The Gorilla Experiment

Season 3 / Episode 10

 

Project Gorilla. It's what happens when a Cheesecake Factory waitress/aspiring actress with a penchant for shoes and possessing a slight science background ("the one with the frogs") wrangles the persnickety physicist across the hall into teaching her "a little physics". It's the convergence of her desire to talk to her boyfriend about his work and his love of a challenge on par with teaching Koko the gorilla sign language (hence the name). It's also a (barely) plausible excuse for recording science log entries.

It's a warm summer evening in ancient Greece...

Well you don't just jump straight into the Aharonov-Bohm quantum interference effect. There are 2600 years of back story (with bathroom breaks) to cover first. The frog-gutting phenom is strongly advised to take notes. For the test, er, tests. To repeat then,

It's a warm summer evening in ancient Greece...
 
Time swirls past. Professor and pupil are both exhausted. The blonde gorilla has learned that MA equals MG and that Fig Newtons are named after a small town in Massachusetts. The implications of MA equals MG elude her though. Perhaps he needs to start over? Go slower? Very well.

It's a warm summer evening in ancient Greece...

AHHH, at last! Getting somewhere! Sub-atomic particles have entered the narrative. But what are they? Good question. "We must first ask ourselves 'What IS physics?'" Greece. Night sky. That's your cue. "Oh balls."

In the end, perhaps recalling her flawless recitation earlier of the cosmology of his spot, Project Gorilla morphs into Project Rote Memorization. "Koko" is now able to casually drop some techno-wordy sentences into the dinner conversation, which she does with great aplomb. As the others resume eating, the scientist and his subject cast conspiratorial glances at each other.

 

 

By Check E. Light