"Connie Willis - At the Rialto" - читать интересную книгу автора (Willis Connie)

remembered I hadn't told her about Tiffany. I went back to the front desk,
thinking maybe Dr. Onofrio's success signaled a change. Tiffany asked,
"May I help you?" and left me standing there.
After a while I gave up and went back to the red-and-gold sofas.
"David was here again," Dr. Takumi said. "He said to tell you he was
going to the wax museum."
"There are no wax museums in Racine," Abey said.
"What's the programming for tonight?" I said, taking Abey's program
away from him.
"There's a mixer at six-thirty and the opening ceremonies in the
ballroom and then some seminars." I read the descriptions of the
seminars. There was one on the Josephson junction. Electrons were able to
somehow tunnel through an insulated barrier even though they didn't
have the required energy. Maybe I could somehow get a room without
checking in.
"If we were in Racine," Abey said, looking at his watch, "we'd already be
checked in and on our way to dinner."
Dr. Onofrio emerged from the elevator, still carrying his bags. He came
over and sank down on the sofa next to Abey.
"Did they give you a room with a seminaked woman in it?" Dr.
Whedbee asked.
"I don't know," Dr. Onofrio said. "I couldn't find it." He looked sadly at
the key. "They gave me twelve eighty-two, but the room numbers go only
up to seventy-five."
"I think I'll attend the seminar on chaos," I said.


The most serious difficulty quantum theory faces today is not the
inherent limitation of measurement capability or the EPR paradox. It is
the lack of a paradigm. Quantum theory has no working model, no
metaphor that properly defines it.
Excerpt from Dr. Gedanken's keynote address
 I got to my room at six, after a brief skirmish with the
bellboy-slash-actor, who couldn't remember where he'd stored my
suitcase, and unpacked. My clothes, which had been permanent press all
the way from MIT, underwent a complete wave-function collapse the
moment I opened my suitcase and came out looking like Schrodinger's
almost-dead cat.
By the time I had called housekeeping for an iron, taken a bath, given
up on the iron, and steamed a dress in the shower, I had missed the
"Mixer with Munchies" and was half an hour late for Dr. Onofrio's
opening remarks.
I opened the door to the ballroom as quietly as I could and slid inside. I
had hoped they would be late getting started, but a man I didn't recognize
was already introducing the speaker. "тАФand an inspiration to all of us in
the field."
I dived for the nearest chair and sat down.
"Hi," David said. "I've been looking all over for you. Where were you?"
"Not at the wax museum," I whispered.
"You should have been," he whispered back. "It was great. They had