"Тед Чан. Seventy-Two Letters (72 буквы, Рассказ) (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

factorization, the former being the means by which a set of
epithets--pithy and evocative--were commingled into the seemingly random
string of letters that made up a name, the latter by which a name was
decomposed into its constituent epithets. Not every method of integration
had a matching factorization technique: a powerful name might be
refactored to yield a set of epithets different from those used to
generate it, and those epithets were often useful for that reason. Some
names resisted refactorization, and nomenclators strove to develop new
techniques to penetrate their secrets.
Nomenclature was undergoing something of a revolution during this time.
There had long been two classes of names: those for animating a body, and
those functioning as amulets. Health amulets were worn as protection from
injury or illness, while others rendered a house resistant to fire or a
ship less likely to founder at sea. Of late, however, the distinction
between these categories of names was becoming blurred, with exciting
results.
The nascent science of thermodynamics, which established the
interconvertibility of heat and work, had recently explained how automata
gained their motive power by absorbing heat from their surroundings. Using
this improved understanding of heat, a Namenmeister in Berlin had
developed a new class of amulet that caused a body to absorb heat from one
location and release it in another. Refrigeration employing such amulets
was simpler and more efficient than that based on the evaporation of a
volatile fluid, and had immense commercial application. Amulets were
likewise facilitating the improvement of automata: an Edinburgh
nomenclator’s research into the amulets that prevented objects from
becoming lost had led him to patent a household automaton able to return
objects to their proper places.
Upon graduation, Stratton took up residence in London and secured a
position as a nomenclator at Coade Manufactory, one of the leading makers
of automata in England.


* * *


Stratton’s most recent automaton, cast from plaster of Paris, followed
a few paces behind him as he entered the factory building.
It was an immense brick structure with skylights for its roof; half of
the building was devoted to casting metal, the other half to ceramics. In
either section, a meandering path connected the various rooms, each one
housing the next step in transforming raw materials into finished
automata. Stratton and his automaton entered the ceramics portion.
They walked past a row of low vats in which the clay was mixed.
Different vats contained different grades of clay, ranging from common
red clay to fine white kaolin, resembling enormous mugs abrim with liquid
chocolate or heavy cream; only the strong mineral smell broke the
illusion. The paddles stirring the clay were connected by gears to a drive
shaft, mounted just beneath the skylights, that ran the length of the
room. At the end of the room stood an automatous engine: a cast- iron