"We are making magic today!" Elie promised to the sleepy twins, when she was waking them up.
The kids were bored with the work they had done the day before because it was too unanimous for them. Well, they weren't so desperate for that day's work. Although K.O. and Elie promised them that they would have a much more interesting pastime that day. Plus, they're not going to work either, it's the energy going to take their place.
"How can chocolates and candies work in our place? "Valerie was amazed.
"They're not really chocolates and sugars " Conrad was laughing. "They are just the portion of energy. And energy could work in the real world too. For example in the cellphones."
"Conrad is right." Elie nodded. "But you will see, as soon as we start the day."
Elie and K.O. led them to the temple's backyard, to a huge cylinder.
"Let in all the Methane molecules and give the cylinder as much energy as it asks for." The old man told them.
He walked over to the cylinder and loaded all the methane molecules. The cylinder wrote down on its side how much energy it was asking for, and K.O. he touched his device to the side of the cylinder. And the cylinder drained energy from the device.
"It takes a lot of energy! "Valerie was outraged.
"Sure, if you don't do the reaction, it will cost a lot of energy, that is, it will cost you money. Although if you count it in chocolate, it won't be less." Elie nodded.
"In return, the machine does the work in moments that would take us days." K.O. commented. "It 's worth the energy it uses."
The twins nodded, and stepped to the cylinder. Conrad was the first, who repeated the procedure, then Valerie finished.
"Who want to push the start button?" Elie asked, and the the others all held up their hands at once.
So they pushed the button together, and the machine began to work. The little tetrahedrons ate up the energy, and violently bounced. Some of them were breaking their bonds and making new ones. The black and white tetrahedron-shaped Methane molecules transformed to a mass of a several kind of other molecules. There where two tetrahedrons, who were bonded by their tops, and lively spinning in different ways. There where rectangular ones, who where floating in the cylinder like pieces of glitter. There were prolate shaped ones, who were like a candy cane, and of course their old friends, Hydrogen molecules also were there. When the molecules had finished eating up all the energy, the machine stopped, and the little ones found their own kinds. The different molecules found their place in different layers.
"Okay, let's start to extract them from the cylinder!" K.O. said, but the twins were standing on their place, bewitched. "What's the problem?" He asked. He couldn't imagine why the twins wouldn't move.
"What was that here now?" Valerie stuttered. The adults looked at each other. "There are a lot of kind of little ones in the cylinder!"
"It was our goal. "Eli answered. "We wanted to make those ones from the Methane molecules, whom you had described as glitter pieces."
"At the top of the cylinder there are Hydrogen molecules. You have already known them, have you?" K.O. asked, and the kids nodded." The second layer is consist of molecules of two Carbon and two Hydrogen atoms. The third layer was our goal, to make molecules of two Carbon and four Hydrogen atoms. The heaviest ones are at to bottom. There are molecules of two Carbon and six Hydrogen atoms. We need the molecules of the third layer, and have to transform the other, to be like them."
"Like in the Deuterium-Hydrogen pairs?" Conrad asked.
"More or less, yes. We won't need to measure the molecules, we just need to make them react, and form the molecules, we want. The first step is, to collect them from the cylinder. Who wants to store the Hydrogens?"
They divided the four fractions among themselves and returned to the greenhouse, they used the day before.
"We start with the heaviest ones." Elie said. "Valerie! Fill that ball with them!"
The girl obediently filled the molecules to the ball. They just admired the small dumbbells for a while.
"They are called Ethane." K.O. told them. "The Carbon atoms are connected by one covalent bond, and we have to help them to make two."
"How do we do that?" Conrad asked. "We should take a Hydrogen off the Carbon atoms, but they're spinning so fast ..."
"The molecules just fit into the tube at the top of the sphere and get stuck." Elie pointed to the strange machine on the top of the ball. "We could cut the bond of two Hydrogens, and the Carbon atoms could hold their hands, making a second covalent bond."
She showed the kids, who it could be done. K.O. helped her to catch the two Hydrogens. He let the newly formed Hydrogen molecule flying upward, while Elie showed the new molecule to the kids.
Conrad grabbed the rectangular shaped molecules. More specifically, it looked more like a sheet of paper than glitter powder.
"That little one is called Ethene." K.O. told to Conrad, who was playing with the little ones.
"So if you have two carbon atoms then either Ethane or Ethene is the name of the molecule?"
"If there are two Carbon atoms, which are connected by one covalent bond, the name is Ethane. If there are two Carbon atoms, which are connected by two covalent bonds, the name is Ethene."
"And if my two carbon atoms are attached by three covalent bonds?" Valerie asked.
"Ethyne." Elie said. "But it has a former, name which is still used: Acetylene."
" What's the name of the Carbon atoms, which are connected by four covalent bonds?" Valerie asked curiously.
"Unfortunately, it is not exist. There can be no four covalent bonds between two atoms."
"Why?"
"Because the structure would be overstretched, and one of the bonds would break anyway. Three is the maximum." Elie told to the saddened girl. " Are we racing then? Who can make more Ethyne molecules?"
"I am with K.O. again!" Conrad cried, and stepped to the old man. They were patiently waiting for the woman, to split the molecules evenly into two balls.
"Ready, set, go!" Elie cried.
Much of the work was done by the machine, which they had to recharge with energy, but now they got a lot back. This race ended again with Conrad's victory. The girls still had to convert 15 molecules, after the boys were done, so they were basically barely left behind. K.O. hovered the Hydrogens from the ceiling, and they were ready with the heaviest fraction of the molecules.
"If acetylene has three bonds, do we give them hydrogen so that there are only two?" Valerie asked, while watching K.O. filling the two balls with the remaining molecule fraction.
"How could we give them if they didn't do anything in the cylinder either? They got along well without teaming up." Conrad asked a little mockingly.
"And Valerie is right!" K.O. said, and filled a third ball with Hydrogen molecules. "Just before we pair them, we need to cut their bonds. This way we can create new ones."
"The machines now cut the third bond of Acetylene and they will be able to form a bond with the Hydrogen Atoms. Are we competing again? I think Valerie wish for a rematch!"
The boys smiled with great confidence. They were sure of a repeat victory. So they started. One by one, they stepped to the sphere for hydrogen and made the ethene molecules at an ever-accelerating rate. Even though it was a tedious job too, the competition made it exciting. Especially that the girls 'spheres dwindled faster than the boys' spheres. In the end, the miracle happened: Valerie and Elie won. The boys frustratedly acknowledged the loss and finished the job. In the end Valerie finished with hovering the Ethene molecules from the air, because they were floating everywhere.
"Don't you smell something sweet?" She asked in the middle of the hoovering. "It smells like fruits."
"It is the smell of the Ethene." Elie said."When vegetables and fruits ripe, they also release Ethene, which can ripen other half-ripe fruits as well."
"So if we were to let this bunch of ethene molecules into the unripe fruits, would they suddenly be ripe fruits?"Conrad pondered aloud. The adults nodded. "Then I will create a factory, which is doing it!"
"There's no need." K.O. said kindly.
"Why? It would be a money-making machine!"
"Because it already exist."
"Oh." Conrad's enthusiasm broke.
"It is the technology of giving you riped banana in the supermarkets." K.O. told him. "Bananas are harvested in green state in South America and Africa and then placed on ships. When they arrive in the country, they are packed in large warehouses, where the air is filled with ethene gas. It will ripen the bananas and they will be nice yellows, and delicious enough for us to eat."
"So someone has already figured that out." He sighed.
Elie and K.O. looked at each other. They both enjoyed seeing a future researcher's first steps.