Dynamic Cardiologic Integer Reversal

Lakes. Rivers and streams. Forested mountains. There was always something in the passing landscape that would normally capture the eye of passengers, but they passed by in seconds, always missing the gaze of the young man in the last train car. Instead of the geographical features on the other side of the window, he was more drawn to what was in front of him. Inside of his heavily worn jean-style backpack that sat atop the floral patterned matte-blue seats were several books. Hardcover books, text books, all thick and impressive and beyond his time - some of them quite literally as they were older than he was. They were filled with pages that contained lengthy studies, research, and written experiments on concepts like physics, thermodynamics, and applied mathematics. They didn’t conjecture much on futuristic ideas, but focused more current knowledge. Standard practices. Accepted and proven theories. This was perfectly apt for this particular reader. He was more concerned with what was rather than what could be. 

“Can I sit here?”

He barely looked up from his literary collection, but a pair of blue eyes were lit by the setting sun that shone in the window. They broke the hypnotic spell his books had on him and demanded his attention for a second glance. The smiling blond was already sitting down next to him.

“What are you reading?” 

He flipped over the book he had been reading, forgetting himself what the title was. “Advance Design for Mechanical Engineering,” he told her. He tried to explain how it was one of the main branches of engineering, brothers and sisters to chemical, civil, and electrical respectively. “It’s actually pretty interesting once you understand the basic concepts and know the math.” She sneered, which actually turned out to be a smile. He was used to the name-calling and the insults behind his back, but he didn’t care. He found understanding and comfort between the pages and numbers. Whoever this girl was, he felt no desire to impress her, but he also found himself not wanting her to leave. 

“Oh, I don’t disagree. Without it, we wouldn’t even be on a train. Put enough of you guys in a room and I’m pretty sure we’ll be living on Mars and have pet robots in the next few years. I think it’s interesting, it’s just not my cup of tea.” 

This comment could have fooled him. No one ever his age ever shared his passions.  They tended to be dry topics for adults, even for those who actually understood the topics.  He caught himself enjoying her wry sense of humor. This unexpected stranger was at least inquisitive, even beyond introductory conversation. She helped herself to his bag and examined each of his books. The intrusion of his personal belongings was forgotten when her eyes caught the last remnants of day light that were disappearing behind the shrinking mountains that cast dying shadows across the stretching fields below. With each page she flipped to, she found a burning question not answered in the diagrams and charts.

“What’s the difference between an architect and an engineer?”

“Why is it called a ‘kip?’”

“Have you ever built anything yourself?”

“Are perpetual motion machines actually possible?”

Whereas most people quickly became bored when he began to explain theories and design basics, she was persistent. Her questions were easy to answer at first when they pertained to physics and mechanics. Those were easy to answer, a lot of them reliant on mathematical formulas for an explanation, answers she appeared to accept but didn’t necessarily like. Her inquiries became more difficult for him to answer as they moved from the how to the why. She wanted to know the philosophy behind engineering, something he himself hadn’t really considered. He tended to gloss over those parts of his textbooks, which was becoming evident as he struggled to answer her questions. Her stoic gaze was eager but not lacking patience as he stumbled and stuttered to give her answers. Like the perpetual motion machine she mentioned earlier, his own curiosity began to develop inertia as began to ponder things he hadn’t before. 

Who asked those original questions that led us to where we were?

Where would new questions, those asked by today’s brightest minds, lead us in the future?

Would these sciences make the world a better place? Or would it be other branches of science?

Would answering those questions make people happy? 

How does this girl know so much?

The more philosophical her questions became, the less he was able to answer them, leaving him perplexed but increasingly eager to learn those answers himself. Her hungry grin upon a sufficient answer led him to think she took some kind of sick pleasure in making him sweat. That she never interrupted him as he tried to explain as best he could suggested she was in fact genuinely interested in the topics and not patronizing him. She was certainly not pretending to be dumb. 

The curious stranger continued perusing his modest library. On the cover of the last book she picked up was a jungle scene, a misleading image given its contents. She perused this book longer than any of the other ones she had opened, flipping through the pages, stopping occasionally to decode a chart or graph for a few seconds longer. One page was filled with quadratic functions that kept her attention longer than most. Her finger swept across the different shapes and curves of parabolas.  

