"Randall Garrett - Takeoff" - читать интересную книгу автора (Garrett Randall)

the most beautiful church in all Christendom. That is his talent.
And those who know his genius would take one look at it and say, in no irreverent tone: тАЬMy God!
ThatтАЩs a Frank Kelly Freas Church!тАЭ
Selah.
 GENTLEMEN: PLEASE NOTE
By Randall Garrett



This might be considered an тАЬalternate historyтАЭ story, and in a way, I suppose it is. But not in
the sense that, say, the Lord Darcy stories are. This is a takeoff, not on history, but on the way
certain self-important know-it-alls do their best to put down the gifted person just because his
notions donтАЩt agree with theirs. And, far too often, they succeed.
This is a study in тАЬhow to stomp on the crackpot.тАЭ
With the exception of General B-f, all the characters mentioned in this story were actual
historical persons, but, with the possible exception of King Charles II, were nothing like I have
depicted them.
My apologies especially to Isaac Barrow, who, as far as my historical reading has led me to
believe, was a much nicer guy.


18 June 1957
Trinity College
Cambridge

Sir James Trowbridge
No.14 Berkeley Mews
London

My dear James,
IтАЩm sorry to have lost touch with you over the past few years; we havenтАЩt seen each other since the
French War, back in 1948. Nine years! It doesnтАЩt seem it.
IтАЩll tell you right off I want a favour of you. (No, I do not want to borrow another five shillings! I
havenтАЩt had my pocket picked again, thank you. ) This has to do with a little historical research IтАЩm doing
here. I stumbled across something rather queer, and IтАЩm hoping you can help me with it.
I am enclosing copies of some old letters received by Isaac Newton nearly three hundred years
ago. As you will notice, they are addressed to тАЬMr. Isaac Newton, A.B.тАЭ; it rings oddly on the ear to
hear the great man addressed as anything but тАЬyour Grace,тАЭ but of course he was only a young man at
the time. He hadnтАЩt written his famous Principia yetтАФand wouldnтАЩt for twenty years.
Reading these letters is somewhat like listening to a conversation when only one of the speakers is
audible, but they seem to indicate another side to the man, one which has not heretofore been brought to
light.
Dr. Henry Blake, the mathematician, has looked them over, and he feels that it is possible that
Newton stumbled on something that modern thought has only recently come up with-the gravitational and
light theories of the Swiss mathematician, Albert Einstein.
I know itтАЩs fantastic to think that a man of even NewtonтАЩs acknowledged genius could have
conceived of such things three centuries before their proper place in history, but Blake says itтАЩs possible.
And if it is, Blake himself will probably do to NewtonтАЩs correspondents the same thing that was done to
Oliver Cromwell at the beginning of the RestorationтАФdisinter the bodies and have them publicly hanged
or some such thing.