The Physics Detective Part Five — All Eyes on Pruszczyncki
Part five already, wow, unbelievable, how time flies, what drama, what action!!! (it’s hard enough trying to sell this story to the science folk I work with, so I’m overdoing the excitement rhetoric to cover up for the possibility that truly nobody cares about this murder mystery except for me)
Until now, the writing styles of the various authors had meshed together quite well, but this week I felt as though I was reading a completely different story. The other installments were part whodunnit mystery, part satire of the scientific community. This week I felt like I was reading the script of a 70’s cop show. Very formal, all business, no joking around.
Pruszczyncki now looks like a prime suspect (even moreso than she already did). Of course that means she had nothing to do with the murder. We’ve all read enough mysteries to know that the obvious suspect can’t possibly be the killer. That said, the details surrounding the negadex heist are just plain stupid. Granted, it’s not as troublesome as missing plutonium, but we’re supposed to believe the following:
a) Pruszczyncki honestly thought that none of her scientific peers knew about negadex.
b) Pruszczyncki told absolutely no one about her discovery (it’s a lab, not a WMD factory. Why the extreme secrecy? Surely any papers or patent applications would have been submitted during the last several months).
Now if a) and b) were true, then how could their negadex have possibly been stolen? Random burglars wouldn’t steal prisms from a lab, they’d steal computers and electronics. Obviously, the word was out because whoever was behind the theft must have been a scientist who knew about the existence of negadex and knew exactly what they were looking for. And Pruszczyncki would have realized this once she discovered that some negadex had been stolen.
So, the culprit is a laser expert, is well-versed about general optics (i.e. in the loop regarding negadex and aware of its possible uses), and hated Jaeger. LUDMILLA SHLOMIUKA FITS ALL THESE CRITERIA. DON’T MESS WITH HOT BLONDE RUSSIANS.