob Tater his come upping. Do you mind if I tag along. By the way my name is York Puddin. My parents decided they had enough of London, and decided to come to the states to do some farming."

The motley crew of Henry, Rupert, Sheri, York and Francoise proceeded to Henry's abode. Rupert adjusted his pen protector. "Henry, my quicktime movie viewer stopped working. I don't seem to be able to download movie previews into my viewer."

"Well Rupert, there is a newer version of Explorer, and Quicktime. Install Explorer first and than Quicktime. By the way, if you pick the custom download of QT, you can select QTJava SDK. This will allow you to program QT. You will need a free Java JDK which can be downloaded for free at sun.com. You can also get a free ide for your Java Jdk."

Francoise got a confused look on his face. "What's an ide? I surfed the web a lot, but I never heard of that?" Francoise was only seven years old.

Sheri looked at Henry. "You will have to excuse my little brother's ignorance. He is still so young. Could you please explain to him what an ide is?"

"Well FRancoise, an ide is an integrated development environment. This means you can edit code, compile and run your code. Code is what makes up a program. Since you have surfed the web, you know what a browser is. A browser is an example of a program."

Fancoise was astonished. It was all so clear to him. However, for the moment there was a lot of information to digest. Several minutes later, Francoise came back to life. "I'm no dummy. I have been studying calculus you know."

Sheri looked at Francoise. "FRancoise" she exclaimed, "stop bragging. You are such a showoff. I have a little story to tell about Francoise when he was five."

"No, don't." pleaded Francoise. His chubby little cheeks turned red with embarrassment.

"When Francoise was five, we went to New York City, with our mother and grandmother. We got a hotel room. When we went to our aunt's house, she asked where we were staying. Francoise said we were staying at a hotel, which was owned by our grandmother."

Henry and the others chuckled. Francoise starred at the ground, dejected. "Life's too short. Never let anything get you down." offered Rupert. This seemed to cheer Francoise up a little.

Henry patted Francoise on the head. "Tell us Francoise what you learned in school today?"

"When I call up a program on the computer, I can move around the window by dragging around the blue bar at the top. Another thing I learned was that many of the planets and the days of the week were named after Norse, Greek and Roman gods. Thursday is Thorsday, Thor was the Norse god of thunder. Tuesday is Zeusday, Zeus the head of the Greek gods. The planets Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter were the names of Roman gods."

"Very interesting, Francoise." HEnry and the others arrived at the house. Mrs. Haddock was at the door to greet them. "Hello Henry. Its nice to have you home. I see you brought some of your little friends with you. I'll bring you all some milk and cookies a little later. Right now I'm watching some talk shows on TV, and reading my horoscope."

Henry and company filed down to the basement. A multitude of lights gleamed from the workstations. Weird noises were emitted from the vlf receivers. Henry gave the tour. "I have networked the computers to my vlf receivers. I correlate the origins of the signals I receive through a program I wrote, and data I get from a satellite web site."

"How'd you pay for all this? It must have cost a fortune." asked Rupert.

"I started my own ecommerce website. While I was a paperboy I saved enough money to buy a computer, some ecommerce software and a merchant's license. The site became very popular, and the money rolled in."

York looked at Rupert. "My parents started an online account for me with a thousand dollars in it. They allowed me to do my own trading. Today that account is worth a lot of money."

"The new economy allows anyone to get rich. My older sister BonBon got a job as a secretary at a startup. She got some of her pay in stock. The company ipoed, her stock made her a millionaire." Sheri said sharing some anecdotal information.

Rupert pulled down the leather earflaps of his hat. He felt jealous of the others. "Money isn't everything."

Henry put his arm around Rupert Von Kugel's shoulder. "That is so true. What is life without a little adventure, eh? I have pinpointed a very strange and regular vlf signal. I am thinking of arranging a little expedition of going to that location and determining its source. You are all invited. We have a couple of days off next week, and that is when I plan to go on my quest."