materials-science

Sixty-Seven Thousand Guesses

The motor on Irrigation Pump Station 9 seized at 14:22 on a Tuesday. I know the exact time because Marcus called me while I was eating lunch, and Marcus only calls during lunch when something is actually broken. The bearing had sheared. That part was easy enough to replace. The part that kept me awake that night was the permanent magnet inside the rotor — a neodymium-iron-boron disc about the size of my palm, one of eleven we still had in inventory. We started Year 8 with thirty-four. We're dow