"Bruce Holland Rogers - The Krishman Cube" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

 At the time, my knowledge of subatomic physics was limited to knowing that certain particles, quarks,
had taken their name from Joyce's Finnegans Wake. I confessed this to her, and she reacted by giving
me yet another book to study, an elementary physics text. I wish I could duplicate the exchange that then
followed, but at that time I only understood part of what she told me. So I can't recall much of the
discussion verbatim.
She talked about nuclear energy and its evolution. She told me how, just a century ago, the only
energies we knew of were mechanical, thermal, electrical, gravitational, luminous, and chemical. The leap
from chemical to atomic energies had been an enormous advancement, but atomic energy was by no
means the last frontier for the physicist. Atoms contain substructures, systems of smaller particles, and
each of those particles represents an energy potential. Now, if such substructures continue to be made of
even smaller structures, then each atom is a tremendous potential powerhouse of energy that might be
derived by tapping into quantum mechanical fluctuations. In other words, there exists a zero-point energy
for all matter, the energy that would be freed were the matter totally unmade. Krishman told me that a
cubic centimeter of virtually any substance represents an energy potential of 10 38 ergs. I had to tell her
that I didn't know what an erg was. I felt uncomfortable confessing my ignorance to her. I'm a Harvard
Ph.D., and she was, after all, just a master's candidate.
Krishman rummaged through the top drawer of her desk and pulled out an eraser, a ruler, and several
handfuls of stubby pencils before she sound what she was after. She tossed me a tiny black wooden
cube. "That's one cubic centimeter," she said. "Translating the figure I just gave you into more familiar
terms, the zero-point energy potential of that cube is equivalent to one hundred billion tons of uranium.
Fission is terribly inefficient compared to unmaking matter."
"And getting at this energy, that's your project?"
"Yes. But I'm trying a unique approach."
"Which is?"
And she revealed to me the key to her inquiry. Since, in her view, traditional science (she called it
male-structured science) didn't offer any answers, she was trying to approach this problem through what
she called a "gestalt matriarchal mindset," which was so much gibberish to me. She gave me yet another
book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn. She explained how science works
like a stairway. That is, science usually progresses horizontally, within the accepted paradigms of the era,
expanding on a basic, sound foundation. Then, inevitably, it runs into some problem that can't be solved
with "normal" science, or else it hits some snag, some kind of theoretic contradiction. Then, it abandons
the old system, more or less, and adopts a new on in which the problem can be solved. That is, in a
crisis, science makes a vertical leap. An example of such a leap would be the switch from a Newtonian
base to an Einsteinian one.
"I'm trying to latch onto a process of obtaining knowledge which is rational, but not logical. Basically,
that's what's wrong with the patriarchy: Too much rigidity and not enough magic or emotion."
I asked her what she would do with so much energy if she could get at it.
"I haven't decided," she grinned. "But it would be something spectacular."
I figured she was either a genius or a nut.
The latter possibility seemed likely after I had spoken with Urvater. I had met him in the hallway that
afternoon just as I started out the door of the office.
"Dr. Colin Urvater," he introduced himself. He was a terribly respectable looking gentleman; his hair
was greying, but neat, as mine is; and he had excellent conservative taste in clothes. In fact, our suits
matched. "You're Dr. Quist?"
"John," I said.
"Look," he said, "I'm quite sorry about this." He walked me down the hall.
"About the fire, you mean?"
"Well, that too, certainly. But mostly about where we put you. One of the receptionists assigned you
the space, though I tried to explain to her about Krishman, how it was best to isolate her from the saner
elements of the world."