Regional American (North) Martial Artists -
It was a bright, sunny day on campus as Koi left his dorm for the weekly RANMA-OTAKU meeting. The key word, being of course, was. Lately, innocent cottonball-clouds had an unnerving habit of turning into full-fledged thunderstorms with barely a moment's notice. Fortunately, the spring had been warm so far, but still...
Obsessive Technical Anime Kettle Union [of Students]
Wetness on his arm drew Koi's attention back to the university. Beige concrete patterns gave way to darker dots the size of dimes, where water shifted the reflected light's frequency.
"Hey, wait for us!"
Koi turned to see two girls jogging towards him, both in costume for the meeting. The taller girl, Megan, wore a simple blue-green dress; the other clad in a red Chinese outfit much like his own. "Hi Megan. Hi Koi." he greeted them. "Why're you here? You're usually already at the meeting by now, waiting for the rest of us like kids wait for Christmas morning."
"Well, we were finishing a report on energy and the environment. See, the majority of energy in the US comes from coal. Not only does this release greenhouse gases into the air, it's also a cause of acid rai..." Koi's enthusiastic response cut off as Megan jabbed her in the side.
"You know, it's still raining." Megan whispered, mock-furiously. "Let's get to the meeting before I catch pneumonia."
Koi slid the door shut behind them. "Sorry we're late. We got caught in the rain... Now that we're all here, let's get started."
Being founders of the RANMA-OTAKU, it fell to the two Kois to begin the meeting. Taking seats near the board, Koi began. "As you know, every year at BaltiCon is a Masquerade. Next year, it would be nice to present our costumes; and those of you paying attention this year noticed that the best presentation included a skit or play."
The other Koi spoke up, "Our current costumes are fine. But besides a plot, we really need to come up with some explanations for various effects. Naturally, they won't be used during the play, but we need to be prepared for after it's over."
Chaotic raised his hand to speak. "I think the most obvious question would be about Ranma's curse. Before we discuss it, though, there's one thing that's been bothering me. How are we going to portray it during the play?"
Indicating Koi, Koi answered, "He would be thrown offstage 'into the pond' by someone, probably Megan, and I would come back out."
"Great. But that leads to the problem I was going to bring up. How do we explain the loss of mass?"
Sky Mouse grabbed a nearby book on anatomy and human development. "It says here that an average 16-year old male weighs 135 lbs, and an average female, 125."
Alpha objected, "But Ranma-chan isn't a normal female -- pun intended."
"Ow. 2 points. OK, so let's say she weighs 120." Megan agreed.
"That's 61.36 and 54.54 kg." Koi calculated. "So that's a difference of 6.82 kg. Where does it go?"
Koi responded, "Two obvious answers. One is to invoke Hammerspace, but I'd like to avoid magical or future-tech solutions as much as possible. The other alternative is to say that his mass converts to energy."
"So we use E=mc2, but what happens to the energy?" Alpha inquired. Meanwhile, Sky Mouse had grabbed a calculator and was busy typing.
"How about into the water?" came Megan's suggestion. "It makes sense: Cold water causes Ranma to lose energy -- which is mass; while hot water increases her energy -- which is, once again, mass.
Sky Mouse looked up. "OK, if 6.82 kg of mass is annihilated, the energy released is 6.138E17 Joules." Koi began calculating what this would mean in terms of heat; while Sky Mouse, sensing that the figure wasn't registering on anyone, tried to rephrase it. "613,800,000,000,000,000 Joules is over 4 times the output of all US nuclear reactors in 1986." he added.
Koi announced, "Assuming 20 mL of water activates Ranma's curse, the water would be heated 7,331,581,462,000,000°C...which, needless to say, is totally ridiculous. Actually, it's even higher than that because water has different specific heats at different temperatures."
"Why don't we say the specific heat of water is higher in the Rumik universe?"
"Good idea, Chaotic. Say the water temperature is only changed 5°C. Alpha, do the honors."
"Umm... Specific heat of water would have to be 6.138E18."
Megan's laughter broke the silence that followed. "Well, that would explain why Akane can't even boil water..."
Confused? There are two Kois in this story, one male, and the other female. If you can't tell which one is speaking, it doesn't matter. The other people are: Alpha, Chaotic, Megan, and Sky Mouse. Everyone is based on a real person; and this is actually very realistic: we are planning a play for the next BaltiCon. We do need more people, especially females, so if you're interested...
Ranma and company are copyright of Viz Video, Kitty TV, Shonen Sunday, Shogakukan, and of course, the irrepressible Rumiko Takahashi. Ranma 1/2: Yin and Yang were never so much fun!