Marrying in Space


One short note before you start: This article is an experiment. I describe my work using only the 1000 most commonly used words in English. You want to see more of this? Follow #SciCommChall on Twitter! You want to give it a try yourself? Use this editor: http://splasho.com/upgoer5/. By the way: This prequel already broke the 1000-word-condition 9 times. Funnily enough, ‘English’ is not in the 1000 most commonly used words in English…but let’s get started:

I look at the ice which covers the upper end of our world. The ice is important because it works like a cover for the water. If the cover is gone, the air gets warmer. Even if this happens far away, this changes how warm or dry it is in the right part of the US and other parts of the world. Some points at the upper end of our world are completely covered by ice, some are not completely covered and some are not covered at all. My job is to find out how much of each point is covered.

This is what my four friends are seeing. Lady All-Round sees everything, but not so exactly. Sir Warm-or-Cold sees more exactly, but not everything. Better-than-its-Parents sees more exactly than Lady All-Round and sees where Sir Warm-or-Cold does not see. Lady Watch-from-Outside watches from the outside to decide who does the best work.

For this, I use human-made things which fly around our world in space. Since they are so high up, they see a large part of our world at the same time. I use four of them. They work in different ways: The first one, Lady Bright-or-Dark, simply takes a picture. If a point is dark, it is completely covered by water. If it is bright, it is completely covered by ice. And if it is something between bright and dark, I use this to find out how much ice there is. If this works, it is very nice because Lady Bright-or-Dark sees quite exactly what happens. But she only sees during the day and if the sky is clear. The second one, Sir Warm-or-Cold, works exactly the same, only that he sees how warm or cold it is instead of taking a picture. If a point is warm, it is covered completely by water. If it is cold, it is completely covered by ice. And if it is something between warm and cold, I use this to find out how much ice there is. Like Lady Bright-or-Dark, he works quite exactly. He even sees at night. But still he doesn’t see when the sky is covered. This is why I look at a third one, Lady All-Round. Lady All-Round is not as easy to understand and does not work as exactly as Lady Bright-or-Dark and Sir Warm-or-Cold, but she does not care if it is day or night or if the sky is covered or not. She just works.

You see that all three of them have good points and bad points about them. I bring them together so that the good points are kept while the bad ones are left out. Lady Bright-or-Dark is not used at the moment. Instead, I have married Sir Warm-or-Cold to Lady All-Round. They have a child called Better-than-its-Parents. And then there is yet another one, Lady Watch-from-Outside, which decides whether Better-than-its-Parents is really better than its parents or if it just pretends that. And there are many more Sirs and Ladies out there wanting to join the party…the show will go on!

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