"Paul Di Filippo - Our Feynman Who Art in Heaven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Di Filippo Paul)

Finally, by closing my eyes and advancing blindly up the walkway, I
was able to attain the front door and ring a bell.

When I sensed the door swinging open, I raised my eyelids.

The person facing me, with an utterly normal reception room
backgrounding him, was a young, brown-haired man of average
appearance, wearing a white robe. The front of his robe bore a single large
black lowercase “n.”

“Hello,” said the man pleasantly. “I’m Nick, a Neutron. Welcome to the
First Majoranist Temple. Won’t you come in, please?”

I stepped inside and the door swung closed.

I introduced myself to Nick and explained my mission. He reacted
very enthusiastically.

“This is wonderful! Our religion has never had any publicity before,
and we’re eager to attract converts. I’ll be happy to answer any questions
you might have.”

“Well, first—what kind of structure is this?”

“Oh, that’s simple. It’s a four-dimensional tesseract. A hypercube.
Have you ever read Heinlein’s ‘—And He Built a Crooked House—’?”

“No, I can’t say I have....”

“Well, do so! You’ll learn all you need to know. But surely our church
building is less interesting than our congregation and beliefs.”

“Yes, you’re right of course. I believe you called yourself a
‘Majoranist’...?”

“That’s correct.” Nick proceeded to explain the life story of Ettore
Majorana, the man who had inspired their cult.
 “So,” I said, “you worship this scientist for his dedication to his
field...?”

“Not at all. We merely regard him as a prophet and saint, the rock
upon which our church was founded. What we worship is the Standard
Model.”

“The Standard Model of what?”

Nick made an exasperated face. “There is only one Standard Model,
and that’s the current consensus paradigm of modern physics.”

“You mean, all that stuff about subatomic particles?”