"Asimov, Isaac - Feeling of Power" - читать интересную книгу автора (Asimov Isaac)

er. Simply a sheet of paper. General, would you be so kind
as to suggest a number?"
"Seventeen," said the general.
"And you, Congressman?"
"Twenty-three."
"Good! Aub, multiply those numbers and please show the
gentlemen your manner of doing it."
"Yes, Programmer," said Aub, ducking his head. He fished
a small pad out of one shirt pocket and an artist's hairline
stylus out of the other. His forehead corrugated as he made
painstaking marks on the paper.
General Weider interrupted him sharply. "Let's see that."
Aub passed him the paper, and Weider said, "Well, it
looks like the figure seventeen."
Congressman Brant nodded and said, "So it does, but I
suppose anyone can copy figures off a computer. I think I
could make a passable seventeen myself, even without prac-
tice."
"If you will let Aub continue, gentlemen," said Shuman
without heat.
Aub continued, his hand trembling a little. Finally he said
in a low voice, "The answer is three hundred and ninety-
one."
Congressman Brant took out his computer a second time
and flicked it. "By Godfrey, so it is. How did he guess?"
"No guess, Congressman," said Shuman. "He computed
that result. He did it on this sheet of paper."
"Humbug," said the general impatiently. "A computer is
one thing and marks on paper are another."
"Explain, Aub," said Shuman.
"Yes, Programmer.Well, gentlemen, I write down seven-
teen and just underneath it, I write twenty-three. Next I say
to myself: seven times three"
The Congressman interrupted smoothly, "Now, Aub, the
problem is seventeen times twenty-three."
"Yes, I know," said the little Technician earnestly, "but I
start by saying seven times three because that's the way it
works. Now seven times three is twenty-one."
"And how do you know that?" asked the Congressman.
"I just remember it. It's always fwenty-one on the computer.
I've checked it any number of times."
"That doesn't mean it always will be though, does it?"
said the Congressman.
"Maybe not," stammered Aub. "I'm not a mathematician.
But I always get the right answers, you see."
"Go on."
"Seven times three is twenty-one, so I write down twenty-
one. Then one times three is three, so I write down a
three under the two of twenty-one."
"Why under the two?" asked Congressman Brant at once.