The Real Big Brainy
By Gary D. Snyder
Part 1:
"Thanks for coming by and helping me out with this, guys," said Jimmy as he placed a small box on a table. It was about an hour before school and he, Carl, and Sheen were assembled in Jimmy's lab. "I really needed to show this to someone so that I can get it right before the Science Fair."
"No problem, Jimmy," replied Sheen as he made loop-the-loops in the air with his Ultra Lord action figure. "Whenever danger calls, Ultra Lord will answer!"
"Actually, I think it was Jimmy that called," Carl pointed out.
"Which is why I'm here instead of Ultra Lord," Sheen explained patiently. "Hey, Jimmy, isn't that your hypercube?"
"Not quite, Sheen," Jimmy said. "But you're close. This is my inscrutable Chest of Mystery!"
Intrigued, Carl and Sheen inspected the box closely. It did look like Jimmy's hypercube, except that the sides were black and covered with silver stars and golden crescent moons. "It looks like one of those trick boxes you can get at the magic store," Carl finally ventured.
"Exactly! And now," Jimmy intoned in a deeply theatrical voice "prepare to be amazed by the wondrous prestidigitation of – The Great Neutrino!"
Carl and Sheen looked around them in expectant wonder.
"Meaning me," said Jimmy impatiently.
"Oh. Sorry," Carl apologized.
"Go on," urged Sheen.
Jimmy cleared his throat and continued. "For this next mystifying feat of sorcery, I shall require two willing assistants from the audience."
Again Carl and Sheen looked expectantly about the lab.
"Meaning you," Jimmy clarified, tapping his foot.
"Oh. Right," said Carl stepping forward to the table where Jimmy stood.
"Gotcha," agreed Sheen, joining them. "Continue, if you please, maestro."
Satisfied, Jimmy went on. "Okay. Mr. Estevez, would you please place your Ultra Lord doll –"
"It's an action figure!" Sheen interrupted. "There's a difference! Oh, when will people ever learn?" he lamented.
Jimmy sighed. "Okay, okay. Would you please place your Ultra Lord action figure in the inscrutable Chest of Mystery and close the lid?" When Sheen had done so, Jimmy said, "And now, Mr. Wheezer, would you please hold the inscrutable Chest of Mystery closely so that I can not possibly reach into it?" Carl picked up the box and held it tightly against him. "You will note that at no time have I touched the chest since Sheen put in his doll – I mean, action figure – nor can I possibly open the chest now. But I merely utter the ancient words of conjuration – hocus, pocus, whatajokeus – and –" Jimmy turned his back briefly and then turned back again, the Ultra Lord figure in one hand. "Voila!"
Sheen and Carl gaped at him. "That's incredible, Jimmy!" Sheen exulted. "You have an Ultra Lord action figure too! Let me get mine out of the box and we can re-enact Episode 126 where Ultra Lord battles his evil counterpart from the parallel universe."
"No, Sheen," replied Jimmy, rolling his eyes. "This is your Ultra Lord action figure."
"What? No way! Let me see." Sheen grabbed the box from Carl, flipped open the lid, and peered inside. "Hey! It's gone!"
"I know. I just told you that. It's right here," said Jimmy, holding the toy out to Sheen.
Sheen took back the Ultra Lord figure. "Well, that's okay, Jimmy. Even if you don't have an Ultra Lord figure, maybe you could make a trick out of putting something in your box and making it reappear again, or something."
"That was the trick!" cried Jimmy, exasperated.
"How did you do that, Jimmy?" asked Carl, bewildered. "Do you really know magic?"
That calmed Jimmy down. "Of course not, Carl. There's no such thing as magic. The box is just a simple practical application of hyperdimensional topology."
"Well, then, how does the box work?" Carl wanted to know.
"Sorry," Jimmy chuckled. "But magicians never reveal their magic secrets."
"I thought you said there was no such thing as magic," Sheen pointed out.
Jimmy started to say something but gave it up as a hopeless cause. "All right, fine. First of all, do you know what a Moebius strip is?"
"Are those the fruit snacks they sell at the grocery store?" asked Carl.
"No, Carl. A Moebius strip is a two-dimensional non-orientable topological object." Carl and Sheen both looked blank. "Umm, okay. I guess you could say it's like a sheet of paper with only one side."
"What a minute. How can you have a sheet of paper with only one side?" demanded Sheen.
"Maybe it's really, really thin," suggested Carl.
"No, no," said Jimmy. "Maybe it would be simpler if I showed you. Look, here's a strip of litmus paper. One side is white, and the other side is orange. Right?"
"Yes, we're with you so far," said Sheen slowly as Carl studied the strip.
"Okay. Now, let me wrap it into a circle like a paper ring so that the orange side of one end joins up with the orange side of the other end. If I start drawing a line on the orange side I can go all the way around the circle and get back to where I started. And, if you look, there's a line on only the orange side. Right?" Jimmy took a pencil and demonstrated.
"Yes, of course," answered Carl.
"Now, to draw a line on the white side, I'd have to lift my pencil. Otherwise there's no way I could get from the orange side to the white side. Also correct?"
"Correct," Sheen replied.
"Okay," Jimmy continued. "So that means that the strip has two separate sides. But now, suppose we take a strip and also fold it into a circle, but this time give the strip a half-twist so that the orange side of one end matches up with the white side of the other end, like so. This is what's called a Moebius strip."
Sheen and Carl looked carefully at what Jimmy had done. "So?" Sheen asked, unimpressed.
"Well, watch. I'm going to start drawing a line on the orange just like before. But now watch what happens. I'll end up on the orange side where I started, but without lifting my pencil notice that I'm also drawing a line on the white side before I get there. Because I can draw a line on both the orange and white parts of the strip without lifting my pencil this strip apparently has only one side."
Sheen took the strip and examined it closely. "That's cool, Jimmy! But what does that have to do with your box?"
"Well, Sheen," explained Jimmy carefully, "Just as a Moebius strip is a non-orientable sheet with only one side so that there really isn't a front or a back to it, there are non-orientable volumes that don't really have an inside or an outside to them. Just like I used a third dimension to twist the paper so that both sides of the paper were connected, I used a fourth dimension to twist the box so that the inside and about 1000 cubic feet of space outside the box were connected. Since the box doesn't really have an inside or an outside, your Ultra Lord figure was never really inside the box at all. Consequently, it was no problem at all for me to get it as long as I was within the 1000 cubic feet of space connected to the interior."
Carl and Sheen looked blank again
Jimmy sighed in defeat. "It's magic," he finally said. "Let's get to school."
* * *
Author's Notes:
The first chapter of a story is always the hardest for me. Typically I first come up with what I think is an interesting story premise with what I hope is an exciting climax, but leading into it isn't easy. On one hand the first chapter has to be both short and interesting enough to grab and hold the reader's attention, but on the other hand has to contain a lot of information so that the story to follow makes sense. In stories with romantic overtones for Jimmy and Cindy (a favorite theme for Jimmy Neutron fans) I really think that there has to be some reason for them to get together. I say this because Jimmy and Cindy have such strong personalities that it would take some literally earth-shaking event to get them together, and these kind of events take some time to develop. I have to keep asking myself, "Why would so-and-so do this?" and then lay the groundwork to have that happen so it doesn't seem slapped together or out of place. In this story, for instance, Jimmy and Cindy…
But I'm getting ahead of myself. You'll find out what I mean in the next chapter.
