Which makes less pressure, which means the air underneath pushes up. That's lift. The flatter one barely does anything. She looked at Sloan expectantly. Bernoli's principal, Sloan said.
Mia's eyes widened slightly. You know it. I run an aviation company, Sloan said. Mia appeared to reassess her opinion of Sloan upward by several levels. She turned to Caleb.
She knows it. I heard, Caleb said. Sloan looked at the chart on the display board. The data was recorded carefully, each trial numbered, each measurement noted with a small asterisk on trial 7 and a note at the bottom that said, "Ban was wobbly. Might be wrong." She looked at that asterisk for a moment.
A child who flagged her own potentially compromised data point was a child who understood something about the relationship between evidence and honesty that a lot of adults spent careers not learning. This is excellent work, Sloan said, and she meant it without any of the performative warmth that adults sometimes apply to children's projects. Mia seemed to hear the difference. I want to be an aerospace engineer, she said. Or a marine biologist.
I haven't decided. You have time, Sloan said. That's what dad says. Mia looked at her display board with the expression of someone who is already mentally on to the next project. Can I ask you something?
Sure. When you fired dad, she said it plainly, the way she'd said everything else. Were you scared when you found out you were wrong? Sloan felt Caleb go still beside her, but she didn't look at him. She looked at Mia.
Yes, she said. I was. What were you scared of? That it was too late to fix it? Sloan said.