#The Math + Science Show

[libraryofgage]

so i wrote this yesterday and now it's become a whole thing

basically: Steve is actually smart but nobody realized it until he just fixes their various STEM related problems

anyway this is Eddie's very first experience with how smart Steve Harrington actually is

also please don't call me out if my physics explanations are wrong. just suspend your disbelief, i'm begging you lmao

also also, if you see any typos, no you didn't

---

"You're going to fail my class, Munson."

"Gee, no need to sugarcoat it," Eddie mutters, shoving his hands into his pockets and avoiding Miss Chester's gaze. His eyes land on one of the posters behind her desk, a cat hanging off a tree branch. Maybe it would like to trade places.

Miss Chester sighs, looking pointedly at the desk closest to hers. She waits until Eddie sits on it, legs hanging over the edge. "I'm serious," she says. "You're going to fail, Eddie. I don't want you to, but there's just some...disconnect happening here."

He appreciates that she's not totally blaming him. Most of Eddie's other teachers would've been berating him for his laziness by now. This, among other things, is why Eddie likes her class even if he can't wrap his head around physics at all. "I don't know, Miss. It just doesn't make sense."

"So I'm noticing." Miss Chester leans back in her chair, her finger tapping against her desk. Eddie immediately recognizes it as the drum beat from a KISS song. "You know you'll probably be held back if you fail, right?"

"Not the first time."

Miss Chester waves off his words, looking deep in thought. "What do you think about tutoring? I think you'll do better in a one-on-one setting. If you understand the concepts better, I can start grading you based on the work you do with the tutor."

"It wouldn't be you?" Eddie asks, frowning slightly. He's not sure he wants some random geek tutoring him. Not that he has anything against geeks, of course, but he's never known one to talk in a way he can understand. They get all...technical and Eddie's eyes glaze over whenever he overhears their conversations.

"No, I don't have the time. But don't worry," Miss Chester says, smiling reassuringly before pulling her roster close and looking down the list. "The student I have in mind probably knows more than me, if I'm being honest. He should be able to answer any question you have."

"What student?"

"His name is Steve."

Of course, Eddie immediately thinks of that Steve. King Steve. Steve "The Hair" Harrington with his blinding smile that's always looked a little strained in Eddie's opinion.

He then dismisses Steve Harrington as a possibility and reviews the other kids named Steve at Hawkins High. There's Steve Paulson, Steve Meyers, and Steve Barns. Maybe it's Barns? He's the only one that Eddie could imagine being somewhat good at physics.

"Are you open to tutoring?" Miss Chester asks. "For one session, at least?"

"Yeah, sure, one session. Won't help, though."

Miss Chester smiles like she knows something Eddie doesn't. Which, to be fair, she does. She knows a lot more than Eddie in terms of physics, at least. "I'll set it up. Just come by tomorrow after school."

--------

On his first day at Hawkins High, Steve realized two things.

One, his parents weren't kidding when they'd said public school would be vastly different from the private group tutoring he'd received up to that point.

Two, if he wanted to have a good high school experience, he needed to be cool. And being cool, it seemed, meant not being smart. He didn't need to be dumb, but he couldn't breeze through his classes, either.

He's done a good job of it so far. He's bored beyond reason in most of his classes, sure, but he's also popular. Nobody bothers him or tries to copy off of him, and it's great. He can even swallow down the weird surge of frustration and annoyance and guilt whenever his classmates assume he's too dumb to be a good project partner, or when his parents ask why he isn't enrolled in AP classes, or when his teachers give him confused looks after he aces tests for a unit he seemingly didn't pay attention to.

Anyway, he almost rejected Miss Chester's request to tutor a student from a different class period. He was just about to say he didn't have the time when she leveled him with a look so profoundly hopeful that he just couldn't. So, Steve said yes and now he's hesitating outside the physics classroom.

What if the student inside uses this against him? Steve thinks he could play it off, maybe convince his friends that the kid is lying, but he's not sure. Nothing dire would happen, but Steve would have to reorient himself to a new place on the social ladder, and that sounds exhausting.

"Just get it over with," he mumbles. Then, before he can chicken out and just leave the other student hanging, he opens the door and steps into the classroom.

Miss Chester isn't there. Steve knew she wouldn't be. She'd said something about a department meeting that would take her time but leave them with the classroom to themselves.

The only other person in the room is Eddie Munson, bent over a notebook and furiously scribbling on the page. He looks up when the door opens and freezes at the sight of Steve. They stare at each other for a few seconds before Eddie breaks the silence by asking, "What, get lost on your way to the locker room, Harrington?"

