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The Thinker Challenge	By : marksandspence Category: S through Z > Sherlock (BBC) > Sherlock (BBC) Views: 2251 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This story is based solely on the television show Sherlock that airs on BBC1, written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. I borrow their universe to play in and do not claim any ownership or intend to make any money off of this fun hobby of m

Chapter List
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Chapter 5: How science works
“Why are we at the science museum?” John inquires.
Sherlock hands him an ID badge and beckons him down a narrow hallway off one of the main galleries. He walks quickly, with John struggling to keep up.
John reads the badge – “Dr. Amelia Cards, University of London. Uh, Sherlock, I don’t think this disguise is going to work.”
“They don’t look at the name, just the color of the lanyard. This isn’t Parliament.”
“But…Amelia?”
“Fine, take mine if you’re too insecure in your manhood to have a woman’s name for an hour.”
“We’re going to be here an hour?” John complains.
“More or less,” Sherlock shrugs.
“I just would have had a snack or something. I thought we were getting lunch with a potential client.”
“Moved to 1:30. Have some gum,” Sherlock offers.
“Does this have anything to do with the case?”
“Shhhhhhh. Keep your voice down. There are people giving talks in there,” he nods in the direction of the door to their left where a number of people are standing quietly.
After a moment there is applause and the doors open. They follow the crowd into the grand conference room and take two seats at the back. Sherlock instantly makes himself very comfortable, leaning back and sipping a coffee.
“I still don’t understand why we are here,” John whispers. Noticing the cup, “where did you get that coffee?”
“By the door, John. Pay attention.”
“But…” He starts to get up
“Shhhhh. There’s no time now. It’s about to start.”
John just shakes his head as a man at the podium introduces the next speaker. A young man takes the stage, dressed in a jacket and tie and looking quite nervous. He fiddles with the projector remote and pulls up the title slide.
Newton's constant from a fundamental length scale: Frontiers in Black Hole Physics
[Note to readers, I totally just lifted the title of this talk from a Conference Proceedings. I am a scientist, but not a physicist and really am just picking something that sounds cool. Any science discussed below is complete nonsense!]
Seeing the title, John whispers to Sherlock, “May I please have some of your coffee?”
Sherlock just frowns at him, dismissively. John notices that instead of watching the speaker, Sherlock is scanning the audience. He follows his gaze until it fixes on a particular part of the room. John squints and sees Dr. Stanton sitting cross-legged on a chair, scribbling somewhat frantically on a notepad, seemingly not listening to the talk at all. After about fifteen minutes, without even looking up, she raises her hand. When the speaker doesn’t stop speaking, she looks up and starts waving her arm around like an overexcited schoolgirl.
John hears a man in front of them snigger and whisper to his neighbor, “She got officially reprimanded last year for interrupting. If she speaks before being called on, they’ll revoke her membership.”
She adds a finger wave to her outstretched arm. Without acknowledging her explicitly, the moderator announces, “Please save your questions for the end.”
Sio shifts in her chair, then starts to nearly bounce as the speaker tries to ignore her and continue. Finally, the young man can’t take it anymore.
“Yes, Dr. Stanton. Do you have a question?”
“There’s a mistake. A critical one, I’m afraid.” She says making a face that is nearly mock-apologetic.
“Where? Can you be more specific?” The man responds, trying to sound confident.
She looks up at his slide, scans it and then frowns.
“Oh, you haven’t gotten there yet. Carry on. I’ll wait.”
The man sighs and resumes his talk, tiny beads of sweat forming on his forehead, the confidence draining from his voice. Three slides later, Sio’s hand shoots up again. The air disappears from the room as there is a collective intake of breath. The man in the row in front shakes his head and mutters, “here we go.”
The moderator tries to intervene again, “Dr. Stanton, could you please let him finish and save your question for the end?”
“Well, it’s not really a question and I think he’s gone on long enough, quite honestly.” She is subtly bouncing in her chair. “I think we can all agree, lovely slides, nice font, good speaking voice; credit where credit is due. But I don’t see how any of us will get anything more from this presentation by allowing Mr…. (she glances down at the abstract book) Slater to continue. His time will be better served by getting a jump start on his new dissertation proposal.”
