jumpingfish

It’s been a good morning in Chicago. The weather was spectacular for the runners, there.

The elite men have finished in what was evidently a back and forth race at the end. The elite wheelchairs are done in what I heard was a photo finish. And the elite women are done, too. I watched that finish with Florence Kipligat metaphorically thumbing her nose at her Olympic selection committee which passed her up. Kipligat pulled away from her competition and was all alone as she crossed the finish line.

The crowd and the runners are cheering at the 13.1 mile mark. The blue bells are ringing at the Merrill-Lynch cheer station just before the route turns south on Halstead and heads for the Eisenhower expressway and southern Chicago. The crowd is cheering in Pilsen. And the dragons are dancing in Chinatown as the runners pass under the red gate where the route turns south again on Wentworth for that great loop that feels so far away from the finish line, because the skyscrapers of downtown are so small on the horizon to the north.

Our running coach, Chris, is out there, too. Her goal is to break 4:00 with negative splits, and she passed the half-way point at 2:00:44. And five minutes ago she passed the 30K mark running a 8:50 pace.

Looking good, Chris!

1. The Kids Arrive

It took a while for the kids to come up from the library. Three of them arrived first, because there were no more computers downstairs, and the boys needed to put together some kind of storyboard. The sat down at Mr. Roth’s desk in the front and opened some laptops.

“Not that computer, boys,” Mr. Roth told them. “Mr. Hasan is going to use that one.”

A few minutes later, the other kids arrived. The previously quiet room was now a loud, chaotic hustle and bustle as two classes worth of fourth graders filed in and began promptly to sit on the floor as close as humanly possible to where I was standing.

“What are you going to talk about?” one of them asked.

“Well you’ll find out in a second,” I said.

2. Rockets with Stages

It really doesn’t matter what Mr. Roth asks me to talk about, I can usually figure out some way to bring rockets into the discussion. Today Roth’s chosen topic was Analyzing Data for Meaning, Including Making Connections and Finding Patterns.

I don’t know about you, but fourth grade was never quite like that for me!

I had a plan. It involved rockets. Here’s how it went…

First, I showed them a picture of a NASA Mercury Redstone launch. We talked about how simple the launch pad looked. We talked about how there was only one astronaut and how it was only a suborbital flight. We talked about the red escape rocket on the top. And we talked about how there was only one stage on the Redstone.

“I’ll explain what a stage is in a second,” I told them.

Second, I showed them a picture of a NASA Gemini Titan launch. We talked about how that rocket is my favorite all time rocket because the exposed rocket nozzles at the bottom look so cool, which made a father at the back of the room smile. We talked about how there were two astronauts and how the launch pad was a bit more complex. And we talked about how there were two stages on the rocket.

“What about the Saturn?” one of the students asked.

“Funny you should ask,” I said, and I put my next picture on the screen.

So third, I showed them a NASA Saturn V on the mobile launch platform. We talked about how big the crawler is, which was easy to show them because of how tiny the trucks on the ground seemed in comparison. We talked about how there were three astronauts, how only two would actually land on the moon, how Apollos 11, 12, 14, 15, 16 and 17 landed twelve astronauts. Of course, we talked a bit about Apollo 13, but I told them was a story for another day. And I showed them how the rocket has three stages.

And then we talked about what stages are for, about how it’s expensive to push a lot of stuff into space, about how when the rocket engines burn and the fuel gets used up you end up pushing empty tank stuff into orbit unless you drop it away. At which point…

Fourth, I showed them (of course) a NASA Space Shuttle launch. We talked about the really complex launch pad. We talked about the external tank and the orbiter and the solid rocket boosters. We talked about how the orbiter flew back to earth and got refurbished to fly again. And we talked about how even though there were not stages stacked on top of one another, this rocket still had stages, because the solid boosters dropped off after their fuel was all used up.

3. Solid Rocket Boosters

And with that cool-picture-based intro to the history of America’s manned rockets, we talked a bit about the solid rocket boosters themselves. 

“Have you ever seen model rockets?” I asked. A lot of them had.

“These are just like those, except they’re really, really big.”