Steve blinks, frowns slightly, and takes a deep breath. Okay. Fine. Eddie Munson it is. "Nope. Miss Chester asked me to tutor you," he says, because that's the only reason another student would be in this room after school has let out.

Eddie laughs. He nearly falls out of his chair with how hard he laughs. He's wheezing and clutching the edges of the desk by the time Steve moves another desk to face him and sits down across from him. "Are you done, Munson?" he asks.

"Holy shit, you're serious," Eddie says, his voice slightly strained and his face red from laughing. "No fucking way Steve Harrington is here to tutor me in physics. You probably don't even know what two plus two is!"

"It's four. Do you know what 12 times 40 is?" Steve asks, watching as Eddie blinks.

"I'm not a fucking calculator, man."

"No, you're not. It's 480, by the way."

"You could've just memorized that."

Steve sighs and reaches into his bag, digging around some before pulling a calculator out. He places it on Eddie's desk and says, "Ask me something."

Eddie looks at him like he's grown a second head but still pulls the calculator closer. "1,239 plus 378."

"1,617."

He watches Eddie use the calculator, feeling smug when his face twists into confused disbelief. He then puts the calculator down and frowns at Steve. "So you can add, big whoop. Doesn't mean you can teach me shit about physics."

"Won't know until we try," Steve says, resting his elbow on the desk and propping his chin in his palm. "So, what don't you get?"

"...All of it. Just assume I don't know shit."

"You don't know Newton's laws?"

Eddie snorts, looking back down at his notebook. "There's that motion one and the reaction one," he says.

"Right. Newton's first law and his third. What about the second?"

"It's just...some equation or some shit."

Okay, Steve is starting to get an idea of where things stand. He thinks for a moment before asking, "What kind of stuff do you like?"

"What?"

"What do you like?"

Eddie looks so shocked by the question that he doesn't really think before answering, "Heavy metal. And, uh, D&D, too."

Steve knows heavy metal is music, and he could work with that but the D&D Eddie mentioned might be better. "What does it involve? The D&D?"

"It's a fantasy role playing game. Like, using your imagination to go on adventures with friends and stuff. Needs dice to work."

Oh. Perfect. "Do you have dice with you?" Steve asks. After another brief pause, Eddie nods and pulls one out of his pocket. He passes it over and watches as Steve turns it between his fingers. "Oh, an icosahedron. Cool."

"A what?"

"Icosahedron," Steve says, looking at Eddie. "It just means a twenty-sided polyhedron."

Eddie still looks confused, and Steve is about to explain it again when Eddie says, "Just call it a D20, dude."

"Oh. Sure. Anyway, let's use this," Steve says, rolling it between his fingers before letting it clatter to the desk. It bounces a few times before settling, a 17 facing up. "Do you know what made it stop moving?"

"The desk. I'm not an idiot, Harrington."

"I didn't say you were, Munson," Steve replies, leaning back slightly. "Just...yes, the desk stopped it. This is Newton's first law. If the desk wasn't there, it would have kept falling until it hit the floor. It stopped bouncing because it lost power each time it hit the desk. An object, the D20, will stay in motion, falling, unless acted upon by another force, the desk."

"That...kinda made sense," Eddie says, blinking a few times.

"Great!" Steve says, unable to help the bright smile at knowing Eddie understood him. "Okay, for the second law, the equation is mass times acceleration equals force. Basically, the movement of an object depends on how much it weighs and how much force you apply."

"Aaaand ya lost me," Eddie says.

"Okay, uh, you fight things in that game, right?"

"Yeah, kind of the whole point."

"Right, yeah, and the stuff you fight comes in different sizes, right?"

"Well, an orc isn't gonna be as big as a dragon, is it?"

Steve isn't really sure what an orc is, but he nods anyway. "Right. So if you want to move a dragon, you need to land a stronger hit than you would need for an orc."

"Duh. You're not gonna fell a dragon with a basic cantrip."

"Not sure what that is, but yeah. For this example, moving, or defeating, an object, or a dragon that weighs more than an orc, relies on how much force you apply, which is the strength you use."

"Oh. So, because an orc weighs less, I don't need as much force to defeat it," Eddie says, grinning as he fidgets with his pencil. "This doesn't really sound like math, though."

Steve shrugs. "We'll get to the math part later. Right now is basics. You need to understand those to do more complicated stuff. So, the third law, this is the action-reaction law. Music might be better for it. What happens when you strum a guitar?"

"It...makes a sound. Because it's an instrument."

"Well, yeah, but do you understand how the sound is being made."

"By...strumming it?"

"Yeah, that's part of it. Sounds are vibrations in the air that we can understand. If you touch your throat while talking, you'll feel your voice box, your larynx, vibrate to make the sound of you talking."

