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And that is all that I need to know.
So we were starting to get a feel for how to use this stuff, and of what could
be done with it. That is to say, we had a bit of practical experience, but we
didn't have a codified theory yet. We didn't have an algebraic formula that
worked every time.
Ian was fond of pointing out that the builders of the medieval cathedrals didn't
know anything formal about the strength of materials, let alone stress analysis,
but they built some vast, beautiful buildings, and most of them didn't fall
down.
He loved to point out that the first steam engines were built by men who had
never heard of the laws of thermodynamics. Nonetheless, their steam ships made
it across the Atlantic on schedule, and their railroad trains ran on time.
And I had to agree that DeForest and Armstrong really didn't know what they were
doing, but they got the job done. The world now enjoys radio, television, and
the rest.
It was the same thing with our explorations of this new technology. Some of the
time, things worked out pretty much as we'd planned, and when it didn't, we
often were able to figure out why. Jim and I decided that this was fairly good.
We worked well together, and made a good team.
Only, we had this problem with Hasenpfeffer.
You see, Ian is a first rate mechanical engineer and a good machinist, besides.
I can usually handle anything electrical or electronic. Further, we each knew
enough about the other's field to lend the other a hand when circumstances made
that a good idea.
But Hasenpfeffer got his doctorate in Behavioral Psychology, and I guess that's
what caused most of the pain.
The man was an absolute genius when it came to working out a complicated
business deal, or talking a beautiful woman into his bed, or solving any other
sort of person-to-person problem. This wasn't something he learned in college.
It was some sort of a talent, or an innate gift.
He could do it on day one of his freshman year, when I saw him take a future
homecoming queen to bed, cold sober, on the first day he met her. I swear that
they hadn't talked for more than four minutes before they were grinning ear to
ear at each other and walking hand in hand to his bedroom.
Yet he was an absolute idiot when it came to anything technical. This, too, had
to be innate. Nobody could possiblylearn to be that incompetent.
To make it worse, he was always so pitifully eager to help. He wanted to be "in"
on things, and he'd follow you around like a puppy dog, wagging his tail and
trying to understand it all. And like a puppy, he'd always make a mess of
things.
It wasn't that Hasenpfeffer was stupid, or that he was malicious, or even
careless. It was just that he had the innate ability and compulsion to stick his
finger into whatever was most likely to break. And he was god-awful clumsy
besides.
Like the time I asked him to clean off some printed circuit boards with MEK I'd
given up trying to use him as an assembler.
Hasenpfeffer eagerly took the boards out of my lab and into a small enclosed
bathroom. When he was about two-thirds done, I guess he felt a little light
headed, because he sat down on the toilet seat and tried to light a cigarette.
The Fire Marshall wasn't the least bit reasonable, the boards were a complete
loss, and the doctor bills were absurd.
So Hasenpfeffer mostly wandered around feeling useless. He wastrying to help. He
kept the place clean and did the dishes. He even did the laundry so Ian and I
could keep at it fifteen hours a day. And he took care of the books. Not that
there was much to that. No income. All out-go.
Yet there was nothing grim about us or what we were doing. Looking back, yeah,
we had a good time. There was a constant round of bull sessions, arguments and
practical jokes. Mostly, we disagreed on practically everything, often for no
other reason than the rollicking fun of a good argument.
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I remember one night when Hasenpfeffer was carrying on about the latest
cosmological theory that some academician Hawker, I think he said his name
was had been writing about. Something about how the universe started as
something the size of a dime, sixteen billion years ago, had expanded up to the
size of the solar system in a few seconds, and had been expanding ever since.
I used our customary method of stating that I wished to engage in a debate on
the current subject at hand. I stood, raised my fist, and shouted at the top of
my voice, "Bullshit!"
Following protocol, he stared at me, pretending to be aghast, as if he was
shocked at my disagreement.
"It's all bullshit. First off, the solar system is many light hours across. You
have the leading edge of your universe traveling way faster than the speed of
light. Explain that one away!"
"You know, Tom, I met a noted physicist from the university at a party, and I [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]