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So, I was thinking that we should try and get together a list of the under-eighteens here so we can make sure we know what we're doing with the on-board school stuff. And since we had that new podpop, so there might be new people we're missing. If you are one or you know one, please speak up so I can work on a roster or something. And can I get all the people who have signed up as teachers to tell me what they're working on?

I'm Meluly. I'm doing some basic math and physics and stuff, but I've been kind of scarce lately. I'm sorry about that, it was a personal matter.

EDIT:
Under-18s (whot did I miss?) Adam, Antonio, Billy (the magic one), Billy (the one with glasses), Brainiac 5 (the more robot-y one) ("already a super-genius" exemption), Brenda, Cassie (the tall one), Cassie (the Amazonian one), Danny, Danielle, Eddie, Ender, Gavroche, Hunter, Jack, Jaime, Jamie, Julian, Kara, Katara, Kate, Kon, Mai, Megan, Mia, Lacus, Luna, Nana, Nathan (the younger one), Paco, Pavel, Rei, Ron, Roxie, Sean, Sherry, Sokka, Steve, Terry, Tim ("early graduation" exemption), Vega, Will, Yuri, Zuko, Wilimena (I don't want to force anybody to take classes but it probably can't hurt unless you're already a super-genius right?)

(OOC: If anybody doesn't belong on the list because they're too old, that'd be an OOC error rather not an IC one so please shoot me an OOC note. If somebody's not on the list but should be, feel free to go the OOC or IC route and I'll get it fixed either way.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, that kind of stuff is included, but the point is to make sure that people can manage okay/aren't too far behind after they get out of here. We don't enough know for sure that this Ohm stuff is real and that we won't just all get to go home as soon as we get control of the ship.

So this is really about education then.

Well, I guess in some places that makes sense. I don't see why I shouldn't benefit from a school. I've never really been to one though. I wouldn't know where to start.

Well, I guess that'll be our job (the teachers) to figure out.

Uh, can you do basic math and long division and stuff okay?

Well yeah, that's why you're the teachers.

I don't know if its called that in my world. I'll have to check it out.

Here's an example of basic algebra. Look familiar at all?

...

I have no idea what those symbols mean.

X equals: 12 times Y, plus 15, divided by 30. That help?

X? Y?

What are those?

Placeholders, basically. When you use a letter in math, it's just standing in for some unknown number.

In this case, X equals something based on Y, and Y equals something based on X. It's weird by itself, but there are practical applications where you put in real-world numbers for the variables and then solve it out to get something else you can use.

Oh...OH! Now I see what you're doing.

...But I don't think I know enough to confidently say the answer.

Well...

turns into

That should be right, anyway. I'm kind of doing this off the top of my head.

Oh! It makes a little more sense now. Let me write this down.

You can treat both sides of the equal sign as being the same... so you can do anything you want to them, as long as you do it the same to both sides.

So for that, I multiplied both sides by 30 (which got rid of the /30), then subtracted both sides by 15, then divided both sides by 12.

It's like a puzzle!

Wow! I think I'd be interested in going to this school after all!

(There is a delay of a few minutes before the next reply comes through.)

For a practical use of that kind of stuff:

That's the equation for the distance something thrown into the air will go. D stands for distance, V for the velocity (speed) it's thrown at, the θ is the angle it's thrown up at, and the G is for gravity (normally 1G, which is 9.81 meters-per-second-per-second, is used). The "sin" is the sine function, which is the away side of the triangle made by that angle divided by the hypotenuse. And the little 2 is squaring the speed (multiplying it by itself).

Sorry if that's kind of confusing, but here's an example in use:

That's assuming it's something being thrown at 35 meters per second (a pretty good fastball), at a 45° angle up (http://i30.tinypic.com/1zn1o1x.gif), under normal gravity, and assuming nothing else gets in the way of the ball (or whatever). With all that, it hits the ground about 91 and three-fourths meters away (though it might bounce a couple times after that or something).

Did I lose you with all that gobbeldegook?

...

Yeah.

Okay, I kind of figured that.

But the tl;dr version is that you can predict almost anything with the laws of physics if you have the right equation(s) and the starting variables to plug in.

Oh. That sounds like something my brother would get into.

Although I think I might go more toward classes in defense and dealing with the different cultures of people.

Your brother?

It couldn't hurt. But I'd want to see everybody get at least some of the math stuff.

Sokka.

Ok, I'll go. I want to know more anyway.

All right. I'll send you (and everybody else) a ring once I get a look at schedule stuff. And maybe testing everybody like Sherry said.

Ok.

Thank you.