The forces
inside our atom--itself, mind you, the function of a circle--mark
that--"
We did.
"--becomes merely a function of pi!"
The Great Scientist paused with a laugh of triumph.
"A function of pi!" we repeated with delight.
"Precisely. Our conception of ultimate matter is reduced to that
of an oblate spheroid described by the revolution of an ellipse on
its own minor axis!"
"Good heavens!" we said, "merely that."
"Nothing else. And in that case any further calculation becomes
a mere matter of the extraction of a root."
"How simple," we murmured.
"Is it not?" said the Professor. "In fact, I am accustomed,
in talking to my class, to give them a very clear idea, by simply
taking as our root F,--F being any finite constant--"
He looked at us sharply. We nodded.
"And raising F to the log of infinity;--I find they apprehend it
very readily."
"Do they?" we murmured. Ourselves we felt as if the Log of Infinity
carried us to ground higher than what we commonly care to tread
on.
"Of course," said the Professor, "the Log of Infinity is an Unknown."
"Of course," we said, very gravely. We felt ourselves here in the
presence of something that demanded our reverence.
"But still," continued the Professor, almost jauntily, "we can
handle the Unknown just as easily as anything else.
Pages:
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170