The Lost Fight

(1958. A guest room in an air base.) Colonel: What is your name? Ducker: Lieutenant Timmy Ducker, Royal Flying Corps. Colonel: Don't you mean Royal Air Force? Ducker: No, sir. Colonel: Tell us again, Lieutenant Ducker, where you were before we saw you coming out of that cloud in that antique. Ducker: I was hiding, sir. Colonel: Hiding? Ducker: Yes, sir. The year was 1917. We ran into a superior number of enemy planes and I flew into the cloud to hide. Colonel: Where was your flight leader? Ducker: He was surrounded by enemy planes. They were shooting at him from all angles. The last I saw of him he was shaking his fist at me as his plane grew smaller and smaller. Colonel: Lieutenant Ducker, that is the most appalling confession of cowardice I've ever heard! Ducker: But you don't know what it's like up there! When they're all around you shooting at you! They want to kill you! It's simply terrifying! Colonel: And what about your flight leader? How could you run away on him like that! Ducker: You don't understand. He was beating me at chess. We had a game going and he was winning. I'm telling you, when you look around you and you see a pawn here and a rook over there and a knight standing right in your way, it's too much! Anyone would crack under those circumstances. Colonel: What was his name? Ducker: MacIntyre. Why? Colonel: That's interesting. Air Vice Marshall MacIntyre is coming to visit us at this moment. (Enter MacIntyre) Ah, here is is. Vice Marshall MacIntyre, I would like to introduce you to- MacIntyre: So! It's you! I knew you couldn't hide in that cloud forever! Ducker: Captain MacIntyre! How did you survive? At any rate, you don't look well. MacIntyre: It's Air Vice Marshall MacIntyre now! And I've been waiting over forty years to tell you this: queen pawn five to queen pawn six! Ducker: No! (He explodes in fear and breaks out of the room. He runs down the runway and finds his plane. He inadvertently kicks away his pursuers when he kicks his leg to help him spin his propeller. He is soon in the air.) MacIntyre: Launch all surface-to-air missiles. Repeat. Launch all surface-to-air missiles. Target is climbing slowly and heading for the nearest cloud.
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Ahead of Their Time: Louis Bombardier (1742-1789)

Narrator: Today we take for granted that energy and matter are related, but for a long time everyone thought they were different. It took the dedicated efforts of the eighteenth century French chemist and tax collector, Louis Bombardier, to set humanity on the course to enlightenment. (Baroque harpsichord music. An 18th century dining room. Bombardier has a meal with his contemporaries.) Woman: Monsieur, what is it you are eating again? For your first course, you had a milkshake, then you had a frozen yogurt on a stick, and now you dine on a milk chocolate bunny. What will you eat next I wonder? Cheese? (Derisive laughter.) Bombardier: Madame, if you must know, I have eaten nothing but milk since my last drinking engagement with the Marquis. I think that milk may hold the key to understanding the universe and I would like to invite all of you to a demonstration which I hope will prove it. (Later that evening in Bombardier's basement, the guests stand around Bombardier as he explains to workings of the strange apparatus on his table.) Bombardier: Now you see what happens when we evaporate the milk. It goes into this tube where it is cooled and condenses and falls as droplets back into this can. These cans of condensed milk take much longer to spoil than normal milk. Leduc: Mon Dieu! You mean you have found a way to kill all the babbittes! Bombardier: Babbittes? Leduc: Yes, the tiny wee creatures that live inside the milk and make it go bad! Monsieur, this contraption is worth a fortune! Bombardier: That was not the goal of my experiment! It was to show that the mass of the condensed milk is the same as the mass that was lost by the unevaporated milk! Leduc: Now you're raving. Bombardier: You don't believe me, Monsieur? I bring you all the way into my basement and turn milk into gas and gas back into milk in front of your eyes and you do not believe me? Then I must challenge you to a duel. (Exit all but Leduc and Bombardier.) Stand right there and don't move. I shall take ten paces from you to give you a fighting chance. (He walks out of range, turns and shoots. His first shot shatters his invention.) Best two out of three! Narrator: Unfortunately for Bombardier, his background as a tax collector did not endear him to the people when the revolution came. (A Kangaroo Court. Bombardier stands before the judge and jury in bonds.) Judge: Have you any last words to say in your defense? Bombardier: Only that I will go to my grave believing that the mass of milk is constant. If you trap all the milk vapors in a tube, they will weigh the same as the lost weight of the milk out of which they were boiled. Judge: Ah yes. Your famous theory. And if you trap all the citizens inside the city with a wall as you did, the weight of the taxes they are forced to pay is the same as the weight of Louis' crown jewels! But the people have another theory. They believe that the lost weight of your headless body can be accounted for by the weight of your head! Take him away! (They rush him away to his execution. At the last minute he pulls out a note and thrusts it into the hand of his assistant. Exit Bombardier with escort.) Judge: Well? What does it say? Assistant: It will make no sense to you if you are not a man of science. Judge: Tell us anyway. Assistant: Energy equals milk times the speed of light. Narrator: While Bombardier was slightly off in his vision, he was more on track than anyone else back then. Today French paratroopers honour his name by crying it out as they jump on their targets. He is not to be confused with the noted French scientist and tax collector Antoine Lavoisier, who shared a roughly parallel life experience in the same period.
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Footnote to Science

Science is not boring. You think sports is better than space? Well, I don't know about you, but when I think of the moons of our solar system I think of sports. On our moon golf and badminton are the games of choice. Phobos's low gravity is ideal for weight lifting and high jumping. Titan's nitrogen lakes offer smoke-free windsurfing. And Europa may have sea life. That means ice fishing. And they're not getting these aliens right on these science fiction programs. I don't know why they think we need Klingons when we could have a slime mold growing in a lake on a planet only fourteen thousand light years away. Who says aliens need faces to be interesting?
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The Race to Extinction

