"I told you those soundwaves had to do something," I said. "Ready to give up?"
But Artie was already staring at the debris around the scale and making swift notes on a memo pad....
"It looks awfully damned complex—" I hedged, eight days later, looking at the repaired, refurbished, and amended gadget on the table. "Remember, Artie, the more parts to an invention, the more things can go wrong with it. In geometric progression...."
"Unh-uh," he shook his head. "Not the more parts, Burt. The more moving parts. All we've done is added a parabolic sound-reflector, to force all the waves the cones make down through a tube in the middle of the machine. And we've insulated the tube to keep extraneous vibration from shattering it with super-induced metal fatigue."
"Yeah," I said, "but about that insulation, Artie—"
"You got a better idea?" he snapped. "We tried rubber; it charred and flaked away. We tried plastics; they bubbled, melted, extruded, or burned. We tried metal and mineral honeycombs; they distorted, incandesced, fused or vaporized. Ceramic materials shattered. Fabrics tore, or petrified and cracked. All the regular things failed us. So what's wrong with trying something new?"
"Nothing, Artie, nothing. But—Cornflakes?"
"Well, we sogged 'em down good with water, right? And they've still got enough interstices between the particles to act as sound-baffles, right? And by the time they get good and hot and dry, they'll cook onto the metal, right? (Ask anyone who ever tried to clean a pot after scorching cereal just how hard they'll stick!) And even when most of them flake away, the random distribution of char will circumvent any chance the soundwaves have of setting up the regular pulse-beat necessary to fatigue the metal in the tube, okay?"
"Yeah, sure, Artie, it's okay, but—Cornflakes?"