"Stanley G. Weinbaum - The Ideal" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weinbaum Stanley G)

"Just what I said!" snapped van Manderpootz. "Exactly as the particles of matter are the smallest pieces
of matter that can exist, just as there is no such thing as a half of an electron, or for that matter, half a
quantum, so the chronon is the smallest possible fragment of time, and the spation the smallest possible
bit of space. Neither time nor space is continuous; each is composed of these infinitely tiny fragments."

"Well, how long is a chronon in time? How big is a spation in space?"

"Van Manderpootz has even measured that. A chronon is the length of time it takes one quantum of
energy to push one electron from one electronic orbit to the next. There can obviously be no shorter
interval of time, since an electron is the smallest unit of matter and the quantum the smallest unit of energy.
And a spation is the exact volume of a proton. Since nothing smaller exists, that is obviously the smallest
unit of space."

"Well, look here," I argued. "Then what's in between these particles of space and time? If time moves, as
you say, in jerks of one chronon each, what's between the jerks?"

"Ah!" said the great van Manderpootz. "Now we come to the heart of the matter. In between the
particles of space and time, must obviously be something that is neither space, time, matter, nor energy.
A hundred years ago Shapley anticipated van Manderpootz in a vague way when he announced his
cosmo-plasma, the great underlying matrix in which time and space and the universe are embedded.
Now van Manderpootz announces the ultimate unit, the universal particle, the focus in which matter,
energy, time, and space meet, the unit from which electrons, protons, neutrons, quanta, spations, and
chronons are all constructed. The riddle of the universe is solved by what I have chosen to name the
cosmon." His blue eyes bored into me.

"Magnificent!" I said feebly, knowing that some such word was expected. "But what good is it?"

"What good is it?" he roared. "It providesтАФor will provide, once I work out a few detailsтАФthe means of
turning energy into time, or space into matter, or time into space, orтАФ" He sputtered into silence. "Fool!"
he muttered. "To think that you studied under the tutelage of van Manderpootz. I blush; I actually blush!"

One couldn't have told it if he were blushing. His face was always rubicund enough. "Colossal!" I said
hastily. "What a mind!"

That mollified him. "But that's not all," he proceeded. "'Van Manderpootz never stops short of perfection.
I now announce the unit particle of thoughtтАФthe psychon!"

This was a little too much. I simply stared.

"Well may you be dumbfounded," said van Manderpootz. "I presume you are aware, by hearsay at least,
of the existence of thought. The psychon, the unit of thought, is one electron plus one proton, which are
bound so as to form one neutron, embedded in one cosmon, occupying a volume of one spation, driven
by one quantum for a period of one chronon. Very obvious; very simple."

"Oh, very!" I echoed. "Even I can see that that equals one psychon."

He beamed. "Excellent! Excellent!"

"And what," I asked, "will you do with the psychons?"