Host: If a genetically engineered disease was released on the population, it could kill us all. My first guest is from the Center for Disease Control. Sir, what would such an epidemic look like? Guest: That depends on the disease, but our demise would likely be slow and painful. An outbreak of, say, genetically engineered ebola would at first only kill the victim, his witnesses and health care workers, and the reporters who covered his story. It could take as long as a week before you look in the mirror and notice that your eyes are bleeding. At first we have a scenario in which the blood bank tells people to save their donations, but before long pools of blood are forming at controlled intersections, posing a slippery hazard for pedestrians and attracting swarms of vampire bats in search of a free drink. Then to top it all off, the intermittent screams of frightened little girls erode the nerves and interfere with sleep. Host: Harrowing. Would it kill us all? Guest: Almost. Scuba divers, asbestos workers, and astronauts could survive by wearing their protective gear. Host: What about front line Center for Disease Control workers? Guest: Yes, them too. Host: Our next guest is a farmer. He thinks we'll be wiped out in a different way, by a nuclear mishap. But aren't there airtight safety procedures in place to prevent such a catastrophe? Guest: Accidents can always happen. Someone could be smoking around the ICBM's and ignite the fuel. In the control room, a pesky fly could land right on the fire button and the staff person could forget that the safety is off before he whacks it with a rolled up newspaper. All it takes is one wayward ICBM to start an apocalyptic chain reaction. Host: Would it kill us all? Guest: All who remain on the surface: landscape painters trying to capture the explosions on canvas, tanners, and diehard equestrians. Only a lucky few with an advanced knowledge of hydroponics and indoor growing techniques would have the skills to grow food underground in the dark centuries to follow. Host: Horrible. And we still haven't touched on asteroids. This man thinks that if we're overdue for another asteroid like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs. What would that look like? Guest: As soon as it hit, you'd hear the band starting up. Kind of nihilistic sounding instrumental rock, perhaps a cross between Cheap Trick's You Must Be Crazy and Pink Floyd's Set Controls for the Heart of the Sun. As the rock burrows deeper and deeper into the planet, the music builds and builds. And then it stops. You're on the other side of the world and nothing's happened yet. All of a sudden the band kicks in all at once with a screaming lead guitar added to the foreground as the sky rains flaming, poisonous debris from the crash all over your head - maybe even after you just finished brushing your hair. Host: Dreadful. Would it kill us all?
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Retro Night: Hum of Doom (1975)

Narrator: The peaceful agricultural community of Amber Lake were just minding their own business when the enemy came. (An orchid. A young couple are about to make out.) He: Sure is great to come here now that bee season is over. Wait a minute. What's making that hum? (He is taken aback by the sight of a hummingbird.) She: What's wrong? He: Nothing. Don't look behind you? She: Why not? (She turns her head and screams.) A HUMMINGBIRD! He: Quiet! You'll upset it! She: Don't worry. I'll knock it out of the air with my purse. (She takes a couple swipes and misses. With an aggressive hum the bird retaliates, terrorizing the couple.) Narrator: The government declared a state of emergency and a team of commandos, specially trained in anti-avian tactics, were dispatched to the orchid. Captain: As your commanding officer I claim the right to take the first shot at the target when it is sighted. (With a hum the bird appears before them.) Soldier: There's your chance, Captain. Captain: You see how he positions himself between us? He thinks I will miss and hit you, Sergeant. (He shoots and the sergeant drops to the ground.) Don't worry, Corporal. I'll get him this time. (He shoots and the corporal falls face forward. The hummingbird remains at large, hovering in their midst.) Narrator: The people stayed indoors for protection. There they waited and prayed for a miracle. (A family sits in their living room.) Father: Yeah, they're clever but they're no match for our intelligence. (A loud, telltale hum at the front door is soon followed by a three pecks. The father gets up to answer it.) That sounds like Jerry. He probably just wants to make sure that we're all safe...
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Classic Flicks: Portrait of the Scientist as a Young Man

(Circa 1900. Classical music. A young Albert Einstein meets with his colleagues at a bistro.) Colleague: Albert! You're only alienating yourself from the physics crowd by trying to unite matter with energy! Give up this madness and take a teaching job before it is too late! Einstein: Sure, that would be easy. Man's way is easy. If a man wants to imagine time slowing down, he can drink absinthe. It's abundantly available. But God's way is not easy. God's way is hard. God's way is to travel all the way to the New Mexico desert for peyote buttons instead of just drinking absinthe. Colleague: So that's your problem. They say that the best way to treat absinthe addiction is with opium. I have a friend who runs a clinic. Of course, your wife does not need to know. Well? What are you gaping at now? Why do you look at everything as if you're seeing it for the first time! Einstein: If you were traveling at the speed of light, you would be moving so much faster than the sound of your voice that you could not speak. Your every attempt to say a word would result in its being shoved back down your throat again by the acceleration. Colleague: You're not making sense. Einstein: (animated) One, two, light-speed on you! Colleague: I'm worried about you.
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Peace with Honor

The war is over. The peace terms of the Gypsies have been agreed to by our Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Bob Morely and General Peter MacIntosh. Only mothers with more than one dependent must submit a child to the newly formed Department of Nomadic Development. The power is out in Thunder Bay and its surrounding region today after unseasonably peaceful weather left their lightning rod uncharged for over a week. And a record number of viewers tuned in to watch the finale of Power Trip: Showdown of the Power Trippers. The banks and corporations won by buying out their opponents after a close call when the drug lords stole weapons from the scientists.
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