That night, the spores rest in their warm chamber. Carlos looks at the empty sugar crystal. A few heroic, fast-moving spores reached it and fed the whole colony.
Mya waves a tendril. The chamber grows warmer.
Berta is already poking the Data Slate. "The slate says their speeds aren't the same, Arnie. Look." She pulls up a graph. The horizontal axis is labeled . The vertical axis is labeled Number of Spores . maxwell boltzmann distribution pogil
"The total number of spores hasn't changed," Berta confirms, counting data points. "Only how their speeds are distributed ."
Carlos stares at the curve. "The line starts at zero on the vertical axis when speed is zero," he says. "So… none? Every spore is moving at least a little?" That night, the spores rest in their warm chamber
"Correct," Mya hums. "Even in stillness, there is motion."
"Which is why," Mya says, "a small fever can help you fight infection faster. And why a few degrees of global warming can radically speed up chemical reactions in the atmosphere." Mya waves a tendril
The Parable of the Speedy Spores