He waits as Eddie does exactly that. While holding his fingers to his throat, Eddie says, "Didn't know it was called a larynx. Oh, fuck, yeah, there are vibrations."

Steve nods, waiting patiently as Eddie hums for a few minutes before looking back at him. "So, vibrations. Instruments make sound because playing them causes vibrations. When you strum a guitar, the strings rapidly move back and forth, and that movement is translated into notes."

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but yeah, I'm following you."

"So, the action of strumming a guitar creates the reaction of the strings vibrating. That action of the strings vibrating creates the reaction of air rippling, and those ripples create the reaction of audible noise. Did that make sense?"

"Yeah. It did," Eddie says, his voice soft as he stares at Steve like he's really seeing him for the first time.

Steve shifts uncomfortably, unused to this aspect of himself being known so well by someone at school. He's almost tempted to end things now and apologize to Miss Chester for walking out halfway through a tutoring session. Steve is practicing the apology in his head when Eddie says, "Hey, by the way, sorry for earlier."

"What?" Steve asks, trying to blink away his confusion and failing.

"You know, earlier, when I laughed at you? Pretty shitty of me to do. So, yeah, I'm sorry."

"Oh." Steve stares at Eddie for a few seconds before his shoulders relax. "It's fine. I'm not exactly known for being smart."

"Why not?"

"It's just...easier to let people think I'm dumb. Most of our classmates look at me and think I'm just, you know, a typical jock. They don't expect more from me than that, and I don't expect them to look any deeper."

"Does anyone else know, though?"

"My parents and the teachers. And you."

"Well, don't worry, big boy. Your secret's safe with me."

"Big boy?"

"Don't like it? Would you prefer Stevie?" Eddie asks, grinning as he leans in and exaggeratedly waggles his eyebrows at Steve.

Steve can't help snorting at the sight. "Whatever. Just call me what you want, Eddie," he says.

He tries to ignore the weird swooping in his stomach when Eddie's smile gets wider and he says, "You better not regret it, Stevie."

[knightmareaceblue]

Cyberweek 2024 Day Five: Crossover

Pfft, I've been on an AvA kick recently, so I guess it's not too surprising that I chose this. On one hand, this crossover works well in theory. The stick figures are all fast, kinetic learners and really good at demonstrating their earned skills and knowledge.

On the other hand, the sheer tonal dissonance is hilarious.

[muppetminge]

gd i get so fucking angry when i see crying about "boys are doing worse in school :(" being pulled up to look like a huge problem. you're not upset about boys doing 'badly' - you're upset about girls doing well. blaming it on the school system is so funny because tell me how the school system is suddenly modelled after the girls when we weren't even allowed in when the basis of the current system was being created lmao.

the difference between average grade by sex is about the same as the regional/geographic difference and it's less than the difference sorted by race/ethnicity (not even to mention the socioeconomic differences), yet these aren't the differences creating headlines every year. why?

because you find girls doing well wrong, like it's upsetting the natural order. you're hanging on to this idea that girls are stupid, yet when you're proved wrong you refuse to accept it, hanging on to an excuse of systematic differences that have to be solved now, because won't somebody please think of the poor boys :(

so we're looking at averages. here's the thing: those are never going to level out. we're always going to see one group being above/below others. you're just upset it's not in the "right" order.

the difference is smaller than you'd think, by the way. when i was in high school (non-us system, meaning voluntary/different kinds of secondary) we were 70 percent women. you know what else? the girls, in general, were working fucking hard. every single grade point they fucking earned. there's this story of girls' grades being inflated due to this and that, but all i've seen is boys getting grades for doing less - because they're outnumbered, the poor things, so it's obviously the teacher's job to support them, right? right??

even in trade school where we were a handful of girls per year, i saw nothing but the girls putting in their all and the boys showing up. sometimes. if they felt like it.

but it's a systemic problem, right? how else would girls be doing well? we've got to solve this, lest the boys get their egoes wounded by not placing in their 'natural' position. gd forbid we end up with an overweight of women professionals.

[bixels]

so how exactly does magic work in your au?

There are four main methods of magic:

Tonics – your basic potion-making/alchemy. The brewer must be able to disassemble and weave ingredients together into a greater sum of its parts. This type of magic must be ingested to affect a person's physical properties and traits. They're temporary.

Formulas – physical pieces of art with magic encoded in itself. These can take the form of woven charms, embroidered fabrics, or drawn artwork (often in art-nouveau, secessionist, or modern styles). A witch fluent in formulaic magic can read and translate these pieces into hexes. These are considered high forms of delicate art. Spellbooks will often contain pages of these instead of instructions or notes. Formulas affect an area indefinitely. Collectors will often frame or display them, especially if they offer good luck or protection.

