Seth Astill: Church without the pope

Probability time

Seth was sitting at the back of the class, parth beside him. There was no ma'am in the class as it was just after the break.

Seth had still not talked with either Yash or Xenia. He had thought about calling Yash after he was selected. As for Xenia he just didn't get time to make a call.

Kashvi miss entered the class and everyone settled down.

"Hello class, hope you are all doing fine. How is the first day going" she asked in an attempt to engage the class, nobody replied.

She waited for some time but when the awkward silence seemed to extend she continued nervously,

"I will be teaching you biology" She opened the textbook, "Okay today's topic is life system, can anyone of you tell me what do you mean by that?" she asked again nervously and was about to continue not expecting any answer when a hand shot up.

"Yes," she asked a little surprised.

"Life system deals with the various life stages of different forms present on earth, it is the science dealing with the study of life and death cycles," Tejas said confidently "It gave rise to the theory that every life has an end"

Seth snickered at his last sentence, he couldn't help himself.

"Why are you laughing, do you have something to add," Kashvi ma'am said in a stern voice looking at him.

"I disagree with what he is saying," Seth said standing up.

"About what?" miss Kashvi interjected.

"About the point that every life has an end. There is a certain species of steril jellyfish found in the depths that are said to have a unique trait of cell regeneration, which helps them regrow themselves anew after they age. They are said to metamorphose back to their initial stage this way. In simple words they undergo reverse growth where they grow young and start their life anew, they don't die" Seth finished and sat back down.

The ma'am looked at him lost for words.

"um... Yes, yes correct. You are right" she said flustered after a while.

Smith gave Seth a thumbs up from his seat. He was sitting just ahead of Seth beside Tejas. everyone was jeering except Tejas, who sat there red-faced.

The lecture continued without other incidents, Tejas would always jump up to answer any question that was asked but, Seth chose to ignore that. He didn't want to make an enemy so soon.

Seth enjoyed the lecture overall, the miss was a little hesitant at first but, Seth found that she was quite a good teacher.

"This would be all for today, I have an announcement to make," she said closing the textbook.

Everyone closed their book and looked up attentively to hear the announcement.

"This is regarding the CR position" she announced seriously and a murmur broke down in the whole class.

"Cool," Smith said softly.

"What is cool about this" parth asked confused.

"Listen, you will come to know," he said pointing to the miss.

"CR is the class representative, they are tasked with the discipline and attendance of the class in the professor's absence. They help organize various events and festives....."

"CR sound like a class monitor" Seth said distastefully not interested at all.

"They are way more than class monitors, believe me," Smith said as if it was a big thing, Seth ignored it all, he was not interested in this at all.

".......they will be soon selected by the consent of all teachers, when they have seen all of you" Kashvi ma'am completed.

The people were still talking about this when Kashvi ma'am left the class and the maths sir entered, Seth was the only one who acknowledged his presence while the others were busy talking about the CR post.

"Afternoon class, can I know what all this excitement is about?" he asked cheerfully.

"Sir is it true that two of us will be selected to be the CR's of the class?" an eager girl asked curiously to the sir.

"I see, so your class teacher told you about the CR position. Yes, four CR's would be choosen among you all to represent the class, two boys and two girls"

"Why four?" somebody from the last row asked.

"A girl and a boy for Hindi and likewise for IT" the sir explained looking at the boy.

"Anyways let's start with today's topic, what do you all know about probability?" he asked the class smiling.

"Sir, probability is the study to measure the percentage that the outcome is likely to happen, it is also known as chance and the answer never exceeds one" Tejas said and sat down.

"Very good can any of you give me some examples?" the sir asked.

And everyone started shouting various answers, some said the flip of a coin, some said the probability of taking out a joker from the deck, all in all, it was chaos.

Though it didn't have any visible effect on the sir, instead Seth could see him smiling as if he was able to hear every single one of the answers.

"Looks like you know a lot about it, let's take a question then shall we," he said and opening the book wrote a sum on the board, "So tell me what is the first step" again there were the shouting of children and the sir wrote on the board.

It looked like the children were enjoying this session, the only one who looked bored was Seth so, putting his head down he closed his eyes.

He knew that sir will spot him only if he was looking directly at him and there was a very high probability of that.

He soon felt someone shaking him, he looked up to see that it was Parth who was shaking him, he could see that he was a little nervous, Seth looked at him and raised his eyebrows as if to ask 'what happened'

Parth jerked his head feebly towards the blackboard. Seth turned to look at the board uncertainly.

The sir was starring right at him. Busted. Seth looked back at the sir.

"Stand up," he said a little hard, Seth stood up.

"Can you tell me what I am teaching?" he asked eyeing Seth as if he was a punk guy who had no interest in study.

Seth looked at the board to see what was going on

"Sir you are teaching us event probability," he said in an even voice.

"Would you care to tell me how many types of probabilities are there?"

"Sir there are three types of probability"

"What are they?" he asked a little tense now.

"Theoretical, Experimental, and Axiomatic," Seth said confidently.

"How many rules are there in probability?"

"Five, sir" Seth continued confidently.

"Can we have a probability of zero?"

"Yes sir" Seth answered even before the sir could finish questioning.

The whole class was excited now looking back and forth as the sir asked the question and Seth kept on giving answers. It looked like the sir was finally losing his patience.

"Give me an example?"

"Sir, the probability of your age being 100 is zero," Seth said making the whole class laugh.

"Enough!!!" the sir shouted finally snapping.

He started walking towards him with a dangerous look "You think you're smart, boy, what's your name?" he asked hotly reaching him.

"Seth," he replied cooly. Which enraged the sir even further.

Seth would've surely got a box if it hadn't for the physics ma'am to came in the class for an announcement.

"Sir..." she said addressing the maths sir "...... Dhruv sir has asked for all the students interested in sports tryout to come down for selection" she announced.

Most of the population got up and went out of the class to stand outside. Seth too made his way out with them.