Chapter 8

"Lets try something" Mr Featherstone took a pinch of powder from a jar that was labeled "Epsom Salts" "Hmm, this is far to strong, I will mix it with water to dilute it."
So carefully he measured some distilled water into a flask, he weighed some of the powder and when he was satisfied he wrote the amounts down, He mixed the powder in the water and stirred it for quite some time. With an eyedropper Mr Featherstone placed the smallest amount of the liquid onto one of the slides which had the algae on it, the algae turned dark purple.
"Try this now Beswick, this may work like sunglasses, blocking out a little more of the light"
Beswick placed the slide infront of his glasses and looked through them once again. The room was dark, he could barely see a thing.
"Mr Featherstone, they are too dark I can't see anything"
Mr featherstone was busy scribbling notes on his pad.
Suddently the slide slipped from Beswicks hand by accident.
Plop, right into his root beer!
"Oh No" he cried!
Mr Featherstone chuckled. "Not to worry Master Beswick, we still have the control slide, we have lots of algae and saline solution."
Beswick pulled the slide from his root beer, it had turned to a purple red colour. He looked through the slide, he could see shapes but everything was a different colour.
He looked at Mr Featherstone, who shone bright orange, he looked at the dark blue glow of his icy mug of rootbeer, He recognized everything but the colours seemed so strange.
"Wow" Beswick exclaimed.
"What do you see" Mr Featherstone asked excitedly?
"I see everything, but it all looks so different" Beswick replied. "You are glowing orange, my root beer is blue. Mr Biggles is orange too."
"Most extraordinary Beswick, most extraordinary. May I see"?
Beswick passed the slide to Mr. Featherstone who looked through the slide. His face seemed to sadden,
"All I see is a purple tinge to everything " Mr Fetherstone sounded dismayed.
"It is my glasses Mr Featherstone, remember the crystals?" Beswick exclaimed.
Beswick passed his glasses to Mr Featherstone.
"Remarkable Master Beswick, I do believe you have had your first Eureka moment! You know what we have here Beswick"?
"Cool Sunglasses" Beswick said with a cheesy grin.
"No Master Beswick" Mr Featherstone chuckled, "But I like your sense of humour. No Master Beswick, you have made something far more remarkable than that, you have made infared glasses. You can see heat and cold. This is indeed extraordinary. We must log all of our data and see what made the algae behave in this manner."
"That is easy" Beswick said, "it was the root beer."
"Yes," smiled Mr Featherstone, "but what about the rootbeer, was it the sugar content? Was it the temperature? Was it the chemical composition? This is a wonderful discovery Master Beswick but if we cannot reproduce it again it is pointless"!
Mr Featherstone and Beswick worked for the next few hours and finally reproduced the experiment again. It was the combination of the sugars and the acids in the root beer. They could control the colour of the glasses by varying the amounts.
Each time they changed the amounts, Beswick would scribble the results, just as Mr Featherstone dictated them to him.
Hundreds of thoughts flew through Beswick's Head. He had visions of a pair of glasses with two small vials attached to them. The vials could dispense sugar and acid solutions into a space between two layers of glass, this way he could control the function of the glasses.
He scribbled a simple diagram onto the stack of papers covered with the notes.
Mr. Featherstone looked over Beswick's shoulder and let a quiet "Hmmmmm" escape his lips. "How extraordinary Beswick! You never cease to amaze me."
Beswick grinned.
"I think we have done enough for today Master Beswick. Tomorrow, however is a whole new day never before touched by human hands and it is all ours!"