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

\pard\sl70\slmult0 so far, top secret and which strictly speaking, I ought not to\par
\pard mention. Stillwe may have made a breakthrough on the\par
\pard\sl55\slmult0 square root front."\par
\pard\li210 "Square roots?"\par
\pard\li225\sl15\slmult0 "It involves some tricky points and we haven't licked the\par
\pard\li15\sl15\slmult0 bugs yet, but Technician Aub, the man who invented the\par
\pard\li20\sl15\slmult0 science and who has an amazing intuition in connection\par
\pard\li25\sl15\slmult0 with it, maintains he has the problem almost solved. And he\par
\pard\li40\sl15\slmult0 is only a Technician. A man like yourself, a trained and tal-\par
\pard\li30\sl10\slmult0 ented mathematician, ought to have no difficulty."\par
\pard\li240\sl15\slmult0 "Square roots," muttered Loesser, attracted.\par
"Cube roots, too. Are you with us?"\par
\pard\li245\sl15\slmult0 Loesser's hand thrust out suddenly. "Count me in."\par
\pard\li260\sl215\slmult0 General Weider stumped his way back and forth at the\par
\pard\li65\sl25\slmult0 head of the room and addressed his listeners after the fashion\par
\pard\li65\sl20\slmult0 of a savage teacher facing a group of recalcitrant students. It\par
\pard\li70\sl15\slmult0 made no difference to the general that they were the civilian\par
\pard\li80\sl10\slmult0 scientists heading Project Number. The general was the over-\par
\pard\li85\sl20\slmult0 all head, and he so considered himself at every waking mo-\par
\pard\li80\sl25\slmult0 ment.\par
\pard\li290 He said, "Now square roots are all fine. I can't do them\par
\pard\li85\sl10\slmult0 myself and I don't understand the methods, but they're fine.\par
\pard\li85\sl15\slmult0 Still, the Project will not be sidetracked into what some\par
\pard\li90\sl25\slmult0 of you call the fundamentals. You can play with graphitics\par
\pard\li100\sl50\slmult0 any way you want to after the war is over, but right now we\par
\pard\li95 have specific and very practical problems to solve."\par
\pard\li300\sl15\slmult0 In a far corner. Technician Aub listened with painful at-\par
\pard\li105\sl10\slmult0 tention. He was no longer a Technician, of course, having\par
\pard\li115\sl20\slmult0 been relieved of his duties and assigned to the project, with\par
\pard\li120\sl60\slmult0 a fine-sounding title and good pay. But, of course, the social\par
\pard\li110 distinction remained and the highly placed scientific leaders\par
\pard\li115\sl25\slmult0 could never bring themselves to admit him to their ranks\par
\pard\li120\sl55\slmult0 on a footing of equality. Nor, to do Aub justice, did he,\par
\pard\li125 himself, wish it. He was as uncomfortable with them as they\par
\pard\li125\sl25\slmult0 with him.\par
\pard\li330\sl10\slmult0 The general was saying, "Our goal is a simple one, gentle-\par
\pard\li130\sl55\slmult0 men: the replacement of the computer. A ship that can\par
\pard\li140 navigate space without a computer on board can be con-\par
\pard\li140\sl10\slmult0 structed in one fifth the time and at one tenth the expense\par
\pard\li140\sl25\slmult0 of a computer-laden ship. We could build fleets five times,\par
\pard\li145\sl30\slmult0 ten times, as great as Deneb could if we could but eliminate\par
\pard the computer.\fs24\par
\pard\li190\fs18 "And I see something even beyond this. It may be fantastic\par
\pard\li5\sl65\slmult0 now, a mere dream; but in the future I see the manned\par
\pard missile!"\par
\pard\li200\sl15\slmult0 There was an instant murmur from the audience.\par
\pard\li195\sl10\slmult0 The general drove on. "At the present time, our chief bot-\par
\pard\li5\sl15\slmult0 tleneck is the fact that missiles are limited in intelligence.\par
\pard\sl20\slmult0 The computer controlling them can only be so large, and for\par
\pard\li5\sl15\slmult0 that reason they can meet the changing nature of anti-\par