Editing 567: Urgent Mission
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| β | {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} was one of the | + | {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Aside from uniting most of his country against Great Britain's rule, he was also a model of a {{w|renaissance man}}: an author, printer, musician, politician, postmaster, inventor, scientist, and diplomat. Some of his legacies include bifocals, the Franklin stove, an odometer for a horse-drawn carriage, the almanac, and abolitionist ideals. He has since been honored with the use of his image on the $100 bill. |
Franklin also did several {{w|Benjamin_Franklin#Electricity|experiments regarding electricity}}, and invented the {{w|lightning rod}}. He discovered the fundamentals of electricity, including positive and negative charges, as well as the principle of conservation of charge. When Franklin first wrote down his notes for electricity, he defined a positive charge as one left on a glass rod by rubbing it with silk, and a negative charge as one left on rubber by rubbing it with fur. Without realizing it, this meant that he had assigned a negative value to the charge on the electron, later identified as the fundamental carrier of electrical charge. | Franklin also did several {{w|Benjamin_Franklin#Electricity|experiments regarding electricity}}, and invented the {{w|lightning rod}}. He discovered the fundamentals of electricity, including positive and negative charges, as well as the principle of conservation of charge. When Franklin first wrote down his notes for electricity, he defined a positive charge as one left on a glass rod by rubbing it with silk, and a negative charge as one left on rubber by rubbing it with fur. Without realizing it, this meant that he had assigned a negative value to the charge on the electron, later identified as the fundamental carrier of electrical charge. | ||
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Cueball tells Franklin that the charge left on a glass rod by rubbing it with silk should be the ''negative'' charge, not the positive charge, because the friction ''removes'' charge-carrying electrons from the rod. This would not have been intuitive to Franklin, because the electron had not as of yet been discovered. Yet by telling Franklin to reverse the positive and negative conventions, this would ultimately result in an alternate universe where electrons are assigned a positive charge. One can only speculate what other changes this reversal of convention would lead to, {{tvtropes|ForWantOfANail|as small changes tend to cascade into huge ones}}. Would the positron have been instead named the negatron? And would this affect the success of the {{w|Transformers}} franchise? | Cueball tells Franklin that the charge left on a glass rod by rubbing it with silk should be the ''negative'' charge, not the positive charge, because the friction ''removes'' charge-carrying electrons from the rod. This would not have been intuitive to Franklin, because the electron had not as of yet been discovered. Yet by telling Franklin to reverse the positive and negative conventions, this would ultimately result in an alternate universe where electrons are assigned a positive charge. One can only speculate what other changes this reversal of convention would lead to, {{tvtropes|ForWantOfANail|as small changes tend to cascade into huge ones}}. Would the positron have been instead named the negatron? And would this affect the success of the {{w|Transformers}} franchise? | ||
| β | In the title text, Cueball defends his actions, stating that preventing the rise of {{w|dictators}} or {{w|pandemics}} is a fine idea, but here they have a chance of making the signs on "every damn diagram" make sense, which to him seems so much more important. Cueball is likely voicing [[Randall]]'s frustration with this breach of logic, albeit exaggerated to comedic levels. | + | In the title text, Cueball defends his actions, stating that preventing the rise of {{w|dictators}} or {{w|pandemics}} is a fine idea, but here they have a chance of making the signs on "every damn diagram" make sense, which to him seems so much more important. Cueball is likely voicing [[Randall]]'s own frustration with this breach of logic, albeit exaggerated to comedic levels. |
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
