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

"Because" Aub looked helplessly at his superior for
support. "It's difficult to explain."
Shuman said, "If you will accept his work for the moment,
we can leave the details for the mathematicians."
Brant subsided.
Aub said, "Three plus two makes five, you see, so the
twenty-one becomes a fifty-one. Now you let that go for a
while and start fresh. You multiply seven and two, that's
fourteen, and one and two, that's two. Put them down like
this and it adds up to thirty-four. Now if you put the
thirty-four under the fifty-one this way and add them, you
get three hundred and ninety-one and that's the answer."
There was an instant's silence and then General Weider
said, "I don't believe it. He goes through this rigmarole and
makes up numbers and multiplies and adds them this way and
that, but I don't believe it. It's too complicated to be anything
but horn-swoggling."
"Oh no, sir," said Aub in a sweat. "It only seems compli-
cated because you're not used to it. Actually, the rules are
quite simple and will work for any numbers."
"Any numbers, eh?" said the general. "Come then." He
took out his own computer (a severely styled Gl model)
and struck it at random. Make a five seven three eight on
the paper. That's five thousand seven hundred and thirty-
eight."
"Yes, sir," said Aub, taking a new sheet of paper.
"Now," (more punching of his computer), "seven two three
nine. Seven thousand two hundred and thirty-nine."
"Yes, sir."
"And now multiply those two."
"It will take some time," quavered Aub.
"Take the time," said the general.
"Go ahead, Aub," said Shuman crisply.
Aub set to work, bending low. He took another sheet
of paper and another. The general took out his watch finally
and stared at it. "Are you through with your magic-making,
Technician?"
"I'm almost done, sir.Here it is, sir. Forty-one million,
five hundred and thirty-seven thousand, three hundred and
eighty-two." He showed the scrawled figures of the result.
General Weider smiled bitterly. He pushed the multiplica-
tion contact on his computer and let the numbers whirl to
a halt. And then he stared and said in a surprised squeak,
"Great Galaxy, the fella's right."
The President of the Terrestrial Federation had grown
haggard in office and, in private, he allowed a look of
settled melancholy to appear on his sensitive features. The
Denebian war, after its early start of vast movement and
great popularity, had trickled down into a sordid matter of
manoeuvre and countermanceuvre, with discontent rising stead-