And we talked about how the fuel isn’t liquid but solid. We talked about how there’s a hole running up the middle of the boosters which is where the combustion takes place. (Yes, fourth graders can handle the word, combustion.) We talked about how the boosters were so big that they had to be built in segments and assembled once they arrived at the cape. And we talked about O-rings.

To describe the O-rings and how they work, I pushed my hands against my cheeks and squeezed my face while I talked. I told them (with my cheeks squeezed and my lips sticking out) how the rubber O-rings sealed those joints and plugged holes, so that the fire from the combustion couldn’t leak out.

“Do you understand what I’m saying?” I asked with my face contorted beneath my pressing hands and my voice sounding a little like Popeye.

“Yessss,” they said.

4. Ice On the Pad

I suspect you might have an idea where this is going, at this point.

The next picture I showed them this picture of ice on the pad on the day that STS-51L was supposed to launch.

We talked about how it was colder than usual that morning. We talked about how when it was cold, the O-rings got stiff and couldn’t seal the joints quite as well as they usually did. And we talked about how NASA had to decide whether or not to launch.

“No!” the kids said. “They shouldn’t launch.” (Keep in mind that these kids were born in 2007, more than twenty years after that day, so they didn’t know exactly where this story was going.)

So we talked a little bit about politics. About how NASA had promised that the Space Shuttle would make spaceflight cheap, about how they had promised to fly the Shuttle several times per year, and about how NASA management was under a huge amount of pressure to launch that day.

We talked about how a lot of engineers didn’t want to launch, and how they tried to make their case to the managers. And I showed them this diagram that the engineers used to try to explain their logic.

It’s a complicated diagram but we talked about it at length. And we talked about how there had been damage to the O-rings before, which was shown in the diagram. And we talked about how the diagram showed the temperatures on the day of launch of each of the (many) Shuttle flights that had already successfully flown.

And all the kids agreed that it was hard to understand the diagram.

“So imagine how hard it was for the managers to understand what the engineers were trying to tell them.”

5. Making Connections and Finding Patterns

So now we come to the reason Mr. Roth had asked me to come that day. It wasn’t about rockets. (It rarely is.) And it wasn’t about O-rings or a cold day of launch.

“Suppose,” I said, “that we took those data and drew them a different way.”

And I showed them this picture drawn shamelessly from the work of Edward Tufte (upon whose insight this discussion was entirely based).

I explained how this diagram had the same data. It had the day-of-launch temperatures (horizontal axis). It showed when they found O-ring damage (black dots). And it had the severity of the damage (vertical axis), something that is actually present but very hard to fully understand on the original diagram.

“Suppose that this was the diagram we showed to the managers to help them understand our logic, to help them understand why we felt it was dangerous to fly.”

And I pointed to the diagram, starting on the right and moving slowly to the left, pointing out to the kids how as the weather got colder, there was more O-ring damage, and how as it got even colder, the damage got worse, as can be seen by the black dots rising off the bottom of the chart.

And then I pointed out the grey-shaded temperature zone on the far left.

“This was the temperature on that morning.” I said.

The kids gasped. The eight and nine year old fourth graders gasped in recognition of what they were being shown. Those fourth graders instantly understood that what they were looking at meant this.

6. In Conclusion

We all sat there for a few moments (although not in silence, because… well because these were fourth graders).

“So what happened,” someone asked from the darkness of the room.

And I flipped to my last picture.

There was instant silence in the room. Every single one of them was staring in disbelief at the screen. 

I stood there in silence, too, not quite sure if I was going to be able to continue, because it’s hard for me to look at that picture. It’s hard for me to imagine the pain those engineers carried with them for the rest of their lives.

I stood there in silence and then said in a trembling voice, “They all died.”

And the room was silent a bit longer.

“So this is why I’m telling you this,” I said. “Your job when you’re an engineer or a scientist or a writer, your job isn’t just to do the fun stuff (building rockets). Your job is to tell other people what you’re thinking, to help them understand.”

“And when you write in your science notebooks, it’s not just about jotting down some scribble-scrabble. When your teachers or your parents tell you to show your work, there’s a reason for that. When they ask you to be neat, there’a a reason for that. When they ask you to put units after the numbers, it’s not just because they’re trying to make you do extra work.”

