'I have achieved the thing for which I have been looking, gentlemen,' he said. 'I am able to show that no such instrument as we have had described to us is possible without a violation of Dr Einstein's postulate of equivalence. If we admit the correctness of this postulate — as we all do, of course — then you will see from Equation One that--'
Mart stared at — and through — the equations that Dykstra had scrawled. He listened with half an ear. It looked and sounded all right. But something had to be done about Dykstra.
Dykstra was wrong — even with his equations being right. Where was it, thought Mart. It was something you couldn't name or scarcely define. Maybe it was in the feeling that Keyes talked about, the feeling that goes all through you down to your toes. He knew what Dykstra's feeling was, all right. It touched him like the proximity of a thousand-ton refrigeration unit going full blast. Dykstra thought they were fools to be monkeying with this project, and remained with it only because he considered it his solemn duty to show them this irrefutable fact.
He was dragging the feet of the whole group. But in spite of him, all the rest were pulling in the other direction, Mart knew. In this week, they had all achieved an acceptance of the validity of Dunning's accomplishment. And that, after all, was something of an achievement, he decided.
In Mart's vision, the equations on the board became surrounded by fuzzy signs of the Zodiac. Dykstra had completed his argument and Mart stood up.
'Since you have presented us with such elegant proof of your thesis, doctor,' he said, 'and since we have all become aware of the reality of Dunning's accomplishment, the only conclusion we can make is that the basic premise is at fault. I would say you have submitted very excellent reasons for doubting the validity of the postulate of equivalence!'
Dykstra stood a moment as if he could not believe his ears. He turned to his seat indecisively as if trying to make up his mind to ignore or answer the statement. Finally, he grew red and his body seemed to swell as he faced Mart.
'My dear Dr Nagle, if there is anyone in this room who does not understand that the postulate of equivalence has been established beyond any possibility of refutation I would suggest that he resign from this project immediately!'
Mart restrained a grin, but warmed to his subject. He had no purpose but to needle Dykstra, and yet-
'Seriously, doctor — and I throw this out to all of you: what would happen if the postulate of equivalence were not true?
'You've been as shocked as I by the items from Dunning's library, but I would like to ask: what is the significance of the postulate of equivalence in the accomplishment of the medium who is able to rise unsupported from a couch, in what is certainly a well authenticated instance of levitation?
'Why is the literature of the East so full of material on levitation? I think Dunning asked that question and got some sensible answers. If the postulate of equivalence doesn't fit those answers, perhaps we had better re-examine the postulate. As a matter of fact, if we ever expect to duplicate Dunning's work, we will have to examine every postulate we've got that pertains in any way to gravity.'
Professor Dykstra abandoned what he considered had become a disorderly argument. He resumed his seat with a grandiose appeal to the equations on the board.
Unexpectedly, Jennings, a thin dry man from Cal Tech, took the floor.
'I agree wholeheartedly with Dr Nagle,' he said. 'Something has been happening to me this past week. I see it in most of you, also, whether you are aware of it or not.
'By the age of forty the average research physicist seems to acquire an intuitive ability to fend off anything that doesn't jibe with the laws as he knows them.
'Then we become heads of departments while the younger fellows come along and assimilate the data that didn't fit in our generation, and get credited with the discoveries we have passed over.
'We seem to establish a sort of gateway in our minds, floodgates if you will, through which the mass of physical universe data flows. As we become older and more learned we adjust the setting of this gate to the point where nothing new can be trapped behind it. We cling to that which we had in our youth and abruptly we are creatures of history.
'I feel the experiences of the past week have jarred my mental floodgates on their very hinges. Once more, I feel able to accept and retain data which I have not encountered before. I think Dr Nagle is right. We have to re-examine all we have learned to this point concerning gravity. If any factors of East Indian lore or spiritualism prove relevant, I do not think physics will be shattered to its foundations if we assimilate such data.
'We cannot escape the fact that one man solved anti-gravity. Eight days ago not one of us would have admitted the possibility. Today we are charged with the responsibility of moving forward in time and catching up with it.'
Mart was tired after that seminar. It became a stormy affair. There seemed a kind of anger submerged not far below the surface of each of them. An anger at themselves for having been on the wrong track for so long, a kind of diffused rage at the whole physical universe for playing such tricks when asked a straightforward question.
More than one had balked at Mart's drastic suggestion. Sanders had said,'… and there can be no revision of the postulate of equivalence. Any data which indicates it automatically leaves the observer of that data suspect.'
Mart called Kenneth Berkeley's office as soon as the seminar was ended.
'Hi, Berk,' he said.
'Yeah — how's it coming? I've been wanting to get over your way the last couple of days. I haven't noticed any of you boys moving out into the machine shops yet. I suppose you are still in the paper-work stage.'
'We haven't got there, yet,' muttered Mart. 'I have more important things than anti-gravity to discuss with you. How are you set up for a couple of days' fishing?'
'Fishing? I could probably make it. All work and no play and that sort of thing — I don't need to remind you, of course, of the need for top speed on this Project Levitation-'
'I'm going fishing,' said Mart. 'You coming along or not?'
'I'm coming. I can get the loan of a cabin on the best trout stream the other side of Fulton's Fish Market. When will you be ready?'
'I'll have to rent some gear. If you know a good place, I can be ready in an hour and we can pick it up on the way.'
'I'll have to check my own gear, provided Judith hasn't thrown it out in the last three years since I used it. It's about a two hundred mile drive. We can make it by midnight.'
Mart and Berk had done a good deal of fishing together one summer following their Junior year. They had spent much of that year and all of the summer settling the abstruse problems of the Universe with quite divergent results.
At the end of the summer Mart had been of the total conviction that life was wholly soluble in terms of the external world. If a man had something good and useful to do in shaping the world to his own dream, he would be a sane and happy man.
Berk had arrived at the opposite pole in the conviction that man's life lay within the thin shelter of his own skin. Now each of them had moved a good way towards the other's camp.
Mart thought of this as they drove through the night. He reminded Berk of it.
'If the world were as college Juniors see it, all our troubles would be over,' said Berk. 'There is probably no time in a man's life when he is so completely of a single-minded point of view.'
'I don't know. There's Dykstra. He hasn't changed an opinion since he was a Junior. He's going to prove Dunning didn't have anti-gravity or bust. He knows it can't be done.'
'How about the others?'
'This week has been a period of metamorphosis. They've changed. We're where we can do some work, now.'