"Stanislaw Lem - Ijon Tichy 02 - Memoirs of a Space Traveler" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lem Stanislaw)

dilemma for many months, Razglaz reviewed his previous research. Ask any physicist you know, if you
do not believe me, and he will tell you that certain phenomena on the smallest scale occur, as it were, on
credit. Mesons, those elementary particles, sometimes violate the laws of conservation, but they do this
so incredibly fast that they hardly violate them at all. What is forbidden by the laws of physics they do
with lightning speed, as though nothing could be more natural, and then they immediately submit to those
laws again. And so, on one of his morning strolls across the university campus, Razglaz asked himself:
What if the Universe were doing the same thing on a large scale? If mesons can behave impossibly for a
fraction of a second, a fraction so minuscule that a whole second would seem an eternity in comparison,
then the Universe, given its dimensions, might behave in that forbidden way for a correspondingly longer
period of time. For, say, fifteen billion years. . .
It arose, then, although it might well have not arisen, there being nothing from which to arise. The
Universe is a forbidden fluctuation. It represents a momentary aberration, but an aberration of
monumental proportions. It is no less a deviation from the laws of physics than, on the smallest scale, a
meson! Suspecting he was on the right track, the professor immediately went to his laboratory and made
some calculations, which, step by step, verified his idea. But even before he had finished, the realization
came: the solution to the riddle of the origin of the Universe revealed a threat as great as could be
imagined.
For the Universe exists on credit. It represents, with its constellations and galaxies, a monstrous
debt, a pawn ticket, as it were, a promissory note that must ultimately be paid. The Universe is an illegal
loan of matter and energy; its apparent "asset" is actually a "liability." Since the Universe is an Unlawful
Anomaly, it will, one fine day, burst like a bubble. It will fall back into the Nonexistence from which it
sprang. That moment will be a return to the Natural Order of Things!
That the Universe is so vast and that so much has taken place in it is due solely to the fact that we
are dealing with a fluke on the largest possible scale. Razglaz immediately proceeded to calculate when
the fatal term would come, that is, when matter, the Sun, the stars, the planets, and therefore Earth, along
with all of us, would plunge into nothingness as though snuffed out. He learned that it was impossible to
predict this. Of course impossible, given that the Universe was a fluke, a deviation from order! The
danger revealed by his discovery kept him awake at night. After much inner struggle, he chose not to
publish his cosmogonic research, instead acquainting a few eminent astrophysicists with it. These
scientists acknowledged the correctness of his theory and conclusions. At the same time, they felt that
publication of his findings would plunge the world into spiritual chaos and alarm, the consequences of
which could destroy civilization. What man would still desire to do anything -- to move his little finger --
knowing that at any second everything might vanish, himself included?
The matter came to a standstill. Razglaz, the greatest discoverer in all history, agreed with his
learned colleagues. He decided, albeit reluctantly, not to publish his theory. Instead, he began searching
the whole arsenal of physics for ways to assist the Universe somehow, to strengthen and maintain its
debtor's life. But his efforts came to naught. It was impossible to cancel the cosmic debt by anything done
in the present: the debt lay not within the Universe but at its origin -- at that point in time when the
Universe became the mightiest and yet most defenseless Debtor to Nothingness.
It was at this juncture that I met the professor and spent many weeks in conversations with him.
First he outlined for me the essential points of his discovery; then we worked together to find some
means of deliverance.
Ah -- I thought, returning to my hotel with fevered head and despairing heart -- if only I could
have been there, twenty billion years ago, for just a split second! That would be enough to place a single
solitary atom in the void, and the Universe could grow from it as from a planted seed, now in a totally
legitimate way, in accordance with the laws of physics and the principle of conservation of matter and
energy. But how was I to get there?
The professor, when I told him this idea, smiled sadly and explained to me that the Universe
could not have arisen from any ordinary atom; the cosmic nucleus would have had to contain the energy
of all the transformations and events that expanded to fill the metagalactic void. I saw my error, but