3. Hexes – incantations, blessings, and curses. They must be spoken, usually in rhyming form. While blessings are temporary, curses must be broken or dispelled.

4. Spells – the softest and least complicated magic. Wave your hands and an object will float towards you. Spells come naturally to most witches and do not need to be uttered, as it only requires the will of the mind and heart to produce. Before long, casting spells becomes second nature and an extension of ones motor functions.

[godsoopsiewoopsie]

POV: Will Wood has an asthma attack while trying to talk about to many things at once and then skadoodles (?)

my mum bugged me into posting this

(it’ll probably rot in my drafts for ages)

(also i’m not sending the live stream to anyone so don’t ask. find it on youtube or tiktok or something idk i bet those guys probably have it somewhere)

[krakrac]

execution arthur appreciation because i am so not normal about him.

[idontmindifuforgetme]

my gma told me that my mom used to wake up, eat breakfast, then study for 12 hours straight. every fuckin day. and my gpa would bring her food and tell her to take breaks bc of how immersed she was. she’s literally my role model forever

[keef-a-corn]

My 99 day was yesterday and it was spent waiting for a train and in exams

Tech core I suppose

[illholy]

most useless info i have about judith is that she is ✨ academically gifted ✨ , sleeper agent smart - smart , IQ through the roof you’d think she could cure cancer. ( y’all modern timeline / verse, she’s a university professor. ) . . .

[butchsaint]

i might fuck around and become a paramedic

[unnonexistence]

i started doing climate data transcription on Zooniverse today & it's nice. i feel a certain kinship with these 1950s weather observatory scientists who were trying to use up their stack of preprinted-for-the-1940s observation sheets & had to keep crossing out the "4" in the year field. they were doing it until at least 1952

[raffcomix]

Here's how much of a baby you should eat a day

Y'know... Just in case...

[doeneb]

May j have your permission to put my oc(Miss Roslyn/Mary Roslyn) in the UniversityOfHome Au?

Of course! I don't have a lot of rules for it and you can be practically anything in the au!

Only rules so far:

• If you are a teacher please put a lanyard/ID on the character and have the school's "UH" logo somewhere on the outfit!

That's about it do far lol

But yeah go wild ❤️

(Remember to read the tags! I ramble in there so posts aren't too long and put information in there!)

[somecunttookmyurl]

"why don't they just phrase it 'muscle is denser than fat' because that's what they mean"

because things are simplified for the lowest common denominator and whilst you and i understand the semantic difference between weight and density a lot of people don't* but will generally understand (correctly so) that "muscle weighs more than fact" means muscle occupies less space without you having to explain weight vs density first

it's about the communication not the accuracy *including, apparently, the authors of healthline articles

[loulooser]

Sometimes I really hate English exams because I find it so hard to put my thoughts and feelings into words like I have these great ideas and i understand but I can’t relay them and it makes me angry or upset which only makes it harder to do the exam cause I’m not thinking clearly

[morganski-19]

What if like Steve is really smart in something that no one would suspect him of being. Like everyone drags on his intelligence a lot, but he isn't exactly dumb. Does he always pick up on the most obvious point and understand that immediately. Not exactly. But that doesn't distinguish between a person with a lot of intelligence and no intelligence.

This isn't a new thought, but in season three he picked up the location of the Russian base because he figured out the tune was coming from the mall. He chose to pay attention to the noises in the background instead of the transmission coming through. This made Robin able to solve the riddle because she knew the location of the base in the first place.

So Steve is smart, just not in ways that are shown in the show, which is mostly science and dnd lore. There are so many possibilities of what Steve could be really smart at.

I've seen a bunch of different takes on what this could be, but here is my submission.

What is Steve is really fucking good at geometry. Like he's a sports guy, which happens to use a lot of math. Take basketball for example, its simple angles would give the best trajectory for the ball to fall perfectly into the basket. Or in baseball, the perfect angle to hit the ball to get a home run. Is there some physics involved too, sure. But the basis of all of those ideas is built off the simple geometric concepts. So with some trial and error, it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Steve used his understanding of geometry and applied that to sports.

I'm not saying he's a math genius who can do calculations in his head in the middle of a basketball game to find the trajectory that would make the perfect shot. But I am saying that maybe during one of his math classes, it came a bit easier to him because he already had a little bit of understanding. And maybe he then used what he learned in class to improve his skills.

It's not something that would come up in the show, but knowing the right angle to hit a demogorgon the right way so it stumbles sure would help.