Came across this story this morning and thought some here might appreciate it:
POPPA NEEDS SHORTS
Given valid data, you can reach completely wrong conclusions. But given a w rong conclusion, you can still get a right answer!
by WALT and LEIGH RICHMOND
Little Oley had wandered into forbidden territory again - Big Brother Sven' s ham shack. The glowing bottles here were an irresistible lure, and he lik ed to pretend that he knew all there was to know about the mysteries in thi s room.
Of course, Sven said that not even he knew all of the mysteries, though he admitted he was one of the best ham operators extant, with QSOs from eighte en countries and thirty-eight states to his credit.
At the moment, Sven was busily probing into an open chassis with a hot sold ering iron.
"Short's in here some place," he muttered.
"What makes shorts, Sven?" Oley wasn't so knowledgeable but what he would a sk an occasional question.
Sven turned and glared down. "What are you doing in here? You know it's a F ederal Offense for anybody to come into this room without I say so?"
"Momma and Hilda come in all the time, and you don't say so." Oley stood fi rm on what he figured were legal grounds. "What makes shorts?"
Sven relented a little. This brother had been something of a surprise to hi m, coming along when Sven was a full ten years old. But, he reflected, afte r a few years maybe I should get used to the idea. Actually, he sort of lik ed the youngster.
"Shorts," he said, speaking from the superior eminence of his fourteen year s to the four-year-old, "is when electricity finds a way to get back where it came from without doing a lot of hard work getting there. But you see, e lectricity like to work; so, even when it has an easy way, it just works ha rder and uses itself up."
This confused explanation of shorts was, of course, taken verbatim, despite the fact that Oley couldn't define half the words and probably couldn't ev en pronounce them.
"I don't like shorts. I don't like these pink shorts Momma put on me this m orning. Is they electrics, Sven?"
Sven glanced around at the accidentally-dyed-in-the-laundry, formerly white shorts.
"Um-m-m. Yeah. You could call 'em electric."
With this Oley let out whoop and dashed out of the room, trailing a small v oice behind him. "Momma, Momma. Sven says my shorts is electric!"
"I'll short Sven's electrics for him, if he makes fun of your shorts!" Oley heard his mother's comforting reply.
In the adult world days passed before Oley's accidentally acquired pattern of nubilous information on the subject of shorts was enlarged. It was only days in the adult world, but in Oley's world each day was a mountainous fra ction of an entire lifetime, into which came tumbling and jumbling - or wer e pulled - bits, pieces, oddments, landslides and acquisitions of informati on on every subject that he ran into, or that ran into him. Nobody had told Oley that acquiring information was his job at the moment; the acquisition was partly accidental, mostly instinctive, and spurred by an intense curio sity and an even more intense determination to master the world as he saw i t.
There was the taste of the sick green flowers that Momma kept in the window box and, just for a side course, a little bit of the dirt, too. There were the patterns of the rain on the window, and the reactions of a cat to havi ng its tail pulled. The fact that you touch a stove one time, and it's cool and comfortable to lay your head against, and another time it hurts. Thing s like that. And other things - towering adults who sometimes swoop down on you and throw you high into the air; and most times walk over you, around you, and ignore you completely. The jumble of assorted and unsorted informa tion that is the heritage of every growing young inquiring brain.
In terms of time, it was only a couple of weeks, if you were looking at it as an adult, until the next "shorts" incident.
Oley was sitting peacefully at the breakfast table, doing his level best to control the manipulation of the huge knife-fork-and-spoon, plate-bowl-and- glass, from which he was expected to eat a meal. Things smelled good. Momma was cooking doste, and that to Oley smelled best of all. The doster ticked quietly to itself, then gave a loud pop, and up came two golden-brown slic es of doste. Dostes? Oley wasn't sure. But he hadn't really begun paying to o much attention to whether one doste was the same as two doste or what, th ough he could quite proudly tell you the difference between one and two.
Out it came, and fresh butter was spread on it, and in went two shiny white beds, for some more doste.
Little Oley watched in fascination. And now he reached for the tremendous g lass sitting on the table in front of him. But his fingers didn't quite mak e it. Somehow, the glass was heavy and slippery, and it eluded him, rolled over on its side, and spilled the bright purple juicy contents out across t he table in a huge swish.
Oley wasn't dismayed, but watched with a researcher's interest as the brigh t purple juice swept across the table towards the busily ticking doster. Mo mma, of course, wasn't here, or she would have been gruff about it. She'd j ust gone into the other room.
The juice spread rapidly at first, and then more and more slowly, making a huge, circuitous river spreading across the table, first towards the doster and then away from it towards the frayed power-cord lying on the table. It touched and began to run along the cord. Not a very eventful recording so far, but Oley watched, charmed.
As he watched, a few bubbles began to appear near the frayed spot. A few wi sps of steam. And then, suddenly, there was a loud, snarling splat - and Mo mma screamed from the doorway. "That juice is making a short!"
The information, of course, was duly recorded. Juice makes shorts.
It was a minor item of information, mixed into a jumble of others, and noth ing else was added to this particular file for nearly another week.
