"Simple. Very simple for van Manderpootz. See here; with a perfect
nation--that is, one whose individuals are all exactly alike, which I
have just proved to constitute perfection--with a perfect nation, I
repeat, laws and government are utterly superfluous. If everybody reacts
to stimuli in the same way, laws are quite useless, obviously. If, for
instance, a certain event occurred that might lead to a declaration of
war, why, everybody in such a nation would vote for war at the same
instant. Therefore government is unnecessary, and therefore anarchy is
the ideal government, since it is the proper government for a perfect
race." He paused. "I shall now prove that anarchy is _not_ the ideal
government--"
"Never mind!" I begged. "Who am I to argue with van Manderpootz? But is
_that_ the whole purpose of this dizzy robot? Just a basis for logic?"
The mechanism replied with its usual rasp as it leaped toward some
vagrant car beyond the window.
"Isn't that enough?" growled van Manderpootz. "However,"--his voice
dropped--"I have even a greater destiny in mind. My boy, van Manderpootz
has solved the riddle of the universe!" He paused impressively. "Well,
why don't you say something?"
"Uh!" I gasped. "It's--uh--marvelous!"
"Not for van Manderpootz," he said modestly.
"But--what is it?"
"Eh--Oh!" He frowned. "Well, I'll tell you, Dixon. You won't
understand, but I'll tell you." He coughed. "As far back as the early
twentieth century," he resumed, "Einstein proved that energy is
particular. Matter is also particular, and now van Manderpootz adds that
space and time are discrete!" He glared at me.
"Energy and matter are particular," I murmured, "and space and time are
discrete! How very moral of them!"
"Imbecile!" he blazed. "To pun on the words of van Manderpootz! You know
very well that I mean particular and discrete in the physical sense.
Matter is composed of particles, therefore it is particular. The
particles of matter are called electrons, protons, and neutrons, and
those of energy, quanta. I now add two others, the particles of space I
call spations, those of time, chronons."
"And what in the devil," I asked, "are particles of space and time?"
"Just what I said!" snapped van Manderpootz. "Exactly as the particles
of matter are the smallest pieces of matter that can exist, just as
there is no such thing as a half of an electron, or for that matter,
half a quantum, so the chronon is the smallest possible fragment of
time, and the spation the smallest possible bit of space. Neither time
nor space is continuous; each is composed of these infinitely tiny
fragments."
"Well, how long is a chronon in time? How big is a spation in space?"
"Van Manderpootz has even measured that. A chronon is the length of time
it takes one quantum of energy to push one electron from one electronic
orbit to the next. There can obviously be no shorter interval of time,
since an electron is the smallest unit of matter and the quantum the
smallest unit of energy. And a spation is the exact volume of a proton.
Since nothing smaller exists, that is obviously the smallest unit of
space."
"Well, look here," I argued. "Then what's in between these particles of
space and time? If time moves, as you say, in jerks of one chronon each,
what's between the jerks?"
"Ah!" said the great van Manderpootz. "Now we come to the heart of the
matter. In between the particles of space and time, must obviously be
something that is neither space, time, matter, nor energy. A hundred
years ago Shapley anticipated van Manderpootz in a vague way when he
announced his cosmo-plasma, the great underlying matrix in which time
and space and the universe are embedded. Now van Manderpootz announces
the ultimate unit, the universal particle, the focus in which matter,
energy, time, and space meet, the unit from which electrons, protons,
neutrons, quanta, spations, and chronons are all constructed. The riddle
of the universe is solved by what I have chosen to name the cosmon." His
blue eyes bored into me.
"Magnificent!" I said feebly, knowing that some such word was expected.
"But what good is it?"
"What good is it?" he roared. "It provides--or will provide, once I work
out a few details--the means of turning energy into time, or space into
matter, or time into space, or--" He sputtered into silence. "Fool!" he
muttered. "To think that you studied under the tutelage of van
Manderpootz. I blush; I actually blush!"
One couldn't have told it if he were blushing. His face was always
rubicund enough. "Colossal!" I said hastily. "What a mind!"
That mollified him. "But that's not all," he proceeded. "Van Manderpootz
never stops short of perfection. I now announce the unit particle of
thought--the psychon!"
This was a little too much. I simply stared.
"Well may you be dumbfounded," said van Manderpootz. "I presume you are
aware, by hearsay at least, of the existence of thought. The psychon,
the unit of thought, is one electron plus one proton, which are bound so
as to form one neutron, embedded in one cosmon, occupying a volume of
one spation, driven by one quantum for a period of one chronon. Very
obvious; very simple."
"Oh, very!" I echoed. "Even I can see that that equals one psychon."