- #1
enorbet
- 481
- 85
Greetz all
I am trying to find a short story which I recall as being in a Heinlein collection but that may be wrong. The story revolves around 2 main characters - a scientist and an investigator- in some fictional future in which all scientific explorations and study is rigidly controlled by a government agency which even jails offenders of a very strict code of what areas are allowed for research.
The Dr. (whose name I probably mistakenly recall as "Wu") is under investigation because he the Agency doesn't even understand what he is researching and seems to be in the relatively tame field of Optics. The investigator stalks the doctor and confirms that he is grinding a prism to extreme accuracy and at the same time trying to make a light generator that will produce a beam exactly one photon thick.
At some point the investigator speaks with the doctor who tells him he is simply trying to cause a single photon to hesitate, to slow down, breaking the speed limit law of C.
The investigator researches constants and one of the things he finds is that Pi was not always exact and he reasons that it should be since it is so easily derived. He finally concludes that reality is altered by the Laws we describe and that the doctor is trying to fundamentally alter reality.
Does this ring any bells for anyone? I have googled a great deal and can't find this delicious little treat.
I am trying to find a short story which I recall as being in a Heinlein collection but that may be wrong. The story revolves around 2 main characters - a scientist and an investigator- in some fictional future in which all scientific explorations and study is rigidly controlled by a government agency which even jails offenders of a very strict code of what areas are allowed for research.
The Dr. (whose name I probably mistakenly recall as "Wu") is under investigation because he the Agency doesn't even understand what he is researching and seems to be in the relatively tame field of Optics. The investigator stalks the doctor and confirms that he is grinding a prism to extreme accuracy and at the same time trying to make a light generator that will produce a beam exactly one photon thick.
At some point the investigator speaks with the doctor who tells him he is simply trying to cause a single photon to hesitate, to slow down, breaking the speed limit law of C.
The investigator researches constants and one of the things he finds is that Pi was not always exact and he reasons that it should be since it is so easily derived. He finally concludes that reality is altered by the Laws we describe and that the doctor is trying to fundamentally alter reality.
Does this ring any bells for anyone? I have googled a great deal and can't find this delicious little treat.