“Functions. Polynomials. Vertices. Parallel lines… just like the train tracks, huh?” For the first time since this girl sat next to him hours ago, she seemed lost. Almost disappointed. He had watched her be drawn into the book as much he had been when he first started reading it, albeit in a much different way. Of the wide range of subjects at his disposal, he liked math the most. It was simple: an input of data, an output of results. There were indeed factors and variables but one only needed to know where to insert them into the equations. If it seemed overwhelming, you just needed to step back to help you see what was being asked of you and how to simplify the initial question. It wasn’t like political science or English or history, subjects that could be debated, opinionated, or biased. Though statisticians took into consideration standard deviations and anomalies when it came to people, it still came down to math. Math was factual, empirical. Feelings and emotions had no place in functions and formulas. Why parallel lines should be the thing that piqued her interest also piqued his. He explained how the paths of the two lines carried on, but never crossed. Unlike parallel lines, the tracks their train travelled on would eventually cross or split, allowing the train to transfer to a different path. By definition though, true parallel lines could travel the same plane in the same direction, but would never meet. They can get as close as possible to each other, but by their definition they will never intersect.

"That’s kind of sad when you think about it, but not nearly as sad as a tangent line.” 

He raised an eyebrow, wondering what she meant. 

“Well according to this book, tangent lines to circles only touch a circle at exactly one point. They only meet once, and never again.”

Clearly the books he had in his possession invoked a different thirst for knowledge for him than for this girl. Whereas these graphs and charts, tables and diagrams could provide him answers, they left her empty and yearning. He only considered their utility, not their deeper meaning. Math books weren’t supposed to be poetic. Frustrating, sometimes, but that was a suffering of the mind, not the heart. Were the great thinkers of the past derailed by such questions when they discussed mathematics? Did Archimedes ask how the levers and pulleys he invented felt? Was Galileo concerned with whether or not the earth wanted to revolve around the sun? Surely Einstein didn’t factor romance into the theory of general relativity. All of these people made leaps and bounds in explaining the universe through mathematical equations. It was how they made sense of the world. For how knowledgeable the young man was at his age, he had never thought of math as being “sad” nor having any kind of emotional attachment. They were just interesting. Yet here he was, feeling absurdly and suddenly sullen over something as innocuous as a term that senior high school students might learn. To have a complete stranger enter his life and ask questions without answers would echo as infinite as the course of true parallel lines. This realization swept a draining confusion over him. He felt a mild sweat and a knot in his stomach.  It had been a particularly long train ride.  

The two slowly lurched forward in their seats as the train came to a drawn out stop. The scenery beyond the window had change from pastoral to urban without their noticing. Flora had been replaced with angular buildings and structures with swarms of people wandering about chaotically. By the time he grabbed the first of his books to place back in his bag, his unexpected travel partner had already stood up and was looking back into the cabin from the door.

“Enjoy your books!” she said with a coy smile. She was gone as quickly as she had arrived. [d2] 

He wrote the last name on the chalk board, finishing with the last vowel in Nietzsche. Above the German philosopher was Descartes and Wittgenstein. The required reading he listed below each author was advanced, but he felt they would be eye opening for his students. It didn’t take long to hear the cacophony of groans behind him, but that was to be expected at the beginning of every semester. He was adamant that eager minds needed a range of expertise to draw upon, be they ancient theoreticians or modern pundits. The answers to some of life’s trickiest questions wouldn’t be found at the bottom of a pint glass at the nearest university pub, but he told previous students of his that they might find the questions themselves. 

He could hear the last of his students make their way to their seats, the door closing with an audible clang which pinched away any remaining sounds in the auditorium. The young professor turned around to make his formal introduction to the philosophy class. In front of him was a field of first year students. He could see a healthy mixture of eager minds, but one in particular caught his attention. A radiant blond woman. Even though she sat several rows back, he could see a keen expression in her blue eyes. It was a patient look of someone who would enjoy a scenic train ride, content, regardless of whether or not she knew where the tracks would lead her.