This choice: She "uses" Phil in her lecture somehow to draw the attention back to her. • Go Back...Chapter #6An Animated Pendulum by: Unknown Ms. Prittey tries again to resume her lecture.
“Galileo made many observations with the telescope which helped the heliocentric revolution, much to the dismay... of the... church.” Ms. Prittey stops the lecture upon seeing not one of the girls paying attention to her. Standing there, she thinks of what to do as the pressure mounts inside her. She didn’t go through years of developmental educational training to be bested by some tiny boy. A moment goes by before she thinks of something.‘Ah Hah!’ she thinks as she walks behind her desk.
“Phil, do you mind helping me with a demonstration?” Phil looks up at her and nods shyly, “s-sure...” Ms. Prittey pulls a metal ball attached to a string out of her desk drawer. She holds it above her desk so that the metal ball hangs just over the surface. Ms. Prittey looks at the rest of her students whom are, to her delight, starting to pay attention. “One of the things Galileo had an interest in was one of these, does anyone know what this is?” A few girls raise their hand but also a few of them blurt out the answer. “It’s a pendulum,” Phil hears them say.
“That’s right. Galileo thought these things were really neat. Let’s have Phil show you why. Phil, would you kindly sit on top of the metal ball?” “Okay.” Phil grabs on to the string and hoists himself up. Sitting on the ball and holding the string makes him feel like he’s at home on his lamp swing. Ms. Prittey reaches into the drawer again and pulls a stopwatch this time. “I need another volunteer, would any of you-” All of the girls are raising their hands. “Okay... How about you, Rachael.”
A rest of the class lets out a collective sigh as the redheaded girl gets out of her chair. “Hold this, please”, Ms. Prittey hands her the stopwatch. Ms. Prittey then grabs Phil and the metal ball between her fingers and pulls him back until the string stretches diagonally relative to the desktop. “Now Kendra, when I let go of Phil, I want you to hit the timer. Then when he returns to where he started, hit it again, okay?” “Okay!”
When Prittey lets go, Phil goes swinging down on the ball. He forgets himself in the swing, and lets out a “woohoo!” which stirs many of the girls to a laugh. Phil returns to Prittey’s hand and she grabs him. Rachael presses down on the timer. “2.43 seconds,” she declares while looking at Phil. Ms. Prittey marks the number down on the board. “Now, suppose he starts out-“ Prittey stretches her hands apart until the string is parallel to the ground “-like this.”
“Raise your hands if think that the time for a full swing will be shorter than before.” None of the girls raise their hands. “How many think that the times will be about the same?” Phil sees a couple hands go up. “Alright, now how many of you think that the time will take longer?” Most of the girls raise their hands, Phil decides to raise his hand with them.
Ms. Prittey shrugs, “I guess we’ll have to see, won’t we. Rachael?” “Ready.” Ms. Prittey releases again her grip again. Phil goes swinging down, he’s moving much faster than last time. The air rushes past his face as he holds himself tightly against the string. After a full swing he returns back into Ms. Prittey’s waiting hand and Rachael snaps the timer button again. “2.45 seconds...” she says, confused. Ms. Prittey writes the second figure below the first one on the board. “How about that! They are about the same! It turns out... You can go ahead and get down, thank you Phil.” She lowers the string down onto the desktop and lets Phil hop off. “It turns out that the time for a full swing, called the period, is the same regardless of the angle at which you let go of the ball. Another interesting thing-”
A loud screeching sound interrupts her lecture. Phil jumps out of his desk in alarm as it goes off and sees many of the girls squinting and cupping their hands to their ears. Some of them screaming. Ms. Prittey looks confused for a moment, then shouts over the alarm. “Everyone stay calm, it’s just a fire drill. Remember what I told you, stay in a group and follow me.” She opens the door for everyone to leave. Phil thinks that she is going to come back for him until he sees her exit the doorway. She forgot about him...
There are still students exiting the class. Notably, Phil sees Rachael walking past the desk now.
What does Phil do?  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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