“Your job in life is to tell a story, to help other people around you understand, to explain your thinking in a way that helps them make the connections and see the patterns that you see.”

And with that, it was time for lunch.

1. Proximate Cause

When the the sun shines after the rain. When the air grows cool. That’s when the rain lilies bloom.

Close your eyes. Ignore the barking in the back alley. Ignore the traffic on the highway and the air conditioners across the street. (What are they doing running air conditioners on a day like this!?)

Close your eyes and shut that out.  Listen to the birds. Feel the late afternoon sun. Turn your face into the breeze. And just look at those rain lilies.

2. Root Cause

Dude.

You, again.

You and your blue sky and gentle breezes.

I’m feeling good, what can I say?

Sun and rain and sky and flowers — is there never anything else to explain your giddiness?

Well, there was that ninety minute massage.

Oh. I see… Got any coupons?

Dude.

Dude. Have you even looked for it?

For what?

For that tree. For those trees you say you planted way back then. For the trees you say aren’t there. That Google doesn’t show.

Yes. I’ve looked. They aren’t there.

You’re wrong, man. They’re there. 

Show me.

Right here. Just south of the Eco Park Apartments, man. Just south of Eco Park Drive.

What are you talking about? I looked. The trees aren’t there.

Look for yourself, man. Here: just north west of that lagoon. Look at all those trees, at that woods.

What woods? There wasn’t a woods there… then. Oh, I see. Eco Park. What a nice sound that has. And… I think I can see my tree. OMG, this multiverse has fewer dimensions today than it did yesterday!

We were talking about the stories behind these pictures. So what’s going on with this one?

Hmm… there’s no stunning story, here. Yet…

First of all, this is the top of the hill where the breeze comes out of the west (to the right in the picture) and blows the mosquitos mercifully back into the woods. You can see the evidence on the left side of the frame, where one of the big White Pines, barely present in the picture, is leaning to the left, leaning with the prevailing breezes. That tree has been there a very long time, and it clearly knows how to go with the flow as does the young one in the foreground — the one that looks like a tetherball pole. That young tree was a volunteer just a few years ago. You had to be careful not to trip over it in the dark. But um… you can see that my just-a-few-years-ago must indeed be quite a few years, because, well, that baby tree’s done grown up.

Secondly, how many years have we hung our towels on that line? Summer after summer, year after year, I have photographs that feature colorful arrays of towel-and-swimsuit hanging there on that cord strung between the trees. In fact, that left-most towel, has likely been featured in family photos going back two generations. It is a good towel, and it has kept me warm when the air was cool and the wind was… making the trees lean.

Thirdly, this is the edge of the wild. When we were very young, the backdrop here was a solid wall of green pine needles on young White Pines. But those trees have grown and their green needles are now up high, out of the frame of this picture. So unlike back then, today you can gaze into the woods and follow the path down to the swamp with your eye, the path that used to disappear into the young pines. Mimi used to warn us about that swamp. I remember her telling Stevie to tell us about it and about the quicksand down there. It was years before I ventured very far that way, and I was stunned to discover how beautiful it was.

And finally, the tent. This is our spot. Somehow Ben and Trudy and I have come to earn this particular spot as our own. (Although, Ben has long since graduated to a tent of his own that he pitches off to the left.) Year after year, summer after summer when the family pitches tents up here, even if we arrive late, it seems this spot is saved for us. I’m not sure how we got this honor, but I won’t complain, as the view out the tent windows to the west has much to offer. Well… it wasn’t always this tent. This is our second. The first was a huge REI dome tent that saw some pretty nasty summer storms in this spot. One year, the rains were so bad that everyone got wet and the wind was so fierce that some tents ended up in the woods… everyone except us, because that REI tent stayed put and didn’t leak. Indeed, the rains came down so torrentially that year that this particular spot had standing water several inches deep, and the tent was standing in it, and even then it was dry inside. Have you ever heard of such a thing!? It was a good tent, and when I look at this picture, I don’t see the blue tent you see here, but I see that white and yellow and blue REI dome tent that served us so well.