Chapter 119: ONE DAY-2

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ONE DAY

I was spotting for Roy, in the real world. I’d come down the escalator to his gym in the Quontset Hut(barn) , he was lifting heavy . I was the only one strong enough to catch the weight that he was using if he lost control of it...he was zoned out. I was two orders of magnitude stronger than he was, but I was a cyborg. He was an unaugmented human, merely genetically engineered. He was still stronger than an adult male chimpanzee, who are four to ten times stronger than a strong man. Roy was the strongest purely organic human on earth.

“No he’s not” Kitty said "there are others just as strong.”

And she was gone.

Even so, Roy was ‘in the zone’ and was PUMPING IRON! Then he said "I’ve GOT IT!”

“No you don’t” I said. "I do. You let go of it. You would have dropped it if I hadn’t caught it.”

“Sorry about that” Roy said” I just realized that it floats.”

I’m nowhere near the sharpest spoon in THIS drawer. In fact I was the dim-bulb. Everyone else was inherently brighter than I was. I was used to it.

“Unpack Roy” I said "Let me in on what you are talking about.”

“But it’s obvious” he said " the computer in my head can do the math. Yours can to.”

“It’s not obvious to me.” I replied "if you want me to have any clue. Take it slow. Start from the beginning...”

“fill in the middle” he said

“and explain it to the end” I finished "use small words please. No baffle gab or geek speak.

“Right” Roy said. " the arches roughly define the equivalent a half sphere with a volume of 2.095 x 10 ^9 cubic feet. or twice that if they were extended to be a complete sphere.”

“No geek speak” I reminded him.

“Ok” He sighed as if he were much put upon”..Buckminster Fuller figured this out in the thirties..the NINETEEN thirties. He calculated that a sphere with the radius of a half mile would weigh one thousandth of the weight of the air that it enclosed. Using my building techniques with modern materials it would weigh much less than that. Fuller was unaware of the potential uses of the allotropes of carbon I suppose. At any rate, he calculated that it would only, ONLY, take a one degree temperature rise on the inside of the sphere to float the whole thing. Since the use of my techniques make a lighter structure it follows that it would require even less of a temperature differential to float. Much smaller globes could float as well.”

“Yeah? So?” I knew what he was getting at but I didn’t want to poop on his party, so I played dumb.”

“SO?” he was flabbergasted until he saw my grin. He grinned back wetted his finger and made a mark in the air.” Got me. That’s one.”

“Yeah..since a greenhouse in full sunlight gets pretty hot, MUCH hotter than one degree difference from the outside air I kinda see what you mean.” I agreed.

“But..but...but..” he started to say.

“That’s my line” I told him.

He looked puzzled then said "The billionaire that financed the arches might not be wanting to use it for a Sea Stead. He might want to build a modern day Cloud Nine.”

“Bingo” Kitty said.

and she was gone.

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