摩
=
手
+
麻
:
Mahatma Gandhi (m) set up a complicated machine which in essence uses many flax fiber (麻) ropes to operate baseball gloves (手) in the observatory's kitchen (o2). The machine is set up so that Mahatma Gandhi has the baseball gloves massage (摩) his back when he pulls the right ropes.
尔
=
⺈
+
小
:
Mnemonic symbol derived from the components: a peace dove. Albert Einstein (Ø) wants to send a message of peace to earth from the space station's living room (Ø3). He wanted to give a dove (尔) a daisy (小) so that it can bring it to earth, but the dove is late! Albert has no choice but to give it to a passing crane (⺈) instead. Thus, the crane flies to earth with the daisy in his beak, just like a peace dove.
to set / to fix / to determine / to decide / to order
定
=
宀
+
下
+
人
:
"to fix": duct tape. Somebody wanted to tease Dorothy Gale and taped a graduation cap to her head. Neanderthal Man tries to help her by levering the cap off with a ladder in the engine's bathroom.
律
=
彳
+
聿
:
Loki (lü) wants to prove the inverse square law (律) of electrostatics in the space station's bathroom (Ø4). He repeatedly rubs a decorator's brush (聿) against the soles of his black sneakers (彳) and thereby transfers electrons from the shoe soles to the brush. Now that both are charged, they will attract each other according to the inverse square law (律). To measure the amplitude, Loki uses Hook's law (律): when the black sneaker is attracted to the brush it will bend the bristles of the brush until the two forces cancel each out.