Oley was playing happily on the living room floor that night. Here there wa s much to explore, though an adult might not have thought twice about it. B ack in the corner behind Momma's doing bachine a bright, slender piece of m etal caught Oley's attention. Bigger on one end than the other, but not rea lly very big anywhere, the sewing machine needle proved fascinating. As a f irst experiment, Oley determined that it worked like a tooth by biting hims elf with it. After that he went around the room, biting other things with i t. Information, of course, is information, and to be obtained any way one c an.
The brown, snaky lamp cord was the end of this experiment. Oley bit it, vic iously, with his new tooth, and had only barely observed that it had penetr ated completely through when there was a loud splat, and all the lights in the room went out.
In the darkness and confusion, of course, Oley moved away, seeking other ne w experiences. So the cause of the short that Momma and Poppa yakked so lou dly about was never attributed to Oley's actions, but only to "How could a needle have gotten from your sewing machine into this lamp cord, Alice?"
But the sum of information had increased. Neatles stuck into lamp cords had something to do with shorts.
More time passed. And this time the file on shorts was stimulated by Poppa. The big, rough, booming voice had always scared Oley a bit when it sounded mad, like now.
"Alice, I've just got to have some more shorts!"
Poppa was rummaging in a drawer far above Oley's head, so he couldn't see t he object under discussion. But all he already knew about shorts - the info rmation passed in review before him.
Shorts are useful. They help electrics to work harder.
Shorts you wear, and they are electrics.
Wires are electrics.
Shorts can be made by juice.
Shorts can be made by neatles, that bite like teeth.
Poppa needs more shorts.
But Oley wasn't motivated to act at the moment. Just sorting out informatio n and connecting it with other information files in the necessarily haphaza rd manner that might eventually result in something called intelligence, al though he didn't know that yet.
It was a week later in the kitchen, when Momma dropped a giant version of t he neatle on the floor, that his information file in this area increased ag ain.
"Is that a neatle?" Oley asked.
His mother laughed quietly and looked fondly at her son as she put the ice pick back on the table.
"I guess you could call it a needle, Oley," she told him. "An ice needle."
Oley instinctively waited until Momma's back was turned before taking the n ice neatle to try its biting powers; and instinctively took it out of the k itchen before starting his experiments.
As he passed the cellar door he heard a soft gurgling and promptly changed course. Pulling open the door with difficulty, he seated himself on the cel lar stairs to watch a delightful new spectacle - frothing, gurgling water m aking its way across the floor towards the stairs. It looked wonderfully di rty and brown, and to Oley it was an absorbing phenomenon. It never occurre d to him to tell Momma.
Suddenly above him the cellar door slammed open, and Poppa came charging do wn the stairs, narrowly missing the small figure, straight into the rising waters, intent, though Oley couldn't know it, on reaching the drain pipe in the far corner of the cellar to plug it before water from the spring rains could back up farther and really flood the cellar out.
Halfway across the cellar, Poppa reached up and grasped the dangling overhe ad light to turn it on, in order to see his way to the drain - and suddenly came to frozen, rigid, gasping stop as his hand clamped firmly over the so cket.
Little Oley watched. There was juice in the cellar. Poppa had hold of an el ectric. Was Poppa trying to make the shorts he needed?
Oley wasn't sure. He thought it probable. And from the superior knowledge o f his four years, Oley already knew a better way to make shorts. Neatles ma ke good shorts. Juice don't do so well.
Suddenly, Oley decided to prove his point: Nice neatles probably made even better shorts than other neatles - and there was a big electric running up the side of the stairs - an electric fat enough to make a real good shorts. Maybe lots of shorts.
Raising his nice neatle, Oley took careful aim and plunged it through the 2
20-volt stove feeder cable.Oley woke up. The strange pretty lady in white was a new experience. Somebo dy he hadn't seen before. And there seemed to be something wrong with his h and, but Oley hadn't noticed it very much, yet.
"Well, my little Hero's awake! And how are you this morning? Your Momma and Poppa will be in to see you in just a minute."
The pretty lady in white went away, and Oley gazed around the white room wi th its funny shape, happily recorded the experience, and dozed off again.
Then suddenly he was awakened again. Momma was there; and Poppa. And Sven. But they all seemed different somehow this morning. Momma had been crying, even though she was smiling bravely now. And Poppa seemed to have a new sof tness that he'd seldom seen before. Sven was looking puzzled.
"I still say, Pop, that he's a genius. He must have known what he was doing ."
"Oley," Poppa's voice was husky - gruff, but kinder and softer than usual. "I want you to answer me carefully. But understand that it's all right eith er way. I just want you to tell me. Why did you put the ice pick through th e stove cable? You saved my life, you know. But I'd like to know how you kn ew how."
Little Oley grinned. His world was peaceful and wonderful now. And all the big adults were bending and leaning down and talking to him.
"Nice neatle," he said. "Big electric. Poppa needed shorts." Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fict ion January 1964. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typograp hical errors have been corrected without note. The word nubilous appears in place of the originally printed nubient.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fic tion January 1964. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typogra phical errors have been corrected without note. The word nubilous appears i n place of the originally printed nubient.]