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

"Discovered, you mean," said another student.
"No, I mean invented. Actually, the distinctions between invention and discovery are tenuous, at best.
A physicist named Feinberg, who was dissatisfied with Einstein's absolute speed limit, that is, the speed
of light, decided to invent his way around that little inconvenience and substituted imaginary numbers for
Einstein's real ones. He was thus able to postulate faster-than-light particles, which he named tachyons.
Four universities are presently building machines which may detect these entities; if they succeed, did
Feinberg discover something that was there all along, or did he cause tachyons to exist by looking for
them? Remember when Tinkerbell is dying and Peter Pan tells the audience that if they'll only believe in
fairies, Tinkerbell will live? Same principle. Invention, or discovery, by means of mentally re-ordered
reality."
"Ridiculous," said one student.
"Perhaps. But we had named quarks before we found them. We ought to ask: Were quarks around
before we had a name for them? And besides, Tinkerbell lives, doesn't she?"
Another student, a burly guy in a football jersey, raised his hand from the front row.
"Yes," Krishman said.
"Ms. Krishman, how many downs are there in Canadian football?" he asked.
"Three," she laughed. "Why?"
"I just wondered if there was anything you didn't know."
"Oh." She sobered some. "There's a hell of a lot. Someone whom I admire a great deal used to talk
often about how important it was to always be amazed, to admit your ignorance. He also said that
anyone who could no longer stand 'rapt with wonder' at the world's many mysteries was as good as
dead. I don't suppose any of you know who I'm talking about, do you?"
No one ventured a guess.
"Albert Einstein," she said. And with that, Krishman decided to end their discussion. I had never
before seen students actually leave a lecture hall reluctantly, but more than a few of them dragged their
feet as they departed.
I admitted to Krishman that her lecture wasn't half-bad. Actually, I knew it was the kind of talk every
professor wants to give at least once: a visionary, spiritual chautauqua, a field trip to see God. But I didn't
tell her that. After all, I had my Ph.D. from Harvard and, well, I think I've gone into this once before.
Basically, I was jealous.
I began to attend her lectures regularly and, without telling her about it, I wrote several letters to the
head of her department to praise her in spite of her desultory speaking style, or perhaps because of it.
Though I tried to conceal my admiration for her, I believe Krishman must have discovered what I was
doing for her; in everything she did in my presence, she seemed to be trying to express gratitude. She
began to confide in me, to tell me about advances or setbacks in her research. Half the time, I couldn't
follow what she was talking about, but she spoke so well that I always listened very carefully,
nonetheless. Anyway, I was certain that because of my patronage, Urvater would fail in his attempts to
have her dismissed.
And, then, she seemed to blow it all, to intentionally give everything up.
Three weeks before final exams, I found a note, written in her almost illegible script, on my desk. It
read: "Off to see the wizard and sundry Amazons. Please find someone to take my lecture section. I
wouldn't be so irresponsible, except that I feel very close to finding what I am after. -- KK."
Dr. Urvater was only too happy to take up the challenge of repairing the "damaged minds" that
Krishman had left behind. I attended one of the dry anesthetic lectures which he delivered to what had
been Krishman's class. In trying to describe Urvater's oratorical style, I can think of only one valid
phrase: Kurtz's last words in Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," which were, "The horror, the
horror." At the end of the lecture, the students made the kind of rush for the exits that I had been
accustomed to in other classes.
Karen Krishman was dismissed in absentia.
I received three postcards from her, and they led me to consider how fine a line separated genius and