The moderator takes a deep breath. “Please, Dr. Stanton, let us have some measure of decorum.”
“This is the Royal Society, Mr. Moderator. I am just trying to keep things moving.”
A man in the front row stands up and says with obvious irritation, “Nullius in verba, Dr. Stanton. Please inform us where my student went wrong.”
“I thought you’d never ask. Best if I just show you.” She leaps up as she says this. She is barefoot, her shoes tucked neatly under her chair. She has a small ball in one hand that she juggles around on her way up to the front. When she arrives at the front of the room, she takes the projector remote and first flips backwards through the presentation until she comes to the one that has a series of equations. She smiles over to the mortified grad student, “Seriously, nice slides. Love the colors.”
First, she uses the pointer, “The error is in this equation. And to a lesser extent, the next one, but that may not have affected the outcome.”
She then lifts up the screen and takes a black marker to the white board and proceeds to scribble equations very quickly with her right hand, as her left squeezes the ball, periodically stopping to explain what she is doing. At one point the marker stops working and she grabs another. She turns to the audience,
“Will someone PLEASE invent a way to transcribe directly from my brain. This is insanely frustrating. I am completely serious about that.” As she turns back to the board, she mumbles “My kingdom for a mind reader.”
After a bit more writing, “You see the problem is here. The computer codes this variable in a way that makes sense from the perspective of the programmer, but it does not work with this equation. The computer will make the same mistake every time. Its much more complicated, so the absolute solution is required, not the shortcut version that the software must take.”
She writes one more thing on the board to illustrate her point and when she is finished, she quickly and undramatically lobs the ball that had been in her left had over her shoulder. The ball arcs over the crowd and comes down directly through a tiny toy basketball net held by a young woman at the edge of the row in front of where Sio had been sitting. Two rather unstylish young men in the same row stand up and shout “Nothing but net!” before sitting straight back down.
This outburst is followed by some disgruntled murmuring.
“Dr. Stanton, could you and your students try to refrain from such theatrics?” The moderator intones.
“Absolutely,” She responds, smugly. “Questions?”
A man in the front row, who is leaning back in his chair with an air of intentional indifference speaks first,
“What difference will it make, honestly? No one doubts your mathematical abilities, Sio, but in terms of outcomes, applications, where does this little computer error leave us?”
“Shall I give you a moment to catch up, David? Perhaps your students can review the math with you over coffee. It’s hardly a minor error. It could change everything.”
“But will it? That’s all that I am asking,” Dr. Bane responds casually.
“I’ll let you know once the simulations are finished.”
“When?”
“Two weeks. Based on my preliminary calculations.”
“That’s impossible. Even the cluster would take three.”
“It’s a race then. Care to make a wager?”
“Not fair – you’ve already started,” He shrugs, laughing it off.
“Ten minutes ago,” she responds, incredulously. “I only just figured it out.” She gives a mock-panic look over to her lab.
“How do we know we can trust your calculations? It’s not like we can see inside your brain.”
“We’ve been through this before, David. We get a third party to run the numbers on a verifiable computer cluster. I record my results when they come in and if they match when the cluster finally finishes, I win.”
“What are you wagering?”
“My best grad student against your parking space.”
He stands up and they shake on it.
John turns to Sherlock, “And that is, apparently, how science is done. Who knew?”
Sherlock has a pleased smirk on his face. “Do you find her attractive?”
“Uh, isn’t that kind of sexist? I don’t think Amelia would approve,” he responds holding up his ID badge.
“Just curious,” Sherlock responds, casually.
“She’s alright. A bit intimidating.”
Sherlock’s phone beeps. He looks down at it.
There is a message from Sio:
SS: Meet the lab.
SH: Showing off?
SS: A bit. Impressed?
SH: Nice throw.
SS: Physics. BTW, can’t see you for a couple of weeks. Working. Nemesis >:->
SH: I assumed…
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The Thinker Challenge