Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
Demo version limitation, this page not show up.
I said 'Are we lucky or did we work for it — ' You said 4 You can't talk about what is the difference.' I said 'That is what you are doing in your work?' You said 'This is happiness.' Then — 'But don't you find it difficult to talk about what you are actually doing in your work?'
The laboratory to which I went each day was in a long stone building on top of a hilclass="underline" it looked out over a dark landscape striped with grey houses. My work was to do with seeing what happened when the nuclei of a heavy element such as uranium or thorium were bombarded with neutrons. Now indeed it might be thought odd what I was actually doing. There was a small glass phial that I had to fill with a radioactive material that emitted neutrons; this material was usually in the form of a radon gas which had to be caught in the phial by means of condensation; this could take place when the closed end of the phial was dipped into liquid air which lowered the temperature to 200 degrees below zero. I could then direct the gas into the phial from its radium source so that it condensed on the walls; then I had to melt the open end of the phial to seal the glass. With such cold at one end and heat at the other there was a danger that if the task were done too quickly the glass would break; but if it were done too slowly then the condensed liquid might evaporate again and escape; so this was a performance indeed requiring skilclass="underline" hoopla! abracadabra! The small sealed phial had then to be fixed within a larger glass tube so that the assembly could be handled without too much danger of radiation; then this apparatus had to be taken quickly into another room — quickly because the radioactive life of the material was short; into another room because the material to be bombarded had to be kept clear of any stray radiation during the assembly of what was to bombard it. In this other room the material to be irradiated was packed in special containers; the packing consisted of some material that might slow the neutrons down so that they might be caught and absorbed by the target-material more easily; into this container was put the phial which would emit the irradiating neutrons. These materials were left in the container for this or that length of time: then the phial containing the irradiating material was removed and the material
which, it was hoped, had been made radioactive was taken to yet another room to be tested for just what particles, if any, were being emitted. This test was carried out by means of Geiger-counters placed in the proximity of the irradiated materiaclass="underline" the Geiger-counters themselves were gas-filled tubes with electrically charged wires strung inside: if any electrically charged particles from the irradiated and now (it was hoped) irradiating material entered these tubes then the gas inside them was affected so that electrons were released from it and were drawn to the wire with the effect of causing a change in the pulse of the electric current; this change was converted by an amplifier into a sound like a click, or it was shown in the form of a jump in a line of light on a screen. It was these clicks or jumps that were showing us what went on in the nucleus of an atom.
And so — for minutes, days, months — by listening to noises like those of old bones being cast out on the ground; by watching for bumps like those in a snake swallowing a mouse; by such rituals one felt one might be discovering the basic stuff of the universe — the ways in which humans might be able to use the secrets of the universe, or blow it up. I would think — Ah well, at least in so far as we are able to look at the style of this process by which scientists hope to understand the secrets of the universe, this is an interesting experiment!
There were innumerable variations which could be played with these games — in the type and strength of the neutron-emitting material; in the substance to be irradiated; in the type of packing by which the neutrons might be slowed down; in the spacings and duration of the experiment. Also, indeed, there were variations in the state of mind of an observer — who might sometimes be enthralled; might sometimes at the end of a long day find himself wondering — Well, if this is the way in which humans think they get into contact with the basic stuff of the universe, why shouldn't they blow themselves up? But then again — Is it not the state of mind of seeing that the observer in some way orders what he observes that might preserve the universe?
When I came home to you in the evenings you would be sitting with your hands held out to the fire: you would say 'But these little bits and pieces you say you are dealing with in these experiments — atoms, nuclei, particles, whatever — you do not in fact know what it is that exists?'
'Exactly.'
'What you see, hear, touch, are little clicks that come out of an amplifier; lines and bumps on a screen — '
'Right.'
'But because, according to science, you have to ask what causes these bumps and clicks, and because you have to give names to what you say are causing them, you make up atoms, nuclei, particles, neutrons — '
I said 'But what else do we do anyway with our sense-impressions?'
When you held out your hands to the fire you were like a being that is at home within flames.
You said 'What do you really think?'
I said 'It's often fairly ridiculous when you look at what you actually do: you do have the impression that you are engaged in some ritual for the sake of something quite different.'
You said 'Such as what is behind the shadows in that cave.'
I said 'If there is energy, constancy, then there is a sun. You know the sun, even if you see only what it does or doesn't light up.'
When we were together thus in the evenings, you and I, it was, yes, as if we were held by a force as strong and brittle as light; as gentle and vulnerable as that which forms a drop of water; so delicate that a shaft from outside might break us; so indestructible that we would still be together even if we were at different parts of the universe. I thought — What joy, even with the chance of the universe blowing up!
You said 'Human activities are games: words are toys — '
'For the sake of what — '
This.'
I said 'You see, one can say this much about it!'
The line of enquiry that you were pursuing at this time was to do with psychological implications of mediaeval and sixteenth- and seventeenth-century alchemy. Alchemists had talked as if they were concerned with the physical transformation of matter, but they had hardly ever talked about what they actually did, and from this it seemed that they themselves might have felt that there was something different going on. You said 'They were trying to examine ways in which there might be connections between the inside and outside worlds: but they couldn't talk about these much or they disappeared, or they occurred in individual instances, and thus were not to do with science, which depends on instances that are repeatable and with the statistics you get from these.'