voidtreckernet | [Video]

Entry tags:

[Video]

[Senku is the kind of person that people might've seen around, but he's a quiet guy who's often got a lot on his mind, and at the moment the mystery of the train appears to be going nowhere. He can't sit that idly by though, so he sets some of his brain power on a more personal mystery.]

I've scoured the library, such as it is, for a book on advanced or complex mathematics, so I figured I would ask if that's something someone has on hand and I just missed it.

[He doesn't have any points to request books as of yet.]

Specifically, I'm looking to refresh my knowledge of knot theory calculations. If you can help, let me know. I can certainly repay any favours in the future.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Probably. Most definitely something different. He doesn't look terribly bothered by that though, it's not like he's talking simple principles after all. ]

I'm talking about some advanced math. What are you talking about?

[ That question seems more pertinent. Maybe he could guess whatever it was from the wind, but quite possibly not since he didn't know what she was referring to. ]

Caw. Are you dumb? It's the speed of this ship, duh. No other kind of knots need math. Some of them need knives, though. I need to get my knives back here...

[She's just. Very rambly, moving from one thought to the next without pause.]

[ Ah, yes, speed of a ship. No, actually, that's not in his repertoire! He could build something to gauge it, but he's not up on his seafaring, that's what he needed a captain for. ]

This is a train. [ He points that out first. ] So the speed wouldn't be measured in knots, and I don't know how they measure the speed of a train that's presumably, traveling in the void, unless of course the void is traveling around it.

[ Now there is a physics question, isn't it? ]

But, to answer your question, I cannot tell our speed from the wind. The captain of the Perseus does that, so I didn't bother trying to find out. I had other things to look after.

The train is just a ship for sailing the weird... void-ocean out there, right?

[She's from a world that predates trains. But, also, the other but gets her attention, and that has her furrowing her brows.]

The captain... of Perseus? Do you mean the king? I never met him, though.

[ Oh boy. Well he's been here before. ]

Not exactly. Typically trains operated on land, whereas ships operate on water. What we're operating on at the moment, I'm not too clear on yet.

[ He shakes his head. ]

Sorry. I've said something unnecessary that confused you. [ He is actually sorry, he didn't realize he was going to have to slow down his thoughts and be in teaching mode. ]

The Perseus is a ship that we built and Ryusui is the man who captains the ship. It's just a reference to where I came from, not really relevant to what you asked me.

Caw.

[Some people make filler noises like 'uh' and 'hmm. Enna makes bird noises instead.]

You named your ship after a country?

[ He could probably name ten different people with other quirks if he thought about it, those kinds of things don't even register anymore. ]

It's a reference to Greek mythology. Perseus was a Greek hero who beheaded Medusa.

[ He sighs, shrugs and smirks. ]

It's a bit of a joke for my benefit, and the mentalist's really.

Medusa...?

[She squints at the screen.]

Perseus is the guardian spirit of the country Perseus. He breaks all chains, even Andromeda's.

Could be a world difference, as what has been said is that we don't all come from the same place. If I remember correctly, Perseus was linked to Andromeda in the stories as well.

But it's the part about Medusa being the nature of this particular reference to him.

I dunno what a Medusa is! But that sounds weird, and kind of hard to understand, so I'm just not gonna think about it. Caw.

What's the knot thingy you're talking about?

[ If Medusa is difficult to follow, knot theory will definitely be moreso. He looks like he's thinking a moment, and he is, how to distill this down to an easy answer.]

It's a complex calculation in math to solve a theory that if you make these specific loops with a string and join the ends together, is it actually a knot?

It's, admittedly, pretty hard to understand, even if you have a good foundation in fundamental math. I have a theory I'm testing out, that's all, and I wanted to reference to the calculations.

Cawwww...

What does that matter for anything? Caw. Sounds useless. As long as it holds the sails down, it's a knot enough for me.

It's not that kind of knot. I'm not tying any sails. I'm looking into something that has one of these mathematical knot shapes. It's not actually a knot.

[ Some people might get frustrated at this point, but he's not one of them. It's been years since he found explaining things overwhelming. ]

The item in question is a puzzle I'm trying to solve, so to speak.

It's not a knot, but it's a knot that's a math knot, but not...

[You can almost see her brain start to overheat.]

Cawwww. What item? Is it something I can see?

Yes, if that helps you.

[ He's taken to wearing the item from home around his neck since it had been attached to a rope and he certainly couldn't afford to lose it.

It's made of a mathematical trefoil knot and he holds it steady on the palm of his hand in front of the camera. ]

If you see what I mean, it's not closed off like a knot would be on a ship.

[She stares at it for a minute...]

Caw. That's weird. It's shiny, but I don't want it. That's really weird.

Edited 2020-08-07 03:38 (UTC)

[ He's a bit glad it's a video because if someone did try and take it from him, it would be a pain for so many reasons. He does however believe her that she doesn't want it. ]

Yeah, you don't. [ He agrees with a nod. ] It's a weapon. A dangerous one at that, but fortunately it's out of juice.

Caw! I was right!

[She puffs up, proud of herself.]

I thought so. If it's shiny but it's not a treasure, it's always 'cause it's a weapon!

[Her logic is.... odd, but, well. It's there.]

Ten billion points to you, then.

[ It's high praise coming from him and he slips it back around his neck. ]

I am trying to crack the mystery surrounding the weapon. All I know about it is how it operates. Kind of. I know how it gets used and I know the effects and nothing else. It's a very exciting kind of puzzle.

How it gets used...

... I mean, it's a flail, isn't it?

[She's just imagining Senku spinning it around really fast and braining someone with the shiny end.]

[ It's awfully small, it would be the worst flail ever and he actually has to bite back a retort that's more suited to someone else. ]

Not at all. A command is given, and then a light gets emitted from the device at the radius given and it turns any human within the light to stone. As I said, it's dangerous.

[ Now, he looks somewhat amused. ]

I'm calling it Medusa. [ The reference ties back to the other one. ]

... Sounds like one of Andromeda's powers.... I don't like that at all.

[She folds her arms.]

Should you get rid of it?

That might be where our histories differ, it was the gorgon Medusa who turned people to stone with a glance, in my world at least.

[ It's okay, the reference really is largely for him. ]

I can't do that. [ He shakes his head. ] I need it for a few reasons. The first, I need to petrify someone so I can revive him. A side effect of the petrification is an ability to heal injuries to the body.

The second is that I need to crack it and figure out how to counter it, or all the hard work I'm putting in at reversing it is going to be for naught if the enemy gets the drop on us again.

Is that a thing that happens here?

[Enna doesn't necessarily realize it's from his world, and not the train.]

Not that I've seen so far. That's the situation my home finds itself in.

[ He does sigh a little bit. ]

Everyone here is an ordinary person who's alive and well and wandering around.

Just because I'm here doesn't mean I don't have things from my world to think about. It would be much better if I could return having solved the mystery, after all.

video

video

video

video

video

video

video

video

video

video

video

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject