"Appleton, Victor - Tom Swift Jr 13 - And His Space Solartron" - читать интересную книгу автора (Appleton Victor)

a hat. You'll be making something out of nothing!"
"Not exactly." Tom grinned. "You wouldn't call an atomic explosion nothing,
would you?"
"I'd say it's nothing to fool around with," Bud quipped. "Why?"
"Well, with atomic fission, you're turning matter into energy. This setup does
just the reverse. Both cases depend on Einstein's famous equation г - me2,
which means that energy and matter
MORE POWER! 3
are interchangeable. They're simply two different forms of the same thing."
Bud scratched his head thoughtfully. "Like water and ice, I suppose. Sounds
good, but how do you do it?"
Tom grabbed a pencil and paper. "It's quite simple, really-at least the idea is
simple. Einstein has shown that as matter approaches the speed of light, its
mass increases. He worked it all out in this one little equation."
As Tom's pencil flew over the paper, Bud gulped. "You call that one little
equation, pal? Looks like a whole night's homework in math to me! Keep it
simple, please."
"Okay." Tom laughed. "What my new invention does is take a particle of
matter and whirl it around faster and faster until it's going almost at the speed of
light."
"And the faster it goes, the greater its mass?" Bud asked.
"Right. In my experimental rig, the results only show up as a slight increase
of mass on this platinum screen that I'm using as a target. But I'm building a new
model which I hope will produce enough matter so that I can actually weigh it."
"Wonderful, professor!" Bud exclaimed, slapping his pal on the back. "But
what's this machine for-a scientific magic show?"
"No," Tom replied. "It's to help us explore space-perhaps colonize the moon."
Bud's eyes grew round with excitement. "Now
4 SPACE SOLARTRON
you're talking my language, skipper! Give me the low-down!"
"Well, on the moon, or when we're traveling through space," Tom explained,
"we'll be cut off from our source of supplies. If this machine could produce
oxygen, water, maybe even fuel and food, then we could exist away from the
earth as long as we wanted to stay."
"Wow!" Bud bounced off his lab stool. "That means we could really explore
space, Tom-even visit the farthest planets!"
The young inventor nodded, grinning. "Exactly. But don't get your hopes up
too soon, pal. My machine isn't perfected yet, and I'll need a lot more power to
carry out my experiments."
Tom was interrupted by a third voice. "Wai, brand my buckshot, next time try
an' carry 'em without blowin' all the ee-lec-tricity on this here spread!"
The boys looked up with broad smiles as a chunky, bowlegged, weather-
beaten figure came into the laboratory. Chow Winkler, the Enterprises cook,
wearing a white chef's hat and high-heeled cowboy boots, was pushing a lunch
cart in front of his ample midriff.
"Sounds as though you've had some trouble, Chow," Tom said
sympathetically.
"Trouble? Pardner, I've had real misery! And all on account o' your
experimentin'. My mixer went dead jest when I was beatin' up some lemon
meringy. My electronic range wouldn't work. An' there I was with two dozen half-