"HalfWorldsMeet-HughRaymond" - читать интересную книгу автора (Raymond Hugh)

the confines of the small house,
They finished their coffee in silence.

"Say, Doc," began Small after a few minutes, "I got a question." From a vest
pocket underneath the overalls he produced two small mirrors, of the variety
sold on notion counters in five-and-dime stores, and held them up to the dim
light.
"What are those?" asked Randolph, interested. He filled his pipe and puffed,
looking at the two baubles suspended in the air before his eyes.
"Just an idea I got today. I was sittin' in Sloan's lunch. Sloan has two mirrors
on opposite walls and I was sittin' between 'em. I got a look at myself down
both mirrors-- and there I was about a million times on both sides . . ."
The Professor chuckled.
"Rather startling when you see it for the first time."
The big man scratched his head again.
"Yeah, Sorta curious There I was curving away on both sides. Say, why don't
those images line up?"
Randolph chuckled again.
"They can't. No two mirrors can be brought exactly into line with each other. In
the first place, no two planes are ever exactly parallel and that's what you'd
need to start off with. Even the slightest unbalance is enough to start the
images curving away. And they always do."
The two small mirrors still hovered in the air.
"Yeah, but suppose you could get two of them things in exact line with each
other. What would happen?"
Randolph looked at him queerly and thought to himself for a minute. Well, what
would happen? It had never happened before, so he supposed some result was bound
to occur. For some reason, an irrelevant picture of an explosion filled his
mind, then faded. It had been a random thought, nothing more. He balanced his
pipe in his hands.
"I don't know just what would happen. It's a phenomenon that has never been
observed." He reached over and plucked the two mirrors from the big man's
calloused hands.
"Yes," he mused, "I wonder what would happen..."
"For instance," interrupted Small, "if you could do it and I got between 'em,
what would happen to the reflection? Would it stay there after I got out of the
way?"
Randolph looked at the mirrors and held them up.
"No, I don't think it would. The reflection is light and light has mass.
Astro-physicists have proven that light loses velocity every time it is
reflected. Somewhere the reflection would stop and become mass. Natural law
governs that."
"Well," persisted Small, "what would happen to it after it turned solid? Could
you put your hand on it?"
The Professor looked up with a jerk. He turned wide open eyes on Small.
"I--I suppose you could. Every time the light was re-reflected from mirror to
mirror it would lose some of its velocity and get nearer the solid state."
The other drank his coffee and lit a pipe himself.
"Suppose," he continued along his line of reasoning, "suppose you got a bit of
sunlight in between 'em. What would you have after it stopped?"