"Hey, there are two of me," Ervin said.
"Me too!" said Elise.
There were two of Shayna and two of Vanessa (which was quite worrying). There were even two of Sherlock, who was still in cubical form.
"But where is my double?" Stefanie asked.
"In this game, you will perhaps be glad that you are the only one of your type," Tom answered.
"Hey, I thought we were going to a party," Shayna said.
"There are games at parties, aren't there?" Tom replied.
"Yes, yes," Shayna said, her excitement returning.
"OK, find your pair," Tom said, and the group excitedly went about finding their equivalent, like two animals of a kind about to board the ark.
"Except we're not boy and girl versions," the Vanessas said in unison to the narrator. "We're not like the animals about to board the ark."
That's fair, the narrator answered.
When they had all found their match, Tom continued.
"I need one of you to go up those stairs on the left and the other to stay down here and go over to the right."
"Is that stage left or audience left?" both Vanessas said.
"From the audience's point of view," Tom answered. "After all, we're trying to teach them chemistry. It's their left and their right."
"So stage right and stage left," the Vanessas said.
"Shh, you'll confuse them," Tom said.
So one set of Vanessa, Shayna, Elise, Ervin, and Sherwood went upstairs to the audience's left, and another went to the opposite side downstairs.
"Where do I go?" Stefanie asked Tom.
"Good question. Let's have you go to the top left, although we could make it would work either way."
So Stefanie dutifully made her way up the stairs to the top left.
In the center of the stage was an elevator like shaft. It was glass and see through, like many elevators in big city hotels with lobbies that are open to the top of the building. But there were only two stories here.
"OK, Shayna 1, I want you to run toward the elevator from your side on the second floor. And Shayna 2, I want you to run toward the elevator from your side on the first floor. Then, when you get to the middle, go inside the elevator."
"Fun!" both Shaynas exclaimed, and they began running at full speed toward the elevator. In almost no time, they jumped inside the elevator on their respective floors.
Then a voice came seemingly from out of nowhere, loud enough for everyone to hear clearly. "Shayna divided by Shayna equals one."
And with that both Shayna's turned into a ball of energy and disappeared.
"What happened to her?" Elise exclaimed with a hint of fear.
"Anything divided by itself is one!" the Vanessas said. "Except for zero," they continued. "You're not allowed to divide by zero, which makes me really want to do it."
"Quite right," Tom said to Elise. Shayna has simply become one and has gone back home. This is the way to disappear from this place and go home.
Before he had finished talking, the two Ervin's started running unannounced from each slide. And when they reached the elevator, they both also turned to energy and disappeared.
The voice returned. "Ervin divided by Ervin equals one."
"Hey, what about me?" cubical Sherlock said. "How am I supposed to reach the elevator without Ervin to carry me?"
"Oh, that's no problem," both Vanessas said on cue. At the same time, they picked him up and hurled him toward the elevator with suprising accuracy. When both cubes entered the elevator, they simultaneously turned into energy and disappeared.
"Sherlock divided by Sherlock equals one," came the voice again.
But as they left, you could hear the ever distant sound of Sherlock's voice, "GOODbyeeeeee."
"How am I supposed to teach the lesson when everyone keeps disappearing!" Tom said in frustration.
"There's a lesson?" Elise said excitedly.
"Yay. There's a lesson," Stefanie said with much less excitement.
"I have sweatshirts for you all," Tom said.
"A sweatshirt, a sweatshirt!" the Vanessas said, jumping up and down with glee.
"Elise, you are going to be hours," and Tom tossed both of them a sweatshirt that said "HOURS" on the front.
"Vanessa," he continued, "you are going to be minutes." And he tossed them both a sweatshirt that said "MINUTES" on the front.
"And Stefanie," you'll be seconds. And he tossed her a sweatshirt with "SECONDS" on the front. Then they all put on their shirts.
"OK, pay attention. This is going to be a little tricky," Tom said. "Upstairs Elise, pick a number. Make it a small number just to make it easy."
"Three!" she said with unexpected excitement.
"Great. So you are three hours," Tom said to upstairs Elise, and with that, she tripled into three Elises.
"That's not fair," downstairs Elise said. "Why does she get to be three Elises and I have to stay one?"
Tom ignored her.
"So we have three HOURS upstairs," Tom said. "Now. Vanessa. How many minutes are in an hour.
"Sixty," she exclaimed.
"Right you are!" Tom said. "There there are 60 Vanessas (minutes) on top in one Elise (hour) on the bottom."
"Yes! Yes!" upstairs Vanessa said and promptly began to multiply until there were sixty of her upstairs.
"Now run, Elises and upstairs Vanessas!" Tom said.
"What is going on?" Stefanie muttered to herself.
But the Elise's ran mindlessly anyway as did the upstairs Vanessas. The elevator seemed to get bigger and bigger as each Elise and Vanessa entered until they were all in the tube.
"Wait for it," Tom said, as all the Elises looked on a bit anxiously and all the Vanessas excitedly. Immediately, the Elises began to turn into energy and the Vanessas multiplied accordingly.
When all the flashing had stopped, all the Elises had disappeared, and there were 180 Vanessas on the second floor.
"Elise divided by Elise equals one," came the voice again.
"What just happened?" Stefanie asked in confusion.
"Well," Tom said. We had Elise both on the top and the bottom. That is, we had HOURS on the top and bottom, so they canceled and all the Elise's disappeared. But 3 times 60 is 180, so we were left with 180 MINUTES. Er, Vanessas."
"I still don't get it."
"It's really much simpler than all this," Vanessa said. "There are 60 minutes in an hour. So if you have three hours, you have 3 x 60 minutes or 180 minutes. He's just making it seem complicated by trying to make it into game."
"What I'm trying to show you," Tom said, "is that labels like 'hours' and 'minutes' can cancel too if you have them on the top and the bottom. If you have meters per second (m/s) and you multiply by seconds, you have seconds on the top and the bottom and they cancel out, leaving just meters."
"So," he continued, "right now we have 180 minutes (Vanessas) on the top. And how many seconds are there per minute?"
"60," Stefanie said. "No, wait. You're not going to multiply me are you?"
A fiendish grin came over Tom's face, and Stefanie did indeed begin to multiply until there were sixty of her.
"Now we have 60 SECONDS on top per one MINUTE on the bottom (Vanessa)."
"And we have 180 Vanessas (MINUTES) up here," upper Vanessa said, and with that all 180 Vanessas on top and the one Vanessa on the bottom started running toward the elevator.
"I'm not running," Stefanie said.
But it didn't matter. The elevator enlarged to fit all the Vanessas and they all began to multiply into Stefanies until there were 10,800 Stefanies on the second floor.
"Vanessa divided by Vanessa equals one," came the loud voice for the last time.
"Let me say it in ordinary language again," Tom said. "3 hours times 60 minutes/hour equals 180 minutes -- the hours cancel. 180 minutes times 60 seconds per minute equals 10,800 seconds -- the minutes cancel."
"I do like myself, but this is a little extreme, don't you think?" all the Stefanies said in unison. "And is this floor strong enough to hold all of us?"
"Probably not," Tom said. And with that, the floor began to give way. All the Stefanies closed their eyes as a sinking feeling came over them all.
_________________________1. A Mole in the Lab
2. The Nuclear Cafe
3. Mr. Tom's Mild Ride
4. March of the Centipedes
5. A Thick Little Boy
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