Mon, 17 September 2007 Demonstration Day By: Ian Creasey Part 2 I let the rush subside and followed at my own pace, taking up a seat near the back and listening to the excited buzz of the scientists as they contemplated Calverley's apparatus. I recognised the high-spec generator I'd sold him, but I knew nothing about the case, or the silver cube with a door in the front and a control panel on the side. This looked very like a large microwave oven, and provoked a shout of, "I'll have a jacket potato please," from the audience. Vanzetti called for order. "Gentlemen. Thank you all for attending this year's convention. The Association has a proud tradition of demonstrating the practical applications of the latest scientific advances...." The speech is so familiar I swear I can hear tape hiss, and so few people bother to listen that he could announce discovery of the Final Theory without raising a flicker. It just gives the waiting scientist time to worry about everything that could possibly go wrong with his demonstration. www.iancreasey.com The Sounds that come after screaming at Pseudopod.org Comments[5] |
Sat, 1 September 2007 "Roll up, roll up! Get your
antimatter here! Gravitons, superstrings, Higgs bosons -- all going cheap. Every proton has a lifetime guarantee! Buy caloric, aether and nebulium while theories last. Special offer on orgone and vril! Dried ghosts, astrographs, universal meters. Superconductors and Bose-Einstein condensates. Athanors and alembics. Test tubes and Bunsen burners, if anyone still uses them." I switched on Markor's Domestic Star to spotlight the stock. It had taken all afternoon to set up the booth, and I didn't want to have to take everything home again. As the scientists began walking in, I mentally assigned a sales target to each experimenter. Pale from lack of sun, or tanned scary colours from exposure to strange rays, the early arrivals stared at each other as if they'd forgotten what other people looked like. Their expressions told of the despair of failure, or the voyeuristic exhilaration of uncovering the universe's secrets. Only a few remained unmarked, as if they'd discovered an anti-ageing drug, or been silently replaced by a robot they'd foolishly made in their own image. I recognised most of the arriving scientists, but one face was missing. "Any sign of Rankin?" said Audran, who'd been browsing my stock of entangled photons. www.iancreasey.com Comments[5] |
The Great Beyond Podcast
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