Download Adella and Clyde ADELLA Sure good to see you home. Does all the

Adella and Clyde
ADELLA
Sure good to see you home. Does all the work go well?
CLYDE
Not too well, Ma; I've hit a wall.
ADELLA
Come hold my hand, and sit a spell, and tell your Ma about it all.
CLYDE
It’s the planet, Ma, that’s bothering me. It’s nowhere to be seen.
We first looked where Dr. Lowell predicted it could be.
But now I’m chasing ghosts in a hit-or-miss approach.
Without a plan to find it in a very starry sky,
My chances of success are bound to pass me by.
I’m sorry to admit it, but I’ll never find the planet.
I’m going to try my luck in Boston with a job that I can manage.
ADELLA
Can what I just heard be true? After all this effort you’ve been through?
That’s not a farmer’s thinking—to give it up and walk away, and not to try another day.
CLYDE
Science is not like farming, Ma. What we’re after is the knowledge.
Without clear proof, there is no crop, nothing to teach the kids in college.
ADELLA
Suppose you’re making some mistake,
or you’re looking at the light wrong.
If Mr. Lowell had such faith,
it might be best to string along.
You always liked what wasn’t easy,
so what comes up to trouble us?
Is the planet big like Uranus,
or dark, or just so measly?
CLYDE
The boss thought like Mr. Lowell, there,
that the planet’s big and bright,
but it’s either hiding or nowhere,
amidst twenty million lights.
It’s useless because the sky’s so big,
and the boss’s rush is bigger.
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The pressure’s on to find a planet
before someone beats us to it.
The scientists go with wild predictions—
that is to say, they guess a lot!
And science? I will say, it’s not!
ADELLA
Keep right on thinking, Son.
It seems to me your wheels are turning.
You’re looking for a thing called light;
Don’t forget in your head it’s burning.
So how would you start finding a needle in a haystack?
CLYDE
I would search the planet’s likely path,
and hope to find a moving speck.
But I’d be dogged by asteroids.
They’re on the plates, one can’t avoid
seeing them as a planet illusion.
How can I toss them out for sure
to keep from utter confusion?
Both are moving specks of light.
I can never know just when I’m right.
ADELLA
But aren’t the asteroids too small
to get them in your sights at all?
CLYDE
They show up because they’re close to us,
and they also move along a path,
so we don't know if they're near or far,
only that they’re not a star.
ADELLA
Hmmm ... it’s like fireflies, I think. …
When cars speed along that far-off road,
their headlights flash as they go past.
I know they’re going pretty fast,
but a mile away, they seem so slow.
While fireflies that flit close by
seem to outrace them before my eyes.
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CLYDE
“A parallax,” in science talk, simple geometry:
as Earth moves, the angle of near things increase
faster than the angle of distant bodies,
while the stars seem not to move in the least.
What’s close beside us flies right on past.
What’s far away seems to go much slower.
though in truth it’s going faster. …
… Hey, Ma, you’ve gone and done it,
You may have solved the riddle!
If I photograph in opposition,
and measure shift, with great precision,
I’ll catch each speck—the math won’t lie—
I’ll take the asteroids out of the sky!
ADELLA
You’re saying planets seem to move less,
so that’s how you tell them from asteroids, I guess?
CLYDE
Yes!
[CLYDE, in great excitement, rushes to line
or label available “props”— chairs, etc.—
CLYDE points toward Sun/audience.]
Let’s look at it like this:
Imagine, out there is the sun,
and we’re on the Earth, going around
We’ll line up Asteroid, then “X,”
to see how a planet is found.
Way out there is our star field.
Now when we orbit, we shift our perch.
(CLYDE guides ADELLA in a stage-right
direction.)
Planet X seems to move eastward,
past stars that seem to stay in place.
Now X lines up with the stars out there.
But the Asteroid—as it appears
from Earth—moves far east, that-a-way.
If we line up sun, and Earth, with the planet,
we’ll catch those leaping asteroids, darnit.
And when I get them out of my way,
I’ll find that planet—or … maybe not.
ADELLA
If asteroids are all you get,
can you prove there is no planet?
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CLYDE
Yes! Either way, I’ll prove something
that the kids can learn in college:
I’ll prove that there’s a planet …
or I’ll prove that there is not!
… Only… to do the search we have in mind
would take so ’dang much time….
Still, if I know that I can win,
it’ll be worth the time I must put in.
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