"Big U, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stephenson Neal)

world.
Sharon looked at him with raised eyebrows. "Veil! You haff
made a decision?"
"I think so."
"Let's have it! Leaving or staying? For the sake of physics I
hope the latter."
Casimir abruptly realized he had not really made up his mind.
He shoved his hands into his pockets and breathed deeply, a little
surprised by all this. He could not keep a smile from his face,
though, and could not ignore the hominess of Sharon's chaotic
office. He announced that he was going to stay.
"Good, good," Sharon said absently. "Clear a place to sit." He
gestured at a chair and Casimir set about removing thirty Pounds of
high-energy physics from it. Sharon said, "So you've decided to
cross the Rubicon, eh?"
Casimir sat down, thought about it, and said with a half grin,
"Or the Styx, whichever the case may be."
Sharon nodded, and as he did a resounding thump issued from
above. Casimir jumped, but Sharon did not react.
"What was that?" Casimir asked. "Sounded big."
"Ach," said Sharon. "Trowing furniture again, I should guess.
You know, don't you, that many of our students are very interested
in the physics of falling bodies?" He delivered this, like all his bad
jokes, slowly and solemnly, as though working out long calculations
in his head. Casimir chuckled. Sharon winked and lit his pipe. "I am
given to understand, from grapevine talk, that you are smarter than
all of our professors except for me." He winked again through thick
smoke.
"Oh. Well, I doubt it."
"Ach, I don't. No correlation between age and intelligence!
You're just afraid to use your smarts! That's right. You'd rather
suffer—it is your Polish blood. Anyway, you have much practical
experience. Our professors have only book experience."
"Well, it's the book experience I want. It's handy to know
electronics, but what I really like is pure principles. I can make more
money designing circuits, if that's what I want."
"Exactly! You prefer to be a poor physicist. Well, I cannot argue
with you wanting to know pure things. Alter all, you are not naпve,
your life has been no more sheltered than mine."
Embarrassed, Casimir laughed. "I don't know about that. I
haven't lived through any world wars yet. You've lived through two.
I may have escaped from a slum, but you escaped from Peenemunde
with a suitcase full of rocket diagrams."
Sharon's eyes crinkled at the corners. "Yet. A very important
word, nicht wahr? You are not very old, yet."
"What do you mean? Do you expect a war?"
Sharon laughed deeply and slowly. "I have toured your
residential towers with certain students of mine, and I was reminded
of certain, er, locations during the occupation of the Sudetenland. I
think from what I see"—the ceiling thumped again, and he gestured