Read Online Spacetime Donuts by Rudy Rucker - Free Book Online
Authors: Rudy Rucker
Tags: Science-Fiction
Ads: Link
Vernor, in his excitement, had left it—and he threw it at Waxy.
"Professor K. laid this on me," Mick said to Vernor, holding up his hands. There was a small disc of foil glued to the center of each palm. Wires ran up his arm and under his shirt from the discs. Apparently they were connected to some type of power unit which he wore under his coat. "Probably coulda used this to get some of you guys out, but then I figured anyone who deserved to be out'd make it on their own."
"What is it?" Vernor asked.
"VFG," Mick said, suddenly cupping his hands around Vernor's head. The room around Vernor seemed to be growing, everything seemed to be growing, and his shoulders appeared to stretch out for a yard on each side. "Now your head's shrunk," Mick explained.
"Stop." Vernor gasped, though he felt no actual physical discomfort. "Turn it off."
Mick took his hands away and things snapped back to normal. "This is a portable model of Professor Kurtowski's Virtual Field Generator. VFG. You're the one who spent five years in the library. You must know what it is."
Vernor was incredulous. "The Virtual Field? Sure, his last paper was all about it. But I never thought he could build something that would actually generate it!"
"Yeah," Mick answered. "That's what he's been doing most of these last twenty years. Only now that he's got it, he doesn't know what to do with it. He wanted me to talk to Oily Allie about it, so he gave me this portable model. Only Allie got busted with the rest of them same day I got this thing."
Vernor didn't answer immediately. Something was nibbling at this mind. Circular Scale . . . could he test it with the VFG? Mick was stall talking. The injection had certainly done its work. "So when the loach came busting in I decided to use this on myself. Actually I was going to blow myself up big and scare them, but I turned the dial wrong. Worked good, though, I must of hid from them twenty times the way you just saw."
"Isn't it bad for you?" Vernor interrupted. "I mean getting squashed up like that?"
"You saw how it felt when I shrank your head," Turner replied.
"It didn't feel like anything," Vernor admitted. "Really it felt more like everything else was growing than that my head was shrinking. Relativity."
Turner nodded. "Right. Just now the space inside my hands looked like a little bed to me. Outside you think there's not much space inside my hands, but the VFG stretches the space so there's all the room I need."
"Negatively curved space." Vernor mused.
"Right on," Mick answered. " Geometry and Reality by Dr. Alwin Bitter."
"That's the book I got you to read."
"Sure. That's how I knew this field wouldn't hurt me. It's just like I was a man painted on a sheet of rubber. You can fit the man into a tiny circle painted on the sheet if you just stretch the rubber inside the circle. Or shrink the rubber inside the man."
Vernor was beginning to remember more of Kurtowski's paper on the Virtual Field, "The Geometrodynamics of the Degenerate Tensor." The idea behind the Virtual Field was that it introduced a localized rescaling of the space and time coordinates, but the apparent forces could be renormalized away at any point—which was to say that the field could shrink, expand or bend you without hurting. You shrank, but not by being crushed—all your atoms shrank at the same time, and none of your internal structure was strained or disturbed.
"The Geometrodynamics of the Degenerate Tensor" had ended with some fairly specific suggestions for the experimental investigation of the principles expounded, but by the time the paper came out, laboratory science had been banned in the Us. The dangers of uncontrolled scientific investigation had been deemed too great, and those who insisted on obtaining physical data were requested to send their experiment specifications to Phizwhiz, who would simulate the experiment and produce a set of data. The data Phizwhiz produced were obtained by straight calculation with
"Professor K. laid this on me," Mick said to Vernor, holding up his hands. There was a small disc of foil glued to the center of each palm. Wires ran up his arm and under his shirt from the discs. Apparently they were connected to some type of power unit which he wore under his coat. "Probably coulda used this to get some of you guys out, but then I figured anyone who deserved to be out'd make it on their own."
"What is it?" Vernor asked.
"VFG," Mick said, suddenly cupping his hands around Vernor's head. The room around Vernor seemed to be growing, everything seemed to be growing, and his shoulders appeared to stretch out for a yard on each side. "Now your head's shrunk," Mick explained.
"Stop." Vernor gasped, though he felt no actual physical discomfort. "Turn it off."
Mick took his hands away and things snapped back to normal. "This is a portable model of Professor Kurtowski's Virtual Field Generator. VFG. You're the one who spent five years in the library. You must know what it is."
Vernor was incredulous. "The Virtual Field? Sure, his last paper was all about it. But I never thought he could build something that would actually generate it!"
"Yeah," Mick answered. "That's what he's been doing most of these last twenty years. Only now that he's got it, he doesn't know what to do with it. He wanted me to talk to Oily Allie about it, so he gave me this portable model. Only Allie got busted with the rest of them same day I got this thing."
Vernor didn't answer immediately. Something was nibbling at this mind. Circular Scale . . . could he test it with the VFG? Mick was stall talking. The injection had certainly done its work. "So when the loach came busting in I decided to use this on myself. Actually I was going to blow myself up big and scare them, but I turned the dial wrong. Worked good, though, I must of hid from them twenty times the way you just saw."
"Isn't it bad for you?" Vernor interrupted. "I mean getting squashed up like that?"
"You saw how it felt when I shrank your head," Turner replied.
"It didn't feel like anything," Vernor admitted. "Really it felt more like everything else was growing than that my head was shrinking. Relativity."
Turner nodded. "Right. Just now the space inside my hands looked like a little bed to me. Outside you think there's not much space inside my hands, but the VFG stretches the space so there's all the room I need."
"Negatively curved space." Vernor mused.
"Right on," Mick answered. " Geometry and Reality by Dr. Alwin Bitter."
"That's the book I got you to read."
"Sure. That's how I knew this field wouldn't hurt me. It's just like I was a man painted on a sheet of rubber. You can fit the man into a tiny circle painted on the sheet if you just stretch the rubber inside the circle. Or shrink the rubber inside the man."
Vernor was beginning to remember more of Kurtowski's paper on the Virtual Field, "The Geometrodynamics of the Degenerate Tensor." The idea behind the Virtual Field was that it introduced a localized rescaling of the space and time coordinates, but the apparent forces could be renormalized away at any point—which was to say that the field could shrink, expand or bend you without hurting. You shrank, but not by being crushed—all your atoms shrank at the same time, and none of your internal structure was strained or disturbed.
"The Geometrodynamics of the Degenerate Tensor" had ended with some fairly specific suggestions for the experimental investigation of the principles expounded, but by the time the paper came out, laboratory science had been banned in the Us. The dangers of uncontrolled scientific investigation had been deemed too great, and those who insisted on obtaining physical data were requested to send their experiment specifications to Phizwhiz, who would simulate the experiment and produce a set of data. The data Phizwhiz produced were obtained by straight calculation with
Similar Books
