"Charles L. Harness-The Million Year Patent" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

the sunshine room at the hospital. Margie was trying to explain it all to Bryan. "The Line won't pay
anything. Mr. Lane has had it out with their lawyers."
Jim Burke said something so quietly that Bryan did not quite get it; the hair on his neck rose
nevertheless.
Margie Burke continued. "Mr. Lane says he is going to see Mr. Slicer again next week. He thinks Mr.
Slicer might still call off the damage suit against your father and give us a little money, if we coax and
plead a little. It's the custom in the big Lines to give a small income to permanently injured employees."
"Will there be enough money for my patent application, too?" asked Bryan.
"I'm afraid not," said his mother.
"Just a minute," said Jim. He sensed an interesting possibility, even though he was not sure just how he
could use it. "What's the latest on your patent?"
"Mr. Lane says the Patent Office has sent another rejection. He says the Patent Examiner doesn't
believe the invention can work, and that to continue prosecution, we will have to submit actual proof that
two space ships have moved toward each other at a speed greater than the speed of light. But I think we
can provide the proof pretty soon."
"How's that?"
"It just happens that Dr. Talix is on the Electra, due to arrive next week here at Washington Terminal.
And this new drug, kae extract, that they want Dr. Talix to try on your eyes, is due to arrive on Thor, all
on the same day, maybe the same hour. You can calculate the distances from Sirius and Alpha Centauri,
and the time in flight, and by simple arithmetic you can get a velocity of 0.6 c for each ship toward Sol.
So the ships would have to have a net approach velocity toward each other of 1.2 times the speed of
light."
"Ah, yes," mused Jim. "I remember now. Very curious, and very impossible. Things just can't move
faster than light, whether they're moving towards themselves or towards Sol or a third-party observer. Or
can they? Could Einstein be wrong?" He was silent for a long time. "It's curious to think, isn't it, that if
you are right, and if you do get a patent, the Line will soon be infringing it with every pair of ships moving
toward each other along the same vector, where each of the ships has an average speed over one-half c."
"And that's also true if the ships are going away from each other," said Bryan. "They'd start infringing
soon after they left the same space port."
"Margie," said Jim, "get hold of Jack Lane again."
"What for?"
"I want him to go down to the Patent Office with Bryan. I want him to get this patent issued, and then I
want him to file a counterclaim against Pan-Stellar."
"Counterclaim?"
"For one million talers, for patent infringement."
***


Patent Examiner Honaire addressed his two visitors with care and precision. This was in accordance
with the Terran Patent Office rule that all interviews be entered into the computers for instant evaluation in
the prompt determination of patentability. "The Application Branch," said Honaire, "had a problem the
day this application was received. As I'm sure you are aware, Mr. Lane, there is a very ancient rule,
dating back to the first century of operation of the old United States Patent Office, that if the application
clearly calls for a mode of operation that violates a law of nature, this would be called to the attention of
the applicant, with an offer to return his application fee. If the applicant refused the offer, we would take
his money and then demand a working model. That generally ended the matter. But we couldn't apply
that rule here. In the first place, the Solicitor's Computer gave us a ruling that Einstein's Theory of
Relativity wasn't a law of nature, but only a hypothesis. So when Einstein said that an object couldn't
move at a velocity greater than the speed of light, he was simply stating a consequence of his theory.
Therefore we have accepted your fee, and we have duly examined